Strengthening Sustainability
Programs and Curricula at the
Undergraduate and Graduate Levels

Committee on Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at
the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels

Science and Technology for Sustainability Program

Board on Higher Education and Workforce

Policy and Global Affairs

A Consensus Study Report of

THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
www.nap.edu

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This activity was supported by a contract between the National Academy of Sciences and the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation (Award Number: R-1905-56342), with support from the George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-67839-1
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-67839-0
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/25821
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949047

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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25821.

COMMITTEE ON STRENGTHENING SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAMS AND CURRICULA AT THE UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE LEVELS

ANNE R. KAPUSCINSKI (Chair), Director, Coastal Science and Policy Program; Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

ARUN AGRAWAL (NAS), Samuel Trask Dana Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan

CHRISTOPHER BOONE, Dean, College of Global Futures; Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University

ERIN BROMAGHIM, Director, Olympic and Paralympic Development and Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Fellow on the Sustainable Development Goals, Office of the Mayor, City of Los Angeles

GARRICK E. LOUIS, Associate Professor, Systems Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Engineering and Society, University of Virginia

DORCETA E. TAYLOR, Professor of Environmental Justice, Yale School of the Environment, Yale University

Board on Higher Education and Workforce Staff

LIDA BENINSON, Study Director and Senior Program Officer

THOMAS RUDIN, Senior Director

AUSTEN APPLEGATE, Research Associate

Science and Technology for Sustainability Program Staff

FRANKLIN CARRERO-MARTÍNEZ, Senior Director

EMI KAMEYAMA, Program Officer

Consultant

PAULA WHITACRE, Full Circle Communications

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Preface

We can be the first generation to succeed in ending poverty; just as we may be the last to have a chance of saving the planet. The world will be a better place in 2030 if we succeed in our objectives.

—United Nations Resolution adopted September 25, 2015
Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Societies that prioritize and intentionally connect healthy natural environments and social justice are likely to sustain their institutions, people, and ecosystems in the face of large changes that challenge their status quo. The coronavirus 2019, or COVID-19, pandemic, which was rapidly enveloping the world as I wrote this preface, offers a harsh reminder that societies with these priorities best prepare their leaders and citizens to exercise the mutual aid, flexibility, and ingenuity needed to reduce harm from catastrophic shocks. Societies with these priorities improve their resilience to change and capacity to pursue new opportunities for all to prosper. These insights, drawn from many fields of research, underlie the urgent drive by people and organizations around the world to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

We are at a hinge moment of urgency. Now is the time to turn around unsustainable environmental, economic, and social trends that already harm nature and billions of people. Left unchecked, these trends will profoundly diminish opportunities for future generations and environmental conditions on which life depends. But this need not lead us to despair. Urgency can focus and elevate individual and collective agency to navigate paths forward within an environmentally safe and socially just operating space for humanity. Countless youth, workers, elders, and leaders are founding and implementing relevant initiatives in their communities, nations, and international networks to recover healthy ecosystems and human communities and to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion in these efforts.

Higher education plays a crucial role in meeting this grand challenge. Indeed, the number of U.S. undergraduate and graduate degree programs, research institutes, and centers focused on sustainability has markedly increased in the

past decade—an exciting and hopeful sign. This has generated a vibrant debate on what should be the key elements of and structural support for interdisciplinary sustainability education programs. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Board on Higher Education and Workforce and the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program therefore formed the Committee on Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels.

Our committee was tasked to consider current practices and major advances, key competencies, partnerships with enhanced recognition of the Sustainable Development Goals and other frameworks, and other issues. We convened three workshops to solicit input on the current state of play and opportunities to strengthen sustainability curricula and programs. We received input from a wide range of interested parties, particularly educators, students, and graduates of sustainability programs; members of bridging organizations that address sustainability; and employers of graduates who received sustainability education. We also considered literature from a wide range of fields. This report presents our recommendations on strengthening sustainability curricula and programs in higher education in terms of core competencies, contents, and broader contexts; building the academic environment to incentivize these programs; and developing a sustainability workforce. The report also emphasizes the need for inclusion of faculty and students who collectively span diversity across the social spectrum.

It has been a great honor and pleasure to chair our six-member committee in designing three different workshops across the nation and collaborating on this report. Our deliberations revealed a willingness to simultaneously embrace hard truths about structural obstacles and rising opportunities for achieving a more sustainable and just future. We learned so much from each other, and I look forward to ongoing friendships. We benefited tremendously from the vision and advice of National Academies’ staff leadership, including Vaughan Turekian, executive director of Policy and Global Affairs, who initially conceived this study; Thomas Rudin, senior director of the Board on Higher Education and Workforce; and Franklin Carrero-Martínez, senior director of the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program. Special thanks go to our outstanding study director, Lida Beninson, for her guidance, knowledge, and professionalism; to Emi Kameyama for sophisticated corralling of information and other assistance; and to Austen Applegate for coordinating complex workshops and committee meetings. We are enormously grateful to Paula Whitacre, who served as consulting writer for this report. We also thank the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation for supporting this project.

