Sustainability: What’s the Big Idea? A Strategy for Transforming the Higher Education Curriculum By Daniel J. Sherman Abstract inspiration for numerous professional associations, activities, and institutional commitments. !e jour- nals Chronicle of Higher Education,2 Inside Higher !e concept of sustainability is gaining mainstream 3 4 currency in U.S. higher education. Currently the Ed, and University Business have each devoted an entire issue to sustainability. Likewise, Time,5 News- term is primarily associated with prescribed practic- 6 7 es for individuals and campus operations. Although week, and U.S. News and World Report have featured this association is positive, it limits the potential articles on sustainability amidst their annual cover- At this moment of of the concept to integrate broadly across the cur- age of higher education. Within the past two years, riculum. For sustainability to realize its full trans- major U.S. newspapers including the New York ascendance for Times,8 Washington Post,9 Wall Street Journal,10 Chi- formative potential in higher education and society, 11 12 sustainability, it is it must transcend an association with prescribed cago News Tribune, and Los Angeles Times featured practices and even specialized areas of study. Sus- stories about campus sustainability e4orts. prudent to ask just tainability must become a pedagogical big idea, ca- what is associated pable of complementing and connecting avenues of Professional associations such as the University inquiry across the academic disciplines that organize Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF), the Coun- with this term—what and prioritize teaching and learning on campus. If cil of Environmental Deans and Directors (CEDD), sustainability is employed as a method of examining the Higher Education Associations Sustainability does sustainability the relationship between environmental limits and Consortium (HEASC), and the Association for the mean on American the human values, decisions, and actions that shape Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education the future, it will transform not only what we do on (AASHE) have emerged to institutionalize sustain- campuses today? campus, but also how we think. ability in higher education. Academic journals de- voted to advancing sustainability studies, such as Keywords: curriculum, higher education, sustain- !e International Journal of Sustainability in Higher ability, teaching, university Education, Sustainability: !e Journal of Record, and Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, are now Introduction available. C"##$%$ &'( )'*+$,-*./ 0&12)-$- *' .3$ National conferences draw representatives from as U'*.$( S.&.$- are in the midst of the “sustainability many as 300 colleges and universities to events such revolution.”1 !e concept of sustainability has be- as Ball State’s Greening of the Campus Conference come part of mainstream parlance on campus and and the AASHE biennial conference. More than 125 is undergoing rapid incorporation into the institu- U.S. college and university presidents have made a tional structures of higher education. At this mo- commitment to incorporate sustainability on cam- ment of ascendance for sustainability, it is prudent to pus by signing the Talloires Declaration, and more ask just what is associated with this term—what does than one third of these signatories made the declara- sustainability mean on American campuses today? tion in the last four years. !e American College and What qualities are missing from the popular mean- University Presidents Climate Commitment, dra5ed ing of the term? How might the meaning of the term in December 2006, drew 398 charter signatories in be extended and strengthened as the sustainability just 10 months. revolution on American campuses unfolds? !e concept of sustainability is indeed gaining main- In recent years, campus sustainability has been stream currency within U.S. higher education. But the subject of widespread media coverage and the what meanings are attached to the term? Sustainabil- ity is distinct from the Earth Day environmentalism Luce-funded Professor of Environmental Policy & Decision initiated during the 1970s, when Senator Edmund S. Making, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. Muskie identi6ed an “environmental revolution” that 188 SUSTAINABILITY MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. • VOL. 1 NO. 3 • JUNE 2008 • DOI: 10.1089/SUS.2008.9960 Sherman.indd 1 6/10/08 3:40:31 PM was primarily focused on new regulatory policy tar- “reusable co"ee mug,” while another !ve percent re- geting oil, chemical, and other polluting industries.13 sponded with an environmental problem like “global In contrast, the sustainability revolution is directed warming” or “loss of biodiversity.” Only !ve percent inward, cultivating a sense of individual and orga- of the students responded with a bigger idea such nization responsibility to adopt prescribed environ- as “balance” or “systems,” “economics and environ- mentally bene!cial practices such as recycling and ment,” or “future generations.” energy conservation. Sustainability e"orts in higher education have primarily focused on transforming #e identical exercise conducted among UPS faculty campus operations to incur less of an environmental at workshops (n = 48) on sustainability produced impact. similar results, with 86 percent writing “recycling” or another prescribed practice. Only eight percent of #e association of sustainability with the adoption the faculty responses indicated an association with a of prescribed environmental practices for campus bigger idea such as “conservation,” “systems think- operations is certainly positive, but it is unneces- ing,” or “precautionary principle.” sarily limited by a poorly de!ned relationship to the primary mission of higher education—teaching and Each student and faculty respondent was also asked Sustainability as learning. Sustainability is a concept with tremendous to write freely for one minute on the subject of sus- opportunity for the kind of pedagogical applications tainability. #e majority of these responses by both a concept must that usher in broad and enduring social changes. students and faculty (86% and 78%, respectively) become a big For sustainability to assume its full transformative centered on the problem of how best to implement potential in higher education, the concept must be- some environmental practices or how to get people idea that critically come a big idea, an avenue of inquiry that critically on campus to adopt certain practices. examines our role in the world. Big ideas are the examines our role generative material of all academic disciplines—the #ese results are admittedly the product of a small, in the world. building blocks of the university and its curriculum. non-random sample and therefore an unsophisti- Sustainability is a rich concept that can o"er big cated instrument. However, the responses do align ideas complementary to and overlapping with most, with results from survey research that indicate if not all, traditional disciplines. students most frequently articulate sustainability as “light green” actions, such as purchasing habits and recycling.15 #e results provide an example of the Sustainability as a “Should”: popular meaning ascribed to the term sustain- A List of Prescribed Practices ability in higher education—that is, a list of things one should do. #e responses do not indicate that Sustainability is a “should” on U.S. college campus- sustainability is gaining ground as a way of critically es today; the dominant association attached to the thinking about our individual and collective role term is a list of prescribed practices for individuals in the world, as a way of making visible our impact and administration and facility sta" to adopt, or feel on ecological, economic, and social systems, or as guilty for failing to adopt. #ese prescribed practices a way of informing our individual and collective are certainly worthy of encouragement, but they can decisions. also constitute an intellectual shortcut around the more complex, pedagogically rich relationship be- It is di$cult to see how prescriptive lists of behav- tween natural limits and value systems that under- iors can be integrated into the educational mission of lies the human impact on the environment. One of colleges and universities. #is is the primary limiting the functions of higher education is “to remind us of factor to the sustainability revolution in higher edu- the real meanings of words and the signi!cance of cation. Faculty and administrators working together concepts” and to ensure that sustainability does not at a recent national AASHE workshop on green- become so intellectually constrained as to make it a ing the curriculum came to the conclusion that the cliché (p. 18).14 major barrier to the di"usion of sustainability across a broad range of courses and disciplines was the Word association exercises conducted with envi- perception that sustainability is not academically rich ronmental studies students and environmentally or rigorous enough to warrant inclusion in course work and is perhaps best le% to student clubs and fa- committed faculty have con!rmed the association 16 of prescribed practices with the term sustainability. cilities sta". Preaching to students and others about University of Puget Sound (UPS) students in eight what they should do does not !t with the way most di"erent environmental studies classes (n = 107), faculty members de!ne the purpose of teaching. were asked to record the !rst word or phrase