Sustainability in higher education aims to help students understand the intersections and interdependencies in their social and organizational contexts and identify the leverage points that can enable transitions toward sustainability. One of the central goals of higher education in sustainability is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, competencies, and capacities that would enable them to work effectively in societal and environmental sustainability careers.
In 2015, the United Nations published Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a “plan of action for people, planet and prosperity.” The publication outlines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as 169 targets and associated indicators, forming a 15-year agenda intended to balance “the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental.”
Using the UN SDG as a framework, we have for identified courses which provide students with the knowledge and skills to help address various sustainability challenges
You can download the list of Sustainability Courses here.
Doctoral
Interdisciplinary Studies
Masters
Bachelors
Undergraduate Minors
Other Programs
UT Arlington offers sustainability courses in a variety of disciplines, and we’re adding more every semester. These classes prepare students from all academic backgrounds to analyze the connections between social, economic, cultural, and environmental phenomena and address global concerns about the future.
SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING MINOR
The Sustainable Engineering Minor prepares students in all engineering disciplines to ask questions and analyze problems from a sustainable engineering perspective, and develop sustainable solutions. Students seeking the minor must successfully complete the following courses with a grade of C or better and two electives from the civil, electrical, mechanical and aerospace, or material sciences engineering departments
- Introduction to Sustainable Engineering,
- Operations Research
- Sustainable Engineering Design Project
- Principles of Macroeconomics or Economics for Engineers
ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABLE STUDIES MINOR
Taking advantage of the many courses on sustainability and the environment offered throughout the university, this broadly interdisciplinary program provides students a powerful way to enrich their education and effectively apply their major field of study to some of the most complex and crucial problems of the new millennium.The 18 credit hour Environmental and Sustainable Studies Minor offered through the College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs can be combined with most majors, and in some cases completed coursework will qualify for credit.
The sustainability minor requires 18 credit hours. In addition to the core course, the minor requires 15 hours of approved courses taken in each of three areas, liberal arts; natural sciences and engineering; and urban and public affairs and architecture. In geology, for example, sustainability related courses deal with climate change and global warming. In English there are special topics classes that address environmental literature.
The requirements for the minor are straightforward:
- Take the core course, ESST 2300.
- Take 15 more hours of courses approved for the ESS Minor, including at least one course from Group One (Liberal Arts, Social Science, and Business) and at least one course from Group Two (Natural Sciences and Engineering).
- At least 6 hours must be taken in 3000 or 4000 level courses.
(See below for approved courses for the ESS minor. Also note that Independent studies, Honors theses, capstone courses with senior projects, studio or design courses, internships, may all be eligible for the ESS minor if the student concentrates on topics related to environmental or sustainability studies.
Independent studies, honors theses, capstone courses with senior projects, studio or design courses, internships, or service learning courses may all be eligible for the ESS minor if the student concentrates on topics related to environmental or sustainability studies. List of approved Courses for the Sustainability Minor
Faculty Fellowship Awards
2010-2011
- Dr. Carla Amaro-Jimenez – Education – $3,000 — Project Entitled “Increasing Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Sustainability through the creation and implementation of materials in dual language classrooms”
- Dr. Jeff Howard – SUPA – $2,500 — Project entitled “Preparation of core course for new Environmental and Sustainability Studies Minor Program”
2011-2012
- Dr. Kevin White – Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education – $5,000 — Project entitled “PreService Science Teacher’s Exploration of the University’s Trading House Creek Through the Use of Probeware Technologies”
