Workshop Overview

Workshop Goals

The goals of this workshop are to:

  • foster disciplinary and cross-disciplinary associations among ACM faculty to integrate sustainability topics within the curriculum (focusing especially on a broad range of introductory courses)
  • begin to build disciplinary collections of materials about sustainability
  • create a set of teaching/learning activities based around sustainability
  • begin and continue conversations at individual institutions about sustainability

Dates

The workshop begins with an 5:00 PM evening session on June 8, 2010 and concludes at 2:00 PM on June 10, 2010.

Expectations

What are the participants expected to do:

Before the workshop

  • Do some background reading. We'd like everyone to arrive at the workshop well-versed in the conversation about the definitions of sustainability and the relationships between sustainability and higher education. We suggest the first five short articles for everyone and also ask that each participant dip into some of the (very short) sections of the Handbook of Sustainability Literacy. The choices there are up to you and will depend on your interests and disciplinary background:
  • Prepare an essay (one per person) discussing questions provided by the conveners (Submit via the website) We ask each participant in this workshop to write a short essay about their experience/expertise related to sustainability. The purpose of this essay is to provide an introduction to the other workshop participants to your work and thinking on the topic of sustainability. The essays will be posted on the workshop website. We hope that your essay will be a strong piece of writing sharing a few important ideas, points, or results that you think will be of high interest to the other participants, rather than a comprehensive list of all of your work. Your essay might address:

Sustainability at your institution:

  • Does your college have a sustainability program? If so, does the program have a web presence? (Please include URL.)
  • Have groups of faculty at your school discussed integrating sustainability into the curriculum? If so, describe the successes and challenges of the effort(s).

Sustainability in your discipline/field of study:

  • How is Sustainability understood in your discipline?

Your interest in sustainability:

  • Why are you interested in this FaCE project? What do you hope to gain from the workshop?
  • Essays should be no longer than two pages. If there are references (either your own or the work of others) that are important to your thinking, please list them at the end of the essay. Please save your essay as a Microsoft Word or PDF file and submit it via the website by June 1.
     
  • Create a poster (Submit via the website) (one per participant or one per institution)

The poster is an opportunity to introduce you and your campus' work on sustainability. We encourage you to include a picture of yourself (and other participants from your campus, should you collaborate on a single poster). Include information on you, what you teach, what's going on on campus related to sustainability. Are there particular practices that seem to have had a high impact on your campus? What's your favorite weird assignment related to sustainability?

Printed posters should be a single sheet, no larger than three feet wide by two feet tall in landscape orientation. These will either be posted on the walls of the room (using T-pins on a carpeted backing on the walls), or they may be posted on stand-alone poster easels of similar dimensions. Your poster will also be posted on the workshop website. Please upload a file of your poster to as either a PowerPoint or PDF file. In order to make the posters useful for viewing on the web, the file size needs to be reduced such that the total file size is less than 5 MB. The printed version of your poster may well be larger than 5 MB, so you'll need to downsize any images that are very high resolution which will reduce the total file size. If you are unsure of how to do this, then bring a copy of your poster to the workshop on a CD and John McDaris will do the resizing for you. Posters submitted by June 1 will be printed at Luther College. If you miss this deadline, please print your poster at your home institution and bring it to the workshop.

Click here to read some instructions for Making Posters Using PowerPoint. You can also view an example poster (PowerPoint 238kB May28 10) developed by Mary Savina.

  • Gather information and syllabi from courses on their own campuses in which sustainability has been incorporated (Submit via the website)
  • Come up with an activity idea for teaching about sustainability in their discipline (You will have an opportunity during the workshop to turn this idea into an assignment and have it improved by feedback from other participants).

During the workshop

  • Participate in all sessions
  • Develop and submit a teaching activity useful in addressing sustainability in their discipline via the website
  • Work with disciplinary groups to develop a disciplinary resource page/action plan for integrating sustainability
  • Begin working on an institutional action plan

After the workshop

  • Complete and submit institutional action plan
  • Implement the disciplinary and institutional action plans

Costs

The FaCE grant will cover most costs associated with the opening workshop and the closing workshop and conference. Travel is not covered by the FaCE grant.

Covered costs: Dinner the first night and other meals over the course of the two-day workshop; materials; accommodations on campus for two nights
Not covered: Travel to and from Luther; meals en route

Facilities

This workshop will be held on the campus of Luther College in Decorah, IA. See the Logistics Page for more information.

For More Information

For more information on the workshop, please contact Connie Barclay at Luther College.