University of Michigan
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

The curricular programs offered by the schools and colleges — which serve undergraduate, graduate, and professional student populations — promote diversity of thought and action appropriate to the broad or specific disciplines represented by their schools. Aligned with our university mission and its culture of distributed authority, U-M respects the unique learning environment of each of its schools and colleges. Our schools and colleges have thoughtfully considered general purposes and requirements that are uniquely appropriate for degree completion in each field of study while maintaining alignment with our university mission.
In 2017, the Office of the Provost reviewed all of the missions and general requirements of our undergraduate programs. This was done as an informal exercise to identify the skills and ways of learning that are common across the undergraduate experience. These skills and
ways of learning were broadly captured in discipline-neutral language:
Knowledge:
1. Knowledge of the natural world and the methods by which humans can understand and predict it.
2. Knowledge of the human world through a disciplinary lens, including an understanding of cultural values and differences between peoples.
Methods of reasoning:
1. Facility with methods of quantitative reasoning.
2. Ability to construct arguments from evidence, critique work, and evaluate arguments based on both evidence and values.
3. Ability to write and present persuasively, with fluidity, rationality, and emotion.
Methods of action:
1. Ability to apply the creative process in thinking or making, to conceive and to create.
2. Ability to work in teams, bring diverse perspectives to bear on a problem or question, and work with diverse stakeholders.
3. Ability to make decisions and take action based on the available information and values, to act in the world to effect desired change.
The cornerstone of these broad goals is to maintain the fundamental expectation that students acquire, apply, and integrate learned knowledge and skills. It is our expectation that our students are able to analyze and communicate information, master various modes of inquiry, and deal with ambiguity. These curricular goals are well aligned with the Association of American Colleges and University’s LEAP goals, and are consistent with our Student Life Learning Outcomes (see below). While expansively broader, they also align well with
the engaged learning goals developed by a university-wide process in 2013-2014 that focused on developing 21st-century capacities and skills. These goals for general learning were subsequently discussed and broadly affirmed by the academic associate deans at their meeting on university learning goals:
1. Creativity – students must develop an understanding of creative processes and understand their own capacity to create new works and ideas. They must understand that creativity is not a rare gift to the few, but a fundamental human trait that can be developed and expanded.
2. Intercultural engagement – our learners must understand the role of values and culture in driving decisions, they must develop flexibility in working with others having different values.
3. Social/civic responsibility and ethical reasoning – students should develop an understanding of the human, social and environmental impacts of actions, and develop the ethical reasoning tools to make sustainable and responsible decisions; and they must develop their ability to hold and reason across the perspectives of multiple stakeholders.
4. Communication, collaboration and teamwork – students must have the ability to communicate with many audiences and to utilize varied formats and styles that will most effectively convey their messages. They must appreciate and leverage diverse contributions to a task, and know how to cooperate with others toward common purposes.
5. Self-agency, and the ability to innovate and take risks – students must know how to observe the opportunities and capacities of human communities, understand where new or existing ideas or systems could bring value within those communities, and be able to act effectively in order to drive sustained and positive change to provide that value.

Student Life learning outcomes:
1. Motivation and Purpose (students can identify and discuss their values and beliefs that
shape their learning, behavior, and professional goals);
2. Demonstrate Knowledge (students are able to discuss their learning, integrate new
information, and apply learning across contexts);
3. Identity and Perspectives (students can explain how their social identities and experiences
shape meaning-making and ethical decision-making practices);
4. Collaboration Across Differences (students are able to work and learn from others, whose
identities may differ from their own, to accomplish goals and solve problems);
5. Reflective and Relational Learner (students reflect on their personal expectations and the
expectations of others for their learning and growth);
6. Health and Wellness (students understand how to promote personal health and well-being
and manage life’s challenges).

