As the climate crisis deepens, more college and university students are becoming increasingly passionate about sustainability. They want sustainability integrated into their education as a part of all courses, and many are choosing to enroll in sustainability degree programs in the hopes they can personally contribute towards solving the urgent challenges that face us.
In light of this growing trend, higher education institutions may be wondering how to best design their sustainability programs so as to appeal to these students. Even those not in a position to create entire programs may want to meet their students’ demands for sustainability issues to be integrated into their education.
Traditionally, sustainability degree programs have focused on the natural sciences, namely environmental science. However, a much broader, more interdisciplinary approach is needed to prepare students — and by extension society as a whole — to address the complexities of our eco-crisis.
We are truly at the point where we must choose, as a species, whether we will create a world that is livable for human beings. We therefore can’t rely on the sciences alone, and creating meaningful change will require addressing every aspect of our society and culture, and for education that means involving every discipline and major.
Just as the grave consequences of inaction would affect us all, sustainability must be approached as being everyone’s concern equally. It will take every human, every academic discipline and the full range of talents and skills available to solve this crisis. Because we need all hands on deck working together, how can higher education institutions best prepare students to do this?
As the sustainability program coordinator for Maryville University Online, here are some ways I suggest to integrate some broad sustainability principles into existing programs and courses or creating an entirely new sustainability program.
Establishing or revamping sustainability degree programs
One way is to have an actual sustainability degree program, which a growing number of institutions do.
Schools that already have existing sustainability degree programs in place should make sure the major extends beyond a traditional focus on environmental science. For many schools, their environmental science programs are their entire sustainability programs, but today’s students want to study sustainability without necessarily being limited to the natural sciences. And sustainability is more than just a scientific discipline.
This can be solved by having multiple tracks or concentrations within a sustainability program. Like other majors there would still be a set of core courses that every student must take, but there should also be options to choose a track of classes that most aligns with their personal interests and passions in a way that still provides a broad educational foundation.
As for how many tracks or concentrations to have, that depends on the needs of each particular institution and their students. In the program I designed at Maryville Online, we have three tracks. In addition to the environmental science track, there is also a business track and the policy track, both of which tackle sustainability through the lens of those respective disciplines.
Creating a sustainability minor for all students
However, sustainability degree programs are still the minority and not every college or university is in the position to create an entire program. Despite this, there are still ways to cater to students’ demand for a sustainability education without a full sustainability department.
One is to offer a minor in sustainability. This is quite doable given that a minor typically only involves between six to eight courses. The sustainability minor at Maryville Online was launched first and was eventually turned into an entire degree program.
Just as mathematics is said to be linked to every other academic discipline in some way, sustainability is the same.
Schools wishing to make a truly bold statement could go beyond simply offering a sustainability minor and make it a requirement for every student, regardless of major, to minor in sustainability or at least take a one class on the subject. In my mind this is the ideal given the gravity and urgency of our ecological predicament.
While it may seem excessive to some, it would demonstrate true commitment to the cause of sustainability and is therefore likely to appeal to the many students who want to see more boldness from institutions and organizations.
Incorporating sustainability principles into all disciplines
Still, creating a sustainability minor might be too much of a stretch for some schools. In that case, professors should weave more sustainability principles into all the existing programs and courses — art, design, philosophy, law, psychology, information technology and many others. Just as mathematics is said to be linked to every other academic discipline in some way, sustainability is the same. This approach would not require a major overhaul of any of these programs.
How to work in sustainability may be more obvious for certain disciplines than others. History, archaeology and cultural geography courses, for example, can include modules on how past civilizations which failed to strike a balance between consumption and conservation — as we are currently failing to do — eventually collapsed once their depleted resources and ecosystems were no longer able to support their societies.
Psychology and communications courses could include lessons looking at common psychological barriers to effective climate action such as cognitive biases. Conversely, they could also look at evidence-based strategies that have been shown to be effective for climate-related messaging.
Even for disciplines where the link with sustainability may be less obvious, case studies can be a feasible and effective way to get students thinking about how their disciplines too are linked with sustainability. History and literature are just two examples of disciplines where their respective links to sustainability are not necessarily obvious. However, a history course could explain how a major cause for the decline of previous civilizations has often been ecological destruction. In literature, case studies could focus on numerous canonical authors and literary works that have heavily incorporated ecological themes and passionately argued for sustainability such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Whose responsibility is it to create these changes?
No matter which of these options institutions choose to go with, the responsibility for implementing changes should never be placed entirely on the faculty, many of whom are already stretched thin. While course and content development is surely the responsibility of professors, administrations should provide as much space, resources and support as possible.
For example, they could pay professors to do a week-long workshop in which they rework their current courses to include a few modules or case studies linking their disciplines to sustainability. In instances where programs are being revamped or newly created, new faculty members should be brought in to focus on designing or refurbishing the program.
All this may seem like a tall order, and admittedly it is not a quick or easy task. For this reason, university administrators may feel tempted to postpone these giant tasks. Which is understandable given the busy schedules of the average college and university administration.
But incorporating sustainability principles is not just a nice thing to do but a pragmatic and fiscal necessity. Not only does a livable future for our species literally depend on doing this, it is also what students are increasingly and unequivocally looking for. And in an increasingly competitive higher education market, the institutions that wish to thrive would do well to begin prioritizing this now