Northern Illinois University
AC-6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

The attached document has the complete list of survey questions asked.  

The literacy assessment and scale comes from unpublished work one of our professors did as a grad student at a previous institution. They developed their own scale and tried to publish on it. Which is cited here: Kuehl, C., Sparks, A., Hodges, H., Smith, E. R. A. N. & Maynard, K. Measuring sustainability literacy - developing and assessing a measure of sustainability literacy on a UC Campus. In 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (American Political Science Association, 2016).

This survey was conducted in 2018 at NIU and then repeated in Fall 2023.  

The survey was fielded completely online using Qualtrics survey software. The survey aimed to understand sustainability attitudes of the campus, so invitations were sent to all NIU students, faculty, and staff. To induce participation, respondents could enter a raffle for one of 15 $20 gift cards to Huskie Books and Gear. Overall, 976 quality responses were recorded for an overall response rate of 5.25% (Student – 3.6%; Staff – 10.7; Faculty – 15.8%). Though seemingly low, this rate was in line with expectations and industry standards.  

Invitations to complete this survey were initially sent to the NIU community on September 28^th, 2023, with several follow-up and reminder emails sent throughout the month of October. Flyers and QR codes linked directly to the survey were used to recruit respondents. In addition, tabling efforts in Barsema Hall were made by students to gain further attention of the College of Business faculty, staff, and students. The highest response rate came from NIU Today/other university emails sent from end of September through October. Emails were sent to all students a total of five times -- twice through BARKS dedicated emails and three times through The Weekly Scroll. Emails were also sent to students, staff, and faculty through NIU Today on four occasions. The survey was closed on October 20th, 2024. 

First, the report suggests strong support for sustainability and concern for environmental issues across campus. Students, faculty, and staff all expressed high levels of support for the importance of sustainability and are concerned about environmental issues like climate change. Many are already performing a wide variety of pro-environmental behaviors to reduce their own impact.

Second, there is broad support for the variety of ongoing sustainability initiatives on campus. However, there was also room for improvement. Only half of respondents believe NIU is a leader in sustainability. There is broad interest in sustainability opportunities in the classroom and through on-campus activities. For example, one third of respondents reported not engaging with sustainability themes in any of their classes. Meanwhile, a common theme in open-ended responses was the preference for more on campus sustainability programming.

Finally, the report examines attitudes toward many of the primary areas of environmental impact that occur on campus. Residence halls, campus dining, energy, and transportation play outsize roles in the university’s effect on environmental sustainability. In general, there appears to be broad support for existing sustainability efforts. Yet there is plenty of room for improvement to help members of the campus community make sustainable decisions, such as making recycling available on campus, and make the university more sustainable.

This credit has been updated with data collected in Fall 2023.  The full report is available on the website in the optional url field.