Cultural and Diversity Education
The university is also deeply engaged in and committed to educating students about issues related to human and cultural diversity. The university introduced a DEI strategic plan in 2016 with core campus-wide strategies in mind: 1) Create an inclusive and equitable campus; 2) Recruit, retain and develop a diverse community; and 3) Support innovative and inclusive scholarship and teaching. With regard to Strategy 2, campus-wide actions include initiatives to build a diverse pipeline of qualified undergraduate and graduate student candidates; support groups to ensure that students have the resources needed to excel on campus; and develop tools to improve hiring and search processes for faculty and staff.
In addition to the campus-wide strategic plan, every school, college and administrative campus unit created its own diversity, equity and inclusion plan to address its unique local needs and opportunities (http://diversity.umich.edu/strategic-plan/progress-report/). All units made DEI efforts central to their mission and incorporated DEI into all aspects of their operations; including teaching, research, engagement etc.
A few specific examples related to student learning outcomes include:
• School of Social Work: Continues to require all incoming MSW students to take the diversity and social justice course (SW504) with limited exceptions. Ensures the MSW curriculum effectively integrates Privilege, Oppression, Diversity and Social Justice and anti-racist frameworks. Foster school-wide learning around DEI, anti-racism, and BIPOC-related issues through school-wide programming.
• Stephen M. Ross School of Business: Created a DEI Curriculum Taskforce to develop and facilitate implementation of proposals designed to enhance DEI in the Ross curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate programs. IDO 2.0 – this task force developed and implemented proposals designed to enhance the quality of the BBA program’s Identity, Diversity and Organizations milestone requirement.
• School of Public Health: Embedded Council on Education for Public Health degree requirements into core courses. Financially supports and advertises co-/extracurricular programming that enhances students’ understanding of the role of diversity in education and scholarship.
• School of Nursing: Revised courses as needed to include DEI content and created a plan for future regular audits of the incorporation and presentation of DEI topics within courses.
• School of Information: Created antiracist curriculum task force charged with developing curriculum modules and proposing content for core courses and in other parts of the curriculum and co-curriculum. Require a community reading list for incoming students about race and technology with continuous, community conversations throughout the school year.
• Ford School of Public Policy: Implemented BA curriculum changes that ensure increased DEI contact into BA core courses. Review MPP/MPA curricula to ensure DEI content in core and elective courses. Continue to expand offerings of DEI materials in electives and/or publicize more fully existing content and offerings. Offer several courses in the curriculum that explicitly address structural racism and public policy. Added new courses that focus on DEI issues from a public policy perspective, taught or co-taught by DEI Officer.
• Michigan Medicine: Implemented multiple levels of education based on DEI competencies, including baseline education for faculty, staff and learners. Designed specialized education on specific sub-topics; and education tracks for various audiences.

We collected graduation data for the last academic year from school and colleges who satisfied at least one the sustainability-focused outcome - either included in the school/college accreditation, competencies or required course listed as sustainability-focused in our course database. Detailed list of all programs in section below.

School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) - The Master of Science program students gain a common foundation in ecological science, environmental governance, and integrated assessment via two core courses and are offered the opportunity to advance quantitative skills during an intensive workshop prior to the start of their program. All master's students complete a capstone experience as the culmination of their program. Whether the experience is a group project, practicum, or thesis, students demonstrate critical thinking about an environmental problem and the application of appropriate analytical problem-solving techniques
Master of Landscape Architecture program addresses placemaking, integrating art and design with the latest knowledge in the environmental sciences — producing leaders and future leaders that will play key roles at the forefront of the field. Through hands-on experience and collaboration with U-M faculty experts, students, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, you will be prepared to learn how to successfully work in the field of landscape architecture by learning how to:1. Employ ecological principles authentically in a wide range of environments — from the center of redeveloping cities to changing rural landscapes, 2. Synthesize information about ecological processes and systems, human behavior, cultural/political institutions, and urban patterns, 3. Utilize design precedent and research as a tool that actively informs design process and ideation, 4. Visualize your proposals utilizing technologies ranging from sketching and model-making to virtual reality simulations, all of which inform design decision-making, 5. Create sustainable landscapes that are deep, inspiring, and just, and that work aesthetically, ecologically, socially, technically, and economically.
The Program in the Environment (PitE) is a university-wide collaborative undergraduate program overseen by the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) and the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Students take courses in the natural and social sciences and in the humanities. Core requirements are supplemented by specialization and capstone courses that draw from a variety of academic perspectives. PitE’s curriculum focuses on the complex interactions of human beings and their environment. To understand these interactions and learn how to create more rational and equitable forms of human habitation on this planet, PitE students develop a multidisciplinary perspective integrating the methods and approaches of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. http://lsa.umich.edu/pite
SEAS Formal Dual Degrees:
1. Engineering: This program prepares students to protect, restore, and create contrived and natural systems that are socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable. It is administered jointly with the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering. Students may choose from three ESS specializations: sustainable energy systems, sustainable design, and sustainable water resources.
2. Business: This program equips students with the skills and knowledge to create environmentally and economically sustainable organizations as executives, managers, and environmentalists. The program is administered by the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise on behalf of SEAS and University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
3. Public Policy: This program provides students with the opportunity to study environment and sustainability issues through the lens of public policy analysis. It is administered jointly with the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and is designed to provide a model for preparing a new generation of graduates skilled in addressing important topics like renewable energy and climate change using policy analysis techniques.
4. Law: This program trains students interested in either corporate law or trial practice to integrate knowledge related to natural resources and environmental problems with methodologies and skills inherent in the legal profession. It is administered jointly with the University of Michigan’s Law School.

