Wake Forest University
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Wake Forest University Guidelines for Sustainability Course and Research Identification Guiding Principle for Teaching and Research for Sustainability In working toward Wake Forest’s campus sustainability goals, we also seek to fulfill our motto, Pro Humanitate – for the betterment of humanity. As a guiding principle, we stimulate and facilitate curricular development and research efforts in sustainability-related areas, including the promotion of service learning and the empowerment of faculty, students, and staff to engage the campus community, university operations, and university lands as living laboratories for sustainability. Definitions Wake Forest University’s Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES) defines sustainability as “a process of cultural adaptation toward the preservation and prudent use of all forms of natural and human value – nature’s capital, human capital, human-created capital, social capital and cultural capital – to ensure that present and future generations can enjoy a quality of life that is as good as, or better than, that which we enjoy today.” As a field of academic study and research, sustainability explores the dynamic relationship between current and historical environmental, social, and economic systems to assess and predict the potential health and wellbeing of those systems. It calls for the integration of techniques, methods, and modes of inquiry from the natural sciences, social sciences, professional schools and humanities. These interdependent areas of study not only inform theories of sustainability, they challenge faculty and students to critique historic and current frameworks for natural resource use and valuation, examine the breadth of the human experience, and propose solutions-based, future-oriented scenarios that provide opportunities for practical application of knowledge. Sustainability Courses The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) defines sustainability-focused courses as those that “concentrate on the concept of sustainability, including its social, economic, and environmental dimensions, or examine an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens.” Sustainability-focused courses at Wake Forest concentrate on the integration of these dimensions and may provide a substantial grounding in concepts, principles, and frameworks emerging from, or central to, sustainability studies (i.e., lifecycle assessment or analysis, Precautionary Principle, The Natural Step, ecosystem functions and services, cradle-to-cradle design, Biomimicry, Natural Capitalism, and/or others). AASHE defines sustainability-related courses as those that “incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or module, or concentrate on a single sustainability principle or issue.” Additionally, at Wake Forest, courses that do not specifically use the rhetoric of sustainability, or sustainable development, can be considered sustainability-related to the extent that they analyze or promote behaviors and practices that are related to the values most often associated with sustainability (i.e., examining presuppositions behind unsustainable behaviors or otherwise examining dematerialized visions of the good life). These courses stimulate a cross-disciplinary approach, allowing students to consider sustainability from multiple perspectives, challenging them to integrate learning from across the curriculum, and find appropriate opportunities to demonstrate sustainable practices in their personal lives, on campus, and as members of their communities.

Office of Sustainability staff and interns combed all course catalogs from across the institution for courses that supported education for sustainability. Course descriptions were vetted for their integration of environmental, social, and economic themes. In many but not all cases, faculty members have verified that their courses meet the definitions for the inventory.

A faculty working group with representation from Biology, English, Anthropology, Business, History, and Chemistry worked with the Office of Sustainability to draft a definition of sustainability for education and research. In many but not all cases, faculty members have identified their own courses for the inventory. For future iterations of the course inventory, we will endeavor to create an assessment tool that will enable all faculty to self-identify courses that fit the definition(s).