Cornell University
AC-1: Academic Courses

The Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) develops and delivers (publicly, via the web) the most comprehensive list of sustainability-related courses at Cornell (please see link below). We annually review the overall Cornell course listings to identify new sustainability courses and courses that include sustainability. In June 2013, the entire course catalog and course descriptions were analyzed to ensure that the courses on ACSF’s Sustainability Curricula list were relevant to environment, energy, and/or economic development. All courses were identified as either sustainability-focused or sustainability-related based on STARS definitions of the two. This analysis yielded a more up-to-date list with additional sustainability focused and related courses. In 2017 all courses on the ACSF’s Sustainability Curricula list were checked to verify that all courses were still being taught at Cornell. Those that were no longer offered were deleted from the list, and those that were still offered were updated. Starting in 2014, professors were also given the opportunity to tag their own class as a sustainability course upon course registration. This self-selecting methodology has proven useful, as new courses have been added to the ACSF Sustainability Curricula list as a result. Courses that were previously tagged as sustainability focused or related were re-evaluated to meet STARS (2.1) new definitions of “sustainability course” (which is still called ‘focused’ on ACSF’s list) and “course that includes sustainability” (‘related’). Professors of questionable courses were contacted; they were asked to confirm whether or not their courses fit one of the definitions provided by AASHE. Semester at Sea programs and other study abroad programs that are not directly affiliated with Cornell were not added to the list because they do not satisfy what STARS considers part of the course roster. Programs like Shoals and other courses that include an abroad trip, however, were added to the sustainable course directory because they are directly affiliated with Cornell. Courses that were not added to the list (and in few cases, deleted from the list) include honors thesis credits, research credits, independent study options, and internship credits. Crosslisted classes were only added once. If there are any questions or concerns regarding the methodology as described here, please contact Mark Lawrence (mal64@cornell.edu).

Crosslisted courses were only counted once. However, there are courses offered to both undergraduate and graduate students. These courses were counted twice in the total graduate courses, total graduate sustainability courses, total undergraduate courses, and total undergraduate sustainability courses.

Although special topics, internships, etc. are not included in the spreadsheet inventory, these courses (if they include sustainability content) are included in the list provided in the link above, which is primarily meant for student use. The document supporting the total number of departments and sustainability departments is attached in IC-3