LSA - Earth and Environmental Sciences - Required courses EARTH 331 (Climate Change), Pre-requirements EARTH 219 (Introduction to Environmental Science)
LSA - Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - Required Course EEB 410 - EEB Capstone Seminar - This course is required of EEB majors and is intended to be taken in the senior year, after exposure to both basic ecological and evolutionary theory. The course provides the opportunity for in-depth discussion of the ecological and evolutionary principles underlying important issues in biology and human affairs.

School of Public Health- Students at Michigan Public Health are expected to demonstrate specific skills and knowledge based on their discipline by the end of their degree program. All MPH, MHSA, MS, MHI, and PhD students are trained in the 12 Foundational Learning Objectives through an online module. Sustainability-related objectives include: 1. Explain effects of environmental factors on a population's health, 2. Explain the social, political and economic determinants of health and how they contribute to population health and health inequities, 3. Explain how globalization affects global burdens of disease, 3. Explain an ecological perspective on the connections among human health, animal health and ecosystem health (e.g., One Health)
Required undergraduate course PUBHLTH 305 (The Environment and Human Health) and PUBHLTH360 (Community, Culture, And Social Justice (CCSJ) In Public Health)

Architecture and Urban Planning
Master of Architecture degree & Master of Urban Planning - Required Course ARCH 515 (Sustainable Systems)
Master of Urban Design - Required elective in Ecology, Landscape, or Sustainability. The following courses may fill this elective:
Arch 515 Sustainable Systems, Arch 555 Building Systems and Energy Conservation, Arch 605 Environmental Design Simulation, URP 527 Sustainable Food Systems, URP 532 Sustainability and Social Change, URP 533/Arch 506 Sustainable Urbanism and Architecture, URP 542 Environmental Planning: Issues and Concepts, URP 552 Healthy Cities: Planning and Design, EAS 534 Urban Sustainability
Master of Urban Planning - Required course URP 500 (Planning theory)

School of Social Work - all degree programs - One of core competencies related to sustainability - #3. Advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice

College of Engineering - Undergraduate Programs (Aerospace Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil, Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Industrial and Operations Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences) - these programs are accredited through ABET. ABET has 7 student learning outcomes that all accredited programs must cover. One addresses sustainability - #2: an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors

College of Engineering - Graduate Programs:
1. Civil & Environmental Engineering - To provide breadth in the fundamentals of environmental engineering, students must complete the following three core classes: CEE 581 Aquatic Chemistry, CEE 582 Environmental Microbiology, CEE 591 Environmental Fluid Mechanics. , 2. Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering - Two courses among five required cover both relevant aspects of physical phenomena (such as a change in regional climate, air pollution, extreme weather events) and methods (such as downscaling, integrated assessment and modeling, sustainable environmental systems, methods of environmental monitoring).
3. Integrative Systems + Design - Key Socio-Technology Competencies: Socially engaged decision making, Operational understanding of the impact of technology on society, world, environment (vice versa), Global awareness. In this field, students will design things that participate in complex systems that have both social and technical aspects, study the intersection of society and technology as a grouping of social engineering and management science and learn how to develop new technologies to meet challenges in energy, environment, food, housing, water, transportation, safety, and health. Students will also learn the societal impact of engineering and design decisions at the intersection of science and technology.
College of Engineering - Program in Sustainable Engineering - Required Course CEE 265 - Sustainable Engineering Principles

School of Nursing - Clinical Learning Center is a sustainability-focused with a progressive reuse/recycle initiative that started with a task force in 2019 which fostered inter-disciplinary collaboration and consultation with engineering, biomedical engineering, Michigan Medicine, Medical supply companies, and the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Coalition. All of our UG sophomore, junior and senior students use the CLC for training and competency purposes. Additionally, our graduate students in several of the different programs (Masters, Nurse Practitioner, Doctor of Nursing Practice) utilize the CLC throughout the year to teach specific procedures (e.g., lumbar puncture, central line and arterial line insertion, chest tube insertion), specialty skills (such as midwifery) and advanced health assessment skills.

For a more details list please see the attached file.