University of Michigan
AC-6: Sustainability Literacy Assessment

In October 2009, U-M President Mary Sue Coleman elevated the University's commitment to sustainability in teaching, research, operations, and engagement by creating the U-M Environmental Sustainability Executive Council. One of the first actions of the Council was endorsing a Campus Sustainability Integrated Assessment (CSIA) to analyze the U-M’s sustainability efforts to date, benchmark against other institutions, and chart a course for the future through identifying long term goals for sustainable operations on the U-M Ann Arbor campus, including the Athletic Department and the Health System. The CSIA builds on a long history of sustainability commitments in U-M campus operations, such as implementing cogeneration technology at the Central Power Plant in the 1960s, adopting the EPA Green Lights and Energy Star programs in the 1990s, and more recently establishing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification as the standard for new non-clinical construction projects where the construction value exceeds $10M. The final CSIA report outlines four high level themes – Climate Action, Waste Prevention, Healthy Environments, and Community Awareness. Accompanying the themes are Guiding Principles to direct the U-M’s long-range strategy and 2025 Goals that are time-bound and quantifiable. SCIP stems from the principles outlined under CSIA theme of Community Awareness. They indicate that the U-M will “pursue evaluation strategies toward a campus-wide ethic of sustainability” as articulated in President Coleman’s September 2011 speech announcing the sustainability goals. Specifically, she stated that “we will scientifically measure and report our progress and behavior as a community…ISR (Institute for Social Research) researchers will measure the sustainability attitudes and activities of students, faculty and staff, as well as identify where we can improve.” Two separate questionnaires were developed --- one for staff and faculty, and one for students. While many of the questions were similar, different time frames and sequences were used in the two versions. With a primary objective of the project being to inform progress toward the CSIA goals, modules were developed with most questions focusing on transportation, waste prevention, the natural environment, food, and knowledge of U-M sustainability efforts.

To ensure representation from all segments of the University community and to allow for subsequent analysis of panel data, the sample design aimed to obtain relatively large numbers from the entire student body and from the staff and faculty populations. Specifically, a stratified sample was selected by the Registrar’s Office to yield approximately 1000 respondents from each undergraduate class (or cohort) and 400 graduate student respondents. At the same time, a stratified sample was selected by the University’s Office of Human Resources with a target of 750 staff and 750 faculty.

Please see the findings section of the SCIP Year 2 Report Overview http://graham.umich.edu/media/files/SCIP-Year-2-Overview.pdf