دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی یکپارچه کردن نتایج یادگیری پایداری در یک برنامه درسی دانشگاه - امرالد 2018

Abstract

Purpose – Higher education institutions increasingly have gained momentum in integrating sustainability into university curricula. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the approval, implementation and management process of the new university-wide, general education requirement in sustainability at the University of Vermont (UVM). The intent is to provide a case study to inform other institutions seeking to create similar university-wide sustainability requirements. Design/methodology/approach – The authors applied a process framework focused on institutional dynamics and values to analyze UVM’s success in instituting a sustainability requirement across the curriculum. These two frameworks can provide a more general application of this case study to other institutional contexts. Findings – The case study suggests that in the context of a diverse disciplinary and administrative environment at a university, the strategic unfolding, approval and implementation of UVM’s university-wide, general education sustainability requirement can provide a general model for other universities seeking to embed sustainability across the curriculum. Originality/value – It is uncommon for research universities with multiple professional schools to offer a university-wide requirement in sustainability. This case study analyzes the creation of a sustainability requirement at UVM by using a process framework to organize the complex, multi-stakeholder activities and events that eventually resulted in a successful curricular change. Thus, it is potentially instructive for institutions seeking to integrate a learning outcomes-based sustainability requirement into a university curriculum because it is generalizable to other institutions and pushes forward our understanding of institutional change.

Conclusions

This paper highlights the values and institutional steps toward implementation of a university-wide learning outcomes-based sustainability requirement at UVM. The process involved a suite of “nuts and bolts,” including developing SLO, planning for implementation, vetting the process along the way, collecting and presenting data, developing capacity models, designing faculty proposal guidelines and integrating assessment into the sustainability requirement (Table II). All that said, we advocate that our readers develop a values framework (Table I) and understood institutional dynamics (Figure 1) when instituting new sustainability requirements at other institutions, as the values intrinsic to our process was a seminal component to our success.

Essential to our values framework (Table I) was patience and intentional action. The committee anticipated solutions through education, outreach, research and partnership to overcoming expected barriers (Velazquez et al., 2005) and utilized the process and values framework to guide our actions. Yet, it took five years and dedicated faculty service time to bring forth the sustainability requirement resolved by the SGA (Table II). Along the way, the committee was process aware and cognizant of the institutional roadblocks, thus garnering allies and on-boarding stakeholders along the way. We gained credibility by presenting quantitative metrics to the Faculty Senate preand post-implementation.