Sustainability Program Development: Update and Early Thoughts on Program Assessment

1. Sustainability Program Development: Update and Early Thoughts on Program Assessment • Elena Irwin • Faculty Director, Sustainability Institute (SI) • Professor, Ag., Environmental & Development Economics • Gina Hnytka • Director of Sustainability Education and Learning Programs, Sustainability Institute (SI) prepared for the UCAT Assessment Workshop, October 4, 2019

2. Overarching question: • How do we do program evaluation and assessment for transdisciplinary programs like those in sustainability that span many disciplines and academic units?

3. Important considerations: • Defining key concepts • Mapping the landscape and assessing what we already have • Conducting a gap analysis to assess what we need • Developing a framework to guide ELOs for new program development

4. Sustainability Institute Physical & Natural Sciences • SI Education & Learning Goal: Support a comprehensive array of programs that address sustainability, connecting across broad domains of natural sciences, social sciences, engineering and humanities, to empower a diverse selection of multi-disciplinary and disciplinarily-focused sustainability programs Sustainability & Resilience Education Core Engineering & Tech Humanities & Arts Social Sciences, Business, Law, Policy & Planning Sustainability Education and Learning Committee (SELC) comprised of 15 faculty from 7 colleges, endorsed by OAA

5. Challenge: Abundance of scholarly definitions • A condition that allows humans and other species to flourish and thrive in perpetuity within Earth’s carrying capacity, and not unjustly burdened by the actions of others • Triple bottom line that balances environment, economy, social well-being • Staying within critical ecosystem and environmental boundaries, including planetary boundaries that define a “safe operating space” for humanity • Non-declining human welfare or well-being; using resources in a way that maintains or improves the well-being of communities and global society • Inherently complex and political, often contested, shaped by real-world processes influenced by relations of power, and is normative because it is value-laden • Implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

6. More Challenges: Institutional and cultural barriers • Translating ELOs across different disciplines and academic units into a common language (at least consistent, comparable) • Different disciplines have different areas of emphasis and different learning objectives • Different programs and units have different philosophies about how to write ELOs (e.g., general versus specific) • Coordinating assessments across multiple units and colleges • Evaluating success at university AND at academic unit levels • Faculty and departmental incentives for cross-unit collaboration

7. What emerged: We need a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional framework for sustainability programs • Sustainability draws from multiple disciplines of the natural, social, medical and engineering sciences, and humanities, as well as from the professions and knowledge of practice • Rather than attempt a synthetic sustainability "definition" for OSU, we embrace the multiple definitions and use these to paint a picture of what we are aspiring towards with our sustainability education programs • SI/SELC Goal = Provide a coordinated university platform for cross-unit collaboration, support to individual units to align and enhance their ELOs and program assessments to achieve synergies & complementarities across programs

8. SELC Undergraduate assessment work • Report on Undergraduate Sustainability Education • Assessed the current landscape of sustainability academic programs related to the environment, earth resources, and human-environmental systems • Identified ways to improve coordination, messaging, and communication of existing programs • Identified opportunities for new cross-college sustainability programs that can complement existing programs • Will provide recommendations for new GE sustainability theme • Will provide feedback regarding AASHE STARS (Sustainability Tracking And Reporting System) metrics

9. The Six Dimensions Framework • 1 – Human and Natural Systems: coupled human-natural systems; integration of environmental, economic, and social factors; systems thinking; resilience of human-natural systems; changes over time • 2 – Earth and Environmental Systems and Sustainability: environmental, earth, and natural resource systems; knowledge of planetary or natural systems, e.g. climate, aquatics, soils, forests, wildlife, geology, ecology, agriculture; AND how these relate to human well-being and sustainability or are impacted by human activities • 3 - Economy, Governance, and Sustainability: economic, political, business, and policy processes, including: economy, consumption, production; laws, policy, institutions; business, strategy, management; costs, benefits, tradeoffs; AND how these relate to sustainability and the environment

10. The Six Dimensions Framework • 4 – Society, Culture, and Sustainability: social and cultural processes, including: justice, equity, values, and ethics; history, religion, and the arts; citizenship; behavior and decision making; power and cultural critique; AND how they relate to sustainability or the environment • 5 – Sustainable Engineering, Technology, and Design: engineering processes; technological innovation; systems design; infrastructure and built environment; human-machine interface; manufacturing processes; life cycle; product design; AND how these relate to sustainability, including lower environmental impacts, greater resource efficiency, or improved resilience • 6 – Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability: human health, safety, risk, sustainable livelihoods; social well-being for a community, region, or globally; changes in well-being over time AND how these are impacted by environmental conditions

11. Our goal: Categorize all sustainability programs and courses

12. Our goal: Categorize all sustainability programs and courses

13. Next Steps: • Six Dimensions Course and Program Characterization Tools – distributed fall 2019 to academic units with a request to use ELOs to report sustainability content • Use these data to • Assess program synergies, overlaps, gaps • Improve communication & coordination of programs • Guide ELO revisions, program assessments, new course development (including for GE sustainability track) • Guide new program development (including undergraduate degree enhancements)

14. Sustainability Survey: A tool for learning assessment • Distributed annually to all undergraduate students across the university (Fall 2018 N ~ 2500) • Sustainability content knowledge • Example: What are the potential effects of global climate change? a. Loss of habitats b. Less severe weather c. Loss of ozone layer d. Decrease in sea level e. Don’t know • Awareness and attitudes/beliefs of sustainability programs • I actively seek sustainability-related courses… • I am well informed about my options to enroll or participate in educational offerings …project-based or experiential learning • I am aware of sustainability-related on-campus learning opportunities • Potential employers are interested in hiring students with sustainability-related knowledge and skills • Use this to establish baseline & as assessment tool to evaluate program-specific student learning

15. Student interest in sustainability topics (source: EEDS capstone survey, Spring 2018. Each respondent chose up to 5 responses. Total no. responses = 16,524)

16. From the SI Strategic Plan, Goal 2 Metrics: Measuring success in sustainability learning programs

17. Thank you! • Follow up welcome • Elena Irwin irwin.78@osu.edu • Gina Hnytkahnytka.4@osu.edu