1. Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum
I know many of you are at least somewhat familiar with AASHE, but for those who aren’t, we are …
We’re going to focus this session on a program we launched over the last couple of years called the Centers for SAC program. I’ll give a brief intro to the program, share how the first year went, and then we’ll have representatives from two of the centers talk about their participation.
Julian Dautremont-Smith
June 26, 2018

2. About AASHE
Mission: To inspire and catalyze higher education to lead the global sustainability transformation
A membership-based association of colleges & universities working to create a sustainable future. About 1000 members mostly in US and Canada.
Professional home for campus sustainability staff.
But we offer resources for everyone in higher education: faculty, students, staff, administrators.
As many of you know, AASHE’s mission is to inspire and catalyze higher education to lead the global sustainability transformation.
We are an international assocation with about 1000 members spread across more than 20 countries.
We serve as the professional home for campus sustainability staff but we offer resources for everyone in higher education: faculty, students, staff, administrators, as well as businesses and nonprofits that collaborate with campuses.

3. Key Programs + Services
STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System):
AASHE’s Annual Conference:
Campus Sustainability Hub:
Professional Development opportunities:
AASHE newsletters:
Online community:

4. Motivation for Centers
Ensuring that all students have the knowledge, skills, and motivation to be leaders for sustainability will require dramatic increase in the number of courses that incorporate sustainability themes.
Many faculty members need tools and training to effectively integrate sustainability themes into their courses.
These seem like fairly straightforward, uncontroversial claims. The main question we face then is how to make this training happen.

5. Existing Resources
Annual AASHE Sustainability Across the Curriculum Leadership Workshops had trained several hundred faculty in the Ponderosa Project and Piedmont Project model of curriculum change.
Dozens of institutions are successfully implementing the model (and alternative approaches!) on their campuses.
So, we asked ourselves whether it might be possible to partner with institutions who had successful curriculum change programs to see if they might be willing to expand training to faculty from other institutions.
Our assumption being that campuses operating locally using their own expertise are going to be able to offer training at a lower cost than us. And perhaps more importantly, engaging a variety of trainers from different institution types would foster a greater diversity of training, thereby better meeting faculty needs and also help the network to learn much faster what works and what doesn’t.
Open call in summer of 2016; 26 institutions applied to participate and we ultimately selected 13 institutions to pilot this idea with us.

6. 13 Inaugural Centers

7. Center Commitments
Organize at least one faculty training program annually open to faculty from other institutions.
Develop the content and pedagogy for each program.
Help promote their program.
Manage registration and other logistics.
Provide attendance/evaluation data to AASHE.
Share resources via Campus Sustainability Hub.

8. AASHE’s Role Promote Center programs to AASHE’s networks.
Develop materials to used by Centers (e.g., participation certificates, evaluation surveys, etc).
Coordinate the network of Centers and facilitate learning across it.
Provide recognition and visibility for Centers.

9. Total # of Participants Particip. from other inst.
Year 1 Attendance
Center
Total # of Participants
Particip. from other inst.
% from other inst.
Western Washington University / Seattle University 30 25
83%
Johnson County Comm. College / University of Kansas 14 3
21%
Colorado College 12 6
50%
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley 33 9%
Ramapo College of New Jersey 15
80%
Dickinson College 17 8
47%
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (2 events) 21
67%
Moraine Valley Community College
81%
Fleming College 27
44%
University of California 20 18
90%
Furman University 11
92%
Central College 2
33%
University of South Carolina 13 10
77%
TOTAL
198
107
54%
Price varied widely between these events with some being free and others costing up to $500.

10. Year 1 Participant Ratings
Center
Av. Rating
Colorado College 4
Ramapo College of New Jersey
3.6
Dickinson College
3.93
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Moraine Valley Community College
3.53
University of California
3.83
Furman University
3.85

11. New Centers for 2018 University of Hawai‘i System
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
UC System also has dropped out.

12. Future Plans Improve coordination and collaboration among Centers.
Follow up surveys of participants.
Continue to grow the number of Centers strategically.