Colorado State University
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

Colorado State University Institutional Learning Objectives were officially adopted by the Faculty Council on November 5, 2019. Sustainability is included in the introduction:
"Understanding the ethical implications and societal applications of discoveries in science and technology. Here, these components are joined with the distinctive features of a CSU education, including the consistent pursuit of environmental sustainability, multidisciplinary approaches to human and animal health, and our sustained commitment to equity and inclusive excellence that is oriented toward expanding educational opportunity and building collaborative communities that apply and adapt knowledge to pursue solutions to the complex problems that impact the citizens of Colorado, the United States, and the world."

CSU has five institutional learning outcomes with sustainability, equity and inclusion woven throughout. Sustainability is explicitly mentioned in two learning outcomes:

Creativity - "Education for creativity includes the development of an understanding of the ways in which the arts and sciences support expression of the diversity of the human experience and human community, and the development of the ability to apply creative skills in problem-solving; it stimulates the imagination to inform new ways of understanding our place in the world and contributes to innovative solutions addressing the challenges we face locally and globally."

Collaboration - "Education for collaboration is oriented toward the effective and sustainable stewardship of human, economic, and environmental resources."

In addition to the Institutional Learning Outcomes, some colleges also have sustainability learning outcomes.

College of Business:
"An understanding of the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability and how to measure, report, and manage sustainability in organizations."

College of Engineering:
"The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context."

We provided CSU’s Institutional Research with a list of our sustainability-focused undergraduate and graduate courses from AC-1, in addition to a list of our sustainability focused academic programs, minors, and concentrations. Institutional Research was able cross reference this data with our graduates for the 2021-2022 academic year to calculate how many graduates either completed one of the sustainability-focused academic programs and/or sustainability-focused courses. If a graduate completed a sustainability program and sustainability-focused courses, they were only counted once.

We give this criteria from the Technical Manual to Institutional Research for this credit and they run these three bullets against all graduates in the most recent academic year:
● Have been identified as sustainability-focused programs in the Undergraduate Program or Graduate Program credit,
● Have adopted one or more sustainability-focused learning outcomes (i.e., student learning outcomes that explicitly focus on the concept of sustainability or the interdependence of ecological systems and social/economic systems), AND/OR
● Require successful completion of a sustainability-focused course as identified in the Academic Courses credit.

For bullet 3, all of our academic programs provide students a menu of courses to take for completion of their degree (i.e. choose between course A, B, C and D to meet this section requirement for your degree program). For this credit, Institutional Research includes the students who have taken a sustainability-focused course as part of their required degree completion. It is often not the only course the student could have chosen, but it is one of several courses that particular student chose to complete their degree requirement. We feel that is as close as we can get to the spirit of this credit from a data perspective as our degree programs do not have a prescriptive list of courses each student must complete for their degree, rather each degree program offers multiple course options to meet the degree requirements. The courses students complete are still required, but they have options about which course they choose. A student who did not choose any sustainability-focused courses to complete their degree requirement would not be included in our data.

Here are a couple examples of what this menu looks like for our majors: https://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/colleges/natural-sciences/chemistry/chemistry-major/sustainable-chemistry-concentration/#requirementstext

https://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/colleges/natural-resources/forest-rangeland-stewardship/natural-resources-management-major/#requirementstext

Masters of Business Administration, Impact Specialization (Impact MBA):
Graduates of the Impact MBA program develop the skills to: assess opportunities for enterprise approaches to address social and environmental challenges; develop, implement, and manage initiatives or enterprises that address global social and environmental challenges.

Ecosystem Science and Sustainability:
Students in the major are learning: how to help people use natural resources in a sustainable way; about environmental change at local and global scales; how they can identify ways people can adapt to change and improve their lives; the amazing connections between different earth system components; and how to conduct fieldwork in a variety of settings addressing questions important to sustainability.

Human Dimensions of Natural Resources:
Upon completion of the degree program students will be able to: apply social science concepts and techniques to understand and address conservation problems; attain a breadth of understanding of how different social science disciplines can contribute to conservation; describe the linkages between conservation and human livelihoods, ecosystem services and human well-being; recognize and articulate the interdependencies and linkages within social-ecological systems, and how these linkages assist in understanding the drivers, processes and outcomes of environmental issues.

Environmental Health:
Upon completion of the degree program students will be able to: effectively communicate the health consequences of actions, behaviors, or environmental degradation to the public, political community, legal experts, or the media; demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving abilities for environmental issues as an individual and as a member of a problem solving team; and integrate knowledge in social, physical, and biological sciences to evaluate environmental issues.

Environmental Horticulture:
Upon completion of the degree program students will have learned: management and leadership skills necessary for a successful career in the green industry; technical competencies in their understanding of growth and development of horticultural plants and landscapes, including development as influenced by manipulation of horticulture technologies, such as fertility and water management; integrated pest management for all aspects of landscape horticulture; and skills to assess site issues, provide creative environmentally sound solutions and manage designed and built landscapes.

Environmental and Resource Economics:
Upon completion of the degree program students will be able to: to solve real-world problems beyond the pedagogical context; identify a problem and its scope then evaluate resources available to address the problem; and formulate alternative solutions then select the solution(s) most consistent with a stated objective.

Natural Resources Management:
Upon completion of the degree program students will be able to: demonstrate knowledge of a wide range of natural resource topics spanning ecological, social and physical aspects of wildland ecosystems; demonstrate proficiency in an area of specialization through completion of a minor in an area complementary to natural resource management; and be able to apply their broad natural resources knowledge to create sustainable solutions at local, national, and global scales.

Global Environmental Sustainability Minor:
Upon completion of the degree program students will have: an understanding of the issues of sustainability and develop the tools to bring sustainability into their career paths.

A full description of learning outcomes is available for each department through the course catalog.

The Institutional Learning Outcomes can be found in the above document, CSU Institutional Learning Outcomes, or linked under "Policies, Forms, and Resources" on the Provost's website at https://provost.colostate.edu/

The CSU course catalog includes learning outcomes for many programs and courses: http://catalog.colostate.edu/general-catalog/courses-az/