1. This work is supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) collaboration between the Directorates for Education and Human Resources (EHR) and Geosciences (GEO) under grant DUE - 1125331 Supporting Departmental and Institutional Change by Teaching for a Sustainable Future Judith A. Ramaley Portland State University

2. Overall Goals of InTeGrate “To Teach for a Sustainable Future” By increasing “student engagement by establishing relevance, bridging course content to current topics in the news and connecting course material to other disciplines ” By incorporating expert ways of thinking about Earth (“earth literacy”) using Geoscience as a lens for adopting systems thinking as a sophisticated way of thinking about the Earth system, http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materi als/index.htmlhttp://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materi als/index.html on November 18, 2014

3. Overall Goals of InTeGrate To Teach for a Sustainable Future By utilizing a variety of pedagogical approaches that help “students make connections between what they learn in the classroom and the real world, get involved in the community and prepare students for the workplace with hands-on experience,” By using interdisciplinary approaches to complex socio- scientific issues that “give students practice integrating their scientific knowledge with societal constraints, By connecting issues of social justice to the challenge of sustainability so that students acquire “an ethical perspective on Earth and Society” through a consideration of environmental justice, risk and resilience and GeoEthics.

4. What will it take to make this happen? A shift from individual modules and classes and a concept of “my work” to “our work” of creating a pathway concept that gradually builds intellectual and solution-finding skills and the capacity to deal with complexity, uncertainty, paradox and ambiguity. A move from teaching and learning as a solitary process to co-creation of knowledge as a collaboratory process. A goal of engaging students in ways that promote “continuous self-reflection in the light of new experiences, including the witnessed experience of others.” (Andrew Delbanco, 2012, College)

5. Who else is thinking about this? Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) LEAP Challenge: Assessing Authentic Student Work The Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP): What to expect of a college graduate Center for Green Schools (K-12): All students graduate educated for sustainability by 2040 These related nationwide efforts create frameworks beginning in K-12 that map out a pathway through increasingly higher levels of learning that prepare graduates for both responsible citizenship and the ability to thrive in a complex, “unscripted” world.

6. What does this kind of education entail? 1. Specialized Knowledge. Beyond the vocabularies, theories, and skills of fields of study, this category addresses what students in any specialization should demonstrate with respect to the specialization. 2. Broad and Integrative Knowledge. This category asks students at all degree levels to consolidate learning from different broad fields of study — the humanities, arts, sciences, and social sciences — and to discover and explore concepts and questions that bridge these essential areas of learning.

7. What does this kind of education entail? 3. Intellectual Skills. Both traditional and non-traditional cognitive operations are included in these skills: analytic inquiry, use of information resources, engaging diverse perspectives, ethical reasoning, quantitative fluency, and communicative fluency. There appears throughout an emphasis on the capacity to make, engage, and interpret ideas and arguments from different points of reference (cultural, technological, political, etc.). 4. Applied and Collaborative Learning. This element of the pathway emphasizes what students can do with what they know, demonstrated by innovation and fluency in addressing unscripted problems in scholarly inquiry, at work and in other settings outside the classroom. This category includes research and creative activities involving both individual and group effort.

8. What does this kind of education entail? 5. Civic and Global Learning. Recognizing higher education’s responsibilities both to democracy and to the global community, this fifth area of learning addresses the integration of knowledge and skills in applications that facilitate student engagement with and response to civic, social, environmental and economic challenges at local, national and global levels.

9. Taking Stock of Your Assets The Culture of the Academy is changing We have entered a decade of major change in academic culture, values, priorities, methods and operations. The choices we make now will influence our capacity to contribute to the quality of life in our towns and cities, our states, our nation and the world for many decades to come. To play our role in shaping the future, we will depend more and more upon collaboration and resource sharing and the co-creation of knowledge. That means engaged scholarship, learning and teaching will be a component of every institutional portfolio but its role will vary.

10. A culture of engagement and collaboration is becoming essential To enhance relevance and connections to large societal issues and to strengthen the capacity of society to adapt to a rapidly changing world To create capacity to find workable solutions to complex problems by drawing upon the knowledge and expertise both throughout our campuses and in the broader community To bring together disparate elements: people, ideas, experiences to learn together and work together in new ways.

11. Core concepts of engagement across the campus community and beyond Who names the problems/asks questions? Who identifies and evaluates options? Who shares resources to advance the work? Who cares about the choices made? Who bears the risk and who enjoys the benefits? Who interprets the results and defines success? Who will value and use the lessons/knowledge?

