Wilfrid Laurier University
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Wilfrid Laurier University’s definition of sustainability in the curriculum:

Sustainability-focused courses are entirely dedicated to the concept of sustainability, including its cultural, economic, environmental and social dimensions. Alternatively, sustainability-focused courses may examine an issue or topic using sustainability as a lens.

Sustainability-related courses incorporate sustainability as a distinct course component or module, or concentrate on a single sustainability principle or issue given that the principle or issue being discussed is connected to the larger concept of sustainability including its cultural, economic, environmental and social dimensions.

The goal of sustainability education is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve the quality of human life within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.

In order to determine whether or not a course has this goal in mind, it is useful to ask whether or not a given course will help students to achieve one or more of the following. (Note: the use of the term sustainability refers to the full context of sustainability including its cultural, social, economic and environmental facets).

• Understand and be able to effectively communicate the concept of sustainability.
• Understand the need to work toward equitable distribution of opportunities, benefits and decision-making at all scales; from local to global.
• Develop and use an ethical perspective in which they view themselves as embedded in the fabric of an interconnected world.
• Become aware of and explore the connections between their chosen course of study and sustainability
• Become aware of, explore and articulate interdisciplinary approaches to address changing relationships among individuals, societies, organizations, resources, ecologies, businesses, technologies and development.
• Develop technical skills or expertise necessary to implement sustainable solutions.
• Understand the way in which sustainable thinking and decision-making contributes to the process of creating local and global solutions for current and emerging cultural, social, environmental, and economic crises.
• Contribute practical solutions to real-world sustainability challenges.
• Synthesize understanding and reasoning of sustainability systems.

A course does not have to accomplish all of these things to be designated as sustainability-related or sustainability-focused.

The Sustainability Office sifted through all course information available on the Laurier website to identify sustainability related and focused courses. Based on the available information, the Sustainability Office created a list of sustainability-focused courses and a list of sustainability-related courses. Because the information on the Laurier website is in some cases lacking in sufficient detail to make an accurate decision as to whether or not the course falls within the definition of “sustainability in the curriculum”, the above mentioned lists were validated by faculty members. Through a survey sent to all faculty members, faculty has the opportunity to identify sustainability courses that were not on the list but should be or to remove courses that shouldn’t have been put on the list in the first place. The Sustainability Office collected the survey results and amended the sustainability course inventory as necessary.