George Washington University
AC-1: Academic Courses

The inventory is uploaded above.

This inventory was developed using three processes. First, GW has a formal designation for sustainability courses that are pre-approved for credit toward the Minor in Sustainability. These courses receive a "Green Leaf" designation by the Sustainability Academic Program Director, and the Green Leaf is displayed in the course catalog. The Green Leaf designation was originally intended for undergraduates. But by popular demand, we have begun to identify sustainability graduate courses with a Green Leaf. To obtain a "Green Leaf" designation, the course must address issues around social, economic, and/or environmental sustainability and include at least three of the following criteria: 1.Content related to sustainable development: creating healthy and thriving resource systems for all 2.Content related to environmental issues 3.Content related to social issues that can be applied to sustainable development such as human welfare, social equity issues or social / organizational / behavioral change 4.Content related to economic issues that can be applied to sustainable development 5.Discourse focused on the interconnection of world resources and the human condition from a long-term perspective 6.Content related to policy and communications issues that can be applied to sustainable development The Director of the Sustainability Academic Program and the Executive Director of Sustainability, with review and input by faculty members of the GW faculty Committee on Sustainability, added courses to this inventory that are not currently Green Leaf courses. To be listed as a "Green Leaf" course, a faculty member must opt in. In some cases, we have strong sustainability courses but for whatever reason, the professor has chosen not to have it designated. We included these in this inventory. Finally, we contacted faculty engaged in sustainability research and asked about the courses they were teaching and whether there was sustainability content. In many cases, the answer was yes. We added these courses to the inventory. We only counted courses offered on our main campuses and, for the purposes of this inventory and because there are no real electives, eliminated the nursing and medical schools from this inventory. GW defines departments by those subdivisions with a department Chairperson. The number 52 represents all GW departments excluding the school of medicine (we would also exclude nursing, however the school of nursing does not have departments). The entire GW course directory, with course descriptions, is found at: http://bulletin.gwu.edu/courses/.