University of Oregon
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

Rather than applying a strict definition of sustainability, we developed a checklist of criteria that must be met for a course to be sustainability focused or related. To be either related or focused the course must: 1) engage the important challenges of achieving sustainability, and ways to overcome them (explicitly or implicitly) 2) Cover the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability To be sustainability related the course must: 1) Cover two or more sustainability criteria through one distinct graded/evaluated course component or module, including an assignment, test, set of readings or discussion 2) Concentrate on one of the listed sustainability criterion as the central part of a course topic that comprises at least 25 percent of course’s evaluated material To be sustainability focused the couse must 1) Have a theme (covered by at least 95 percent of course material) that concentrates on at least one of the listed sustainability criteria 2) Spend half of the course concentrated (through tests and assignments, discussions and/or readings) on two or more of the listed sustainability criteria 3) Have a theme that examines an issue or topic using at least one of the sustainability criteria as a lens The sustainability "criteria" referenced above is listed below: 1) Sustainability as a concept: the history, politics, culture and science of ideas of sustainability and sustainable development 2) Natural limits: the role of human actions in relation to finite capacity of natural ecosystems (including the global ecosystem) to absorb throughput of matter and energy from the human economy 3) Maintaining ecosystems: Natural resource conservation science and practices to maintain the integrity of ecosystems in the face of rising human demands 4) Business and economics: Re-shaping market conditions to address “market failures” with respect to the environment and to provide incentives for businesses and economic systems to better maintain the integrity of ecosystems 5) Social capacity: The social factors that support behavioral shifts (including but not limited to economic choices) necessary to enable and encourage societies to live in ways compatible with maintaining the long-term integrity of ecosystems 6) Social equity: The mutual interactions between social inequality and environmental degradation, including theories of social reforms required to ensure an environmentally healthy and socially just society 7) Sustainability discourse: The framing and discussion of sustainability in the media, politics, and everyday life. 8) Culture, religion, and ethics: How culture, religion, and ethics—from consumerism to environmental stewardship—shape human behavior toward the natural world 9) Governance: How legal frameworks and policies shape human behavior toward the natural world. 10) Science and Technology: The role of basic science and technology (broadly and individual technologies) specifically in influencing human impacts on the natural world 11) Planning and design: Concepts and techniques from urban, regional, and rural planning and/or building design and/or product design that can influence human impacts on the environment and environmental impacts on humans. 12) Sustainability science: The new field of sustainability science that specifically attempts to build interdisciplinary perspectives from the themes (and related academic disciplines) listed above to promote human-environmental balance

In fall 2010, a group of UO faculty working with the UO director of Sustainability brainstormed the best approach for identifying sustainability focused and related courses. Peter Walker, one of the faculty members, drafted criteria and shared them with his ENVS 455/555 course entitled “Sustainability.” From this working group and class, the Office of Sustainability began working toward a webpage where UO teaching staff can add their courses to an inventory of “sustainability-related” or “sustainability-focused” courses according to several sustainability categories. This webpage is still being developed. Here is a link to the site: http://sustainability.uoregon.edu/office-sustainability/sustainability-course-checklist For the purpose of STARS, UO sustainability staff applied the criteria developed during the process listed above to an inventory of all courses and course descriptions offered at the UO from fall 2009 to fall 2010, to determine which were sustainability "related" or "focused." They applied this criteria very conservatively. Therefore, the number of sustainability related and focused courses could very well be higher than what is reported here.