University of Victoria
AC-1: Academic Courses

The University of Victoria Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability initiated a committee that included three faculty, who were working in three different departments and one staff member who represented the business faculty. They created a definition for sustainability in curriculum and research based as a supplement to the definition of sustainability found in the UVic Sustainability Policy (http://web.uvic.ca/hr/employment/SustainabilityGV0800_1794.pdf). Those definitions were as follows: - Sustainability research examines forces affecting local and global ecological, economic, social, health and cultural challenges. It helps societies flourish without compromising the future. Sustainability research is typically but not exclusively focused on solutions. - Sustainability courses focus on ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainability and may integrate several perspectives including social justice, ecological balance, public health and wellbeing, prosperity and the construction of sustainable livelihoods, to foster an understanding of an interconnected world. - Sustainability related courses contain a section, chapter, module, case study, or other component that focuses on sustainability, as defined above. Based upon the definitions the committee constructed the Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability identified possible sustainability courses from a list of all courses in the UVic course catalogue using a keyword search of the course titles (criteria:"env," "eco," "soc," "food," "glob," "sust," "publ," "heal," "bio," "clim"). The courses identified where then reviewed serially, the course description added and reviewed, and coded as sustainability focused courses, sustainability related courses, or non-sustainability courses. Courses listed as directed studies, theses, and topics courses were removed for the purpose of course and department counts shown above. Subsequent to this step the University chose to submit under the then yet to be released STARS 2.0. The new definitions of sustainability curriculum and research provided in by STARS 2.0 were reviewed and it was determined that the UVic authored definitions very similar relative to the principles outlined in the Earth Charter and that the course identification process did not need to be re-performed. An additional review step was taken for departments that contained a significant number of courses, such as Business and Environmental Studies, where by an email was sent to the administrator requesting that the faculty review the list of identified courses in relation to the definition of sustainability shown above. The relevant division between graduate, undergraduate were then calculated using excel.

UVic commits a signification amount of resources to it sustainability curriculum and several programs that concern themselves with sustainability. Programs include an undergraduate major and minor, MA, MSc, and PhD programs in Environmental Studies, all of which are sustainability focused programs. It also includes the Business faculty, which uses its Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation (http://www.uvic.ca/gustavson/cssi/) to open a door to the array of resources that help students, faculty and staff incorporate all kinds of sustainability into their studies, careers and lives. Other areas of the university with a sustainability focus include the department of Geography, whose courses cover human geography, and environment and sustainability, and the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, which provides education in Earth System Science. There is also a wide representation of sustainability related courses across other departments at UVic.