- Dr. Susanna Khavul – Management, College of Business – $4,000 — Project entitled “Innovation and Sustainability in Entrepreneurship and Management”
- Dr. Jill Devito – Biology — $1,000 — Project entitled “Sustenance & Sustainability: the human ecology of food”
2012-2013
- Dr. Stephanie Lynn Daza – Education — $4,700 — Project entitled “Integrating Ecojustice Education into Graduate Courses for Teachers”
- Dr. Jill DeVito – Biology – $2,450 — Project entitled “Recognizing Ordinary Life as Human Ecology”
- Dr. Ali Davoudi – Electrical Engineering – $2,850 — Project entitled “Interfacing Building Blocks for Sustainability Energy Sources”
2013-2014
- Dr. Colleen Fitzgerald – Linguistics – $4,426 — Project entitled” Traditional Ecological Knowledge, sustainability and Indigenous Language Documentation” Dr. Melanie Sattler – Civil Engineering – $5,000 — Project Entitled “Establishment of an Undergraduate Minor in Sustainable Engineering at UT Arlington”
- 2014-2015
- Jeffrey McGee – Management – $6,185 — 2 Projects entitled “Corporate Sustainability: Lessons from Brazil” and Sustainability-Demonstrating Profits are Moe than the Bottom Line”
2015-2016
- Jason Hogue – English – $5,000 — Project Entitled “Community Gardening and First-Year Writing: Service Learning Sustainability Education”
- Jacqueline Stodnick – English – $3,950 — Project Entitled “The Environment Before Environmentalism”
2016-2017
- Dr. Nilakshi Veerabathina – Physics – $2,000 – Project Entitled “Light Pollution and its Social, Ecological, and Environmental Effects and Solutions”
- Dr. James P. Grover – Science – $2,500 – Project Entitled “Seminar Course on Environmental Sustainability Policy”
- Dr. Jiyoon Yoon – Education – $4,000 – Project Entitled “Community Science Project to Save the World”
- Dr. Christopher Kilgore – English – $1,500 – Project Entitled “Sustainability Starts Now: Introducing Key Issues in Collaborative Work Across Institutions”
UTA CARES: Open Education and Open Pedagogy for Sustainable Future and Resource Conservation
Reducing the cost of a college education is a frequent topic in higher education circles. Some colleges and universities such as UT Arlington have been trying to find other ways to reduce costs and conserve resources by eliminating the need for purchasing textbooks by using open educational resources (OERs) as an alternative to commercially published textbooks, thereby reducing fees for students. Other open educational practices, such as open pedagogy, can result in the creation of OER. UTA Libraries sponsor a grant program that supports open pedagogy and OER adoption/creation projects
Open educational resources (OER) are free teaching and learning materials that are licensed to allow for revision and reuse. OER can be fully self-contained textbooks, videos, quizzes, learning modules, lesson plans, syllabi, worksheets, data, and more. Other open educational practices, such as open pedagogy, can result in the creation of OER. UTA Libraries sponsor a grant program that supports open pedagogy and OER adoption/creation projects. The products of open pedagogy are student created and openly licensed so that they may live outside of the classroom in a way that has an impact on the greater and sustainable community. Open pedagogy projects frequently result in the creation of open educational resources (OER).
The current publishing price models for many academic journals and textbooks, where publishers use the knowledge and expertise of university faculty to create content priced beyond a level sustainable for academic libraries and many students, demand exploration of alternative publishing models. Acknowledging this growing challenge, the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Libraries are exploring multiple alternative models to fund the quality scholarship published by our faculty. UTA’s Coalition for Alternative Resources in Education for Students (CARES) grant program provides up to $5000 in grant funding to support projects at UTA that advance the practice of open education. Through this program, UTA Libraries join colleagues at other academic libraries and universities in partnering with faculty to support the adoption and creation of open educational resources (OER). OER can reduce financial barriers that may impede student success, while open pedagogy can transform the educational experience for both teachers and students. For more information please contact Michelle Reed at michelle.reed@uta.edu
To support UT Arlington’s campus initiatives on sustainability and the new minor in sustainability studies, University Libraries staff members have created several informative topic and research guides. These guides pull together library resources pertaining to this broad subject to help students and faculty with their research. The staff is also available for one-on-one assistance on any of the library resources and services.