the Report (Uhl, 2004). Ultimately, the Penn State Indicators Report was compiled by a team of 30 undergraduate and graduate students with the assistance of faculty mentors and young professionals (Penn State Green Destiny Council, 2000).
Perform an environmentally focused curriculum review
To cultivate greater environmental awareness in Barnard students and to make them more capable of tackling the pressing environmental problems of our time, Barnard should perform an environmentally focused curriculum review. A curriculum review would involve: 1) analyzing the environmentally oriented course offerings of the school; 2) conducting research on the curricular changes of other schools pursuing sustainability; and 3) ultimately forming programs, workshops, and incentives for faculty to create new environmentally oriented courses, to integrate environmental components into their current courses, and to coordinate with staff departments on campus to create “on-campus learning environments.” Barnard’s environmental curriculum review should engage professors from diverse academic disciplines and encourage cross-discipline collaboration on course development. A curriculum review that includes professors outside of the Environmental Science Department and urges crossdiscipline collaboration can result in courses that cultivate in students the cross-disciplinary knowledge and thinking necessary for environmental progress. For example, at Ithaca College, Dr. Tom Pfaff of the Mathematics Department finds that his students find their work more meaningful and interesting when he uses environmental data for Calculus problems (Boburg, 2005). At Emory University, a cross-disciplinary curriculum review also substantially enriched the direction and quality of faculty research and enhanced faculty retention (Barlett, 2004), and at Northern Arizona University the Ponderosa Project was initiated in 1995 and provided the framework and funding for integrating environmental issues into over 120 courses across curriculum.
Important Considerations: Implementing Sustainability Initiatives Gain practical ideas, models, and support from other colleges and universities
Barnard’s pursuit of sustainability can greatly benefit from studying and adopting components of successful models from similar institutions. The body of literature discussing the intellectual and practical dimensions of campus sustainability is substantial and rapidly growing, and there are extensive web-resources focused on the topic. Surveying these materials can stimulate fresh ideas for programs to bring to the Barnard campus. Emulating the successful practices of other colleges can help Barnard become more sustainable in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Forming relationships with colleges and universities that share Barnard’s values can help spread awareness of Barnard’s environmental stewardship beyond the campus gates, and joining sustainability-focused consortia can offer valuable development resources in workshops and other benefits. A number of online resources for finding information on sustainability initiatives at other colleges and universities are available in online Appendices 5-7.
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