12. Connections to Society: Creating Shared Futures What issues are you and your institution facing and how are you responding to those challenges and opportunities? What is your blend of approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, forms of scholarship, collaborations internal and external? Local Regional or statewide National International How does earth literacy fit into these patterns?

13. Q.1 What else is going on that may be creating momentum and avenues for collaboration to promote Earth Literacy? What institutional priorities might your InTeGrate project inform or address? Is your campus involved in a process to review and update your undergraduate curriculum or some component of that curriculum (e.g. General Education or the major)? Are you currently contributing to any campus- wide efforts to enhance the student experience or improve retention/graduation rates, etc?

14. Q.2 Are you working in a conducive environment for fostering sustainability? Is your institution involved in any sustainability projects either internally or in partnership with the broader community or both? Looking at your local environmental setting, what challenges or concerns are there (extreme weather events, flooding, drought, sinkholes, etc) that you are using as a laboratory for your students and as a focus for scholarship and collaboration? Who else is working on these issues on your campus and/or in your broader community?

15. Q. 3 How ready is your campus to engage in significant change? Policies and practices; e.g., faculty roles and rewards Experience with successful change efforts Distribution of resources Appropriate culture and infrastructure to support faculty leadership and shared governance Capacity to engage in evidence-based change Leadership support Existing examples of collaboration internally or with the broader community surrounding your institution that offers lessons and opportunities Other?

16. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (1) How does this effort support institutional priorities? Clearly state the core value/mission that you want to sustain and the connection to the larger mission at your institution and to students’ educational success. What assets already exist that can support this work? Describe the assets that you have identified and how you can gain or maintain access to them and, if possible, contribute to them.

17. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (2) Who needs to know about your work? Prioritize the gatekeepers or stakeholders who influence or control the distribution of resources and the setting of institutional priorities. Within your campus governing and decision-making structure, where can you generate the most interest and potential support both for your own project and for the larger changes that will be needed for the InTeGrate vision to be embraced and incorporated into your campus culture, the curriculum more broadly and your shared expectations for your graduates?

18. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (3) How will you get the attention of key people? What are the venues for raising awareness? Prioritize these venues and conversations. What is your message to these audiences? How will you talk about your InTeGrate project and the value of this work? What lessons can you derive from your experience so far that might be applicable to other parts of the curriculum? What language will you use? Do not import “foreign ideas” without translating into local language. Use material that resonates with your colleagues. Do they prefer quantitative data or powerful stories or a well- reasoned argument or some combination of these?

19. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (4) Now, outline your message(s) starting with the point that is most likely to gain traction in your environment with particular audiences. What are people concerned about on campus? Why might they be interested in your work, assuming they haven’t heard about it or don’t know much about it yet? How will you work with your team and others to craft your message and back it up with stories, data, examples, research, lessons learned, etc. How will you make your case if you get a few more minutes to talk about your work?

20. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (5) Parting Reflections. Any major change effort must be accompanied by a powerful warrant for change. “A warrant involves a complex interweaving of evidence, explanation and clearly articulated values (House & Howe, 1999).” A warrant starts with a claim (that a particular condition exists, that something has value, that a particular action should be taken), builds evidence to test and support the claim, establishes a warrant (a statement justifying the evidence that serves as a basis for a particular claim) and carefully spells out any qualifications for the claim (the specific circumstances under which a claim may be true and the likelihood that it is true.)

21. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (5) Parting Reflections In higher education, once you have a warrant, all significant change must be approached as a scholarly act. clear goals firmly grounded in knowledge about your discipline, your students, their experience and the context in which you operate (adequate preparation). built upon a solid body of evidence gathered and interpreted in a disciplined and principled way (appropriate methods) and shown to be significantly related to the challenges at hand (significant results).

22. Creating Broader Support for Your Efforts (5) Parting Reflections The case must be presented effectively (effective presentation) and be studied reflectively (reflective critique), with a clear and compelling sense of responsibility for the effects of the ideas and proposed actions on the community that will be affected, both inside and outside the University (ethical and social responsibility).[After Glassick et al 1997] In sum, the capacity of an academic institution to change is becoming a strategic value and organizational asset; this capacity will confer advantages on those that learn how to do it, and commensurate disadvantages on those that do not.

23. Getting in Touch Judith Ramaley jramaley@pdx.edu cell: 703-623-8927