Anne R. Kapuscinski, Chair
Committee on Strengthening
Sustainability Programs and Curricula
at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels

Acknowledgments

The committee would like to acknowledge the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and National Academies George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science for their generous support of this study. The committee would like to acknowledge the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and the Seymour Marine Discovery Center of the University of California, Santa Cruz, with support from the dean of the Division of Social Sciences and dean of the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences, for hosting the committee’s meetings. The committee also thanks senior librarian Rebecca Morgan in the National Academies’ research library for her assistance with fact checking and literature searches.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF PRESENTERS AND PARTICIPANTS

The committee gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals who made presentations at the workshops:

NATALIE ARORA, Head of Operations, Susa Ventures

DAVID CARUOLO, Legislative Assistant for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), United States Senate

WILLIAM CLARK, Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human Development, and Chair, International and Global Affairs Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

KELLY DAMEWOOD, Chief Executive Officer, California Certified Organic Farmers

MARILU HASTINGS, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation

KRISTI KREMERS, Director of Graduate and Faculty Leadership Programs, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota

PAMELA MATSON, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Environmental Studies; Director, Change Leadership for Sustainability Program; and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, Stanford University

MIKE MIELKE, Senior Vice President, Silicon Valley Leadership Group

HAROLD MITCHELL, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, ReGenesis

KATHARYNE MITCHELL, Dean of the Division of Social Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz

DAVID PALTER, Workforce Development Director, Silicon Valley Leadership Group

ROD PARNELL, Professor of Geology and Environmental Science, Northern Arizona University

ALVARO SANCHEZ, Environmental Equity Director, The Greenlining Institute

RAFID SHIDQI, M.S. Student, Coastal Science and Policy, University of California, Santa Cruz

LEEHI YONA, Ph.D. Student, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program, Stanford University

ANGELA XIONG, Environmental and Sustainability Planner, Ascent Environmental

ERIKA ZAVALETA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz

CASEY ZWEIG, M.S. Student, Wells Fargo Fellow in Coastal Science and Policy, University of California, Santa Cruz

We would also like to thank the more than 75 educators, employers, and others who participated in the interactive sessions held at the first two workshops. Their active engagement provided critical input to the committee.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REVIEWERS

This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.

We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report: DAVID BLOCKSTEIN, Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences;

DIANNE CHONG, The Boeing Company (retired); CASONDRA DEVINE, Wells Fargo; RODOLFO DIRZO, Stanford University; LISA GRAUMLICH, University of Washington; CATHRYN MANDUCA, Carleton College; STAN MEIBURG, Wake Forest University; MELISSA NELSON, San Francisco State University; CHARLES REDMAN, Arizona State University; MEGHNA TARE, University of Texas, Arlington; and GILLEN WOOD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by PAMELA MATSON, Stanford University and HELEN QUINN, Stanford University (retired). They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.

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Contents

SUMMARY

1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

An Urgent Journey

Work of the Committee

Scope of the Study and Organization of This Report

References

2 LANDSCAPE FOR SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION

Frameworks for Sustainability

Sustainability Science

Sustainable Development and Sustainability

Brief History of Sustainability Education at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels

Current Status of Higher Education Programs in Sustainability

Sustainability-Related Employment

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Sustainability Education and Employment

Organizations Engaged in Sustainability Education

References

3 STRENGTHENING SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAMS

Institution-Wide Considerations

Competencies and Capacities for Sustainability Education

Content Areas in Sustainability Education

Contexts and Applications of Sustainability Education

Experiential Learning

References

4 BUILDING THE ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT

Colleges and Universities as Living Labs

Bridging Disciplinary Silos

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Federal Support of Sustainability Programs in Higher Education

Sustainability Education Research Agenda

References

5 DEVELOPING A SUSTAINABILITY WORKFORCE

Considerations Beyond the Academic

Developing Change Agents

Enhancing Collaboration among Sustainability Professional Societies

Accreditation

References

6 FINAL THOUGHTS AND SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS BY STAKEHOLDER

Committee Recommendations by Stakeholder

APPENDIXES

A Definitions of Key Terms and Phrases Used in the Report

B Abbreviations and Acronyms

C Biographies of Committee Members

D Workshop Agendas