Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 63.21
Liaison Mark Klapatch-Mathias
Submission Date June 30, 2021

STARS v2.2

University of Wisconsin-River Falls
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 6.72 / 8.00 Mark Klapatch-Mathias
Sustainability Coordinator
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution adopted one or more sustainability learning outcomes that apply to the entire student body or, at minimum, to the institution's predominant student body?:
Yes

Which of the following best describes the sustainability learning outcomes?:
Sustainability-supportive

A list of the institution level sustainability learning outcomes:

University of Wisconsin System Shared Learning Goals for Baccalaureate Students

• Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Natural World including breadth of
knowledge and the ability to think beyond one’s discipline, major, or area of
concentration. This knowledge can be gained through the study of the arts, humanities, languages, sciences, and social sciences.

• Critical and Creative Thinking Skills including inquiry, problem solving, and higher order qualitative and quantitative reasoning.

• Effective Communication Skills including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and information literacy.

• Intercultural knowledge and competence including the ability to interact and work with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures; to lead or contribute support to those who lead; and to empathize with and understand those who are different than they are.

• Individual, Social and Environmental Responsibility including civic knowledge and engagement (both local and global), ethical reasoning, and action.

United in our focus on these shared learning goals, the University of Wisconsin System is committed to preparing students with the learning they need to become life-long learners, to enjoy a high quality of life, and to succeed in and contribute to our rapidly changing, increasingly global society.


Total number of graduates from degree programs:
1,377

Number of graduates from degree programs that require an understanding of the concept of sustainability:
813

A brief description of how the figure above was determined:

We utilized our course inventory for sustainability-focused courses. If a program requires the student to go through a course that is sustainability focused, we include that program in our list. We also evaluated programs with sustainability learning outcomes. We then had the Institutional Research office provide number of grads from each program represented.


A list of degree programs that require an understanding of the concept of sustainability:

Sustainable Management
This is an online degree program designed for the new economy. Through interdisciplinary inquiry, problem solving, and strong foundations in science and business, students will be equipped to meet the needs of an ever-changing world and business environment. Students will develop and build knowledge and skills to help organizations meet triple bottom line requirements, balancing profitability with the needs of the environment and the wider communities in which we live.

Sustainability Studies Minor
http://www.uwrf.edu/Catalog/DegreeRequirements/SUSTMinor.cfm
Program Goals:
1. Provide students with a multidisciplinary foundation for thinking about sustainability.
2. Discuss the concept of sustainability from a bio-geochemical perspective.
3. Address the social and economic facets of sustainability.
4. Discuss the challenges that face humanity in becoming sustainable.

Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to:
1. Create a personal definition of sustainability.
2. Analyze human impacts on natural systems and processes that affect the ability of humanity to live sustainably.
3. Interpret sustainability issues in the context of element cycles.
4. Compare and contrast the role of public and private entities in creating sustainable societies.
5. Identify facets of social/economic/industrial structures that could be changed to make society more sustainable.

Sustainable Agriculture Minor
Students who select this minor will learn about sustainable agriculture in its broadest sense, including issues related to maintaining and/or improving crop and animal productivity, preserving environmental resources for future generations, ensuring farm profitability, and ensuring rural community vitality and viability. They learn how to build markets and opportunities for producers, and they help consumers make "green" choices on purchased products.

Sustainable agriculturalists work as producers of value added crops, such as organic produce, grains and meats. Some provide technical support for crop and animal production systems, develop soil and nutrient management plans, work with producers to control insects, diseases and other pests with integrated pest management techniques, market locally-grown food products, and research ways to make agriculture more efficient, environmentally sound and sustainable for future generations.

Conservation and Environmental Planning Major
Sustainability learning outcome: Students will be able to understand our environment and apply and advance management techniques to maintain sustainable communities for all life on Earth.

Environmental Science Major
Sustainability learning outcome: Students will be able to face increasingly complex environmental challenges in the context of environmental quality management and sustainable development.

Sustainable Justice Minor:
Learning Outcomes:
1. Recognize the interrelated nature of social, economic, and environmental issues as manifested across differences of race, class, gender, sexuality, species, and place.
2. Work with interdisciplinary teams to analyze and envision solutions to eco-justice problems, utilizing knowledge from the environmental humanities and sciences as well as from diverse human communities.
3. Apply concepts of sustainable justice to enhance inclusive well-being across human-human and human-environment relations.

Goals:
1. Explore sustainability through an environmental justice lens.
2. Introduce students to both the environmental humanities and the environmental sciences, developing a transdisciplinary approach to solving sustainability problems.
3. Provide different cultural perspectives on human identity, and the way these views shape our environmental, social, and economic relations.
4. Encourage students’ awareness of their social, economic, and environmental behaviors and how they can promote sustainable justice in their personal and professional lives.

Business Administration - Marketing, Business Administration - Management have the following learning outcomes:
Students will demonstrate an awareness of social responsibility issues and will be able to:
1. identify and evaluate ethical dilemmas.
2. Demonstrate awareness of sustainability issues
3. Recognize the diversity people, thought, and culture.

Additional programs that require students to pass a sustainability-focused course:
- Accounting
- Agricultural Engineering Technology
- Animal Science
- Biology
- History
- Chemistry
- Crop and Soil Science
- Economics
- English
- Geography
- Horticulture
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Social Work


Documentation supporting the figure reported above (upload):
---

Do the figures reported above cover one, two, or three academic years?:
One

Percentage of students who graduate from programs that require an understanding of the concept of sustainability:
59.04

Website URL where information about the sustainability learning outcomes is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.