scholarly journals Sustainability Literacy in a Time of Socio-Ecological Crisis: Using Reaccreditation as a Leverage Point for Innovation in Higher Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 5104
Author(s):  
Todd LeVasseur ◽  
Christopher Ciarcia
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Sustainability Education ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Leverage Point ◽  
Sustainability Literacy ◽  
Social Environmental

This article presents a case study of innovation in sustainability education in higher education. It does so by explaining the to-date progress of a multi-year reaccreditation process begun in 2016 for the College of Charleston (CofC), a public liberal arts and sciences university in Charleston, South Carolina of approximately 10,000 undergraduates and 1300 graduate students. The question addressed is how can a higher education institute strategically embed sustainability literacy that is focused on social/environmental engagement, in a way that contributes to measurable student learning gains? We argue that the leverage point of institutional reaccreditation provides a strategic entryway into embedding such sustainability across curricular and co-curricular settings in innovative capacities. We do so by discussing how sustainability education was implemented into a co-curricular civic engagement program, alternative break, to build students’ sustainability literacy at the College of Charleston. The article concludes by reflecting on lessons learned at CofC on how to use institutional reaccreditation as a driver of sustainability education through civic engagement in an era of socio-ecological collapse.

The Implementation of an Academic and Applied Esports Program in Higher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-209
Author(s):  
Michele R. King ◽  
Karen G. Conner ◽  
Lindy L. Johnson ◽  
Terry Trojak ◽  
Tim Cho
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Program Development ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Liberal Arts University ◽  
Sociocultural Theories ◽  
Building Community ◽  
Level Of Risk

Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning, this case study describes how a small liberal arts university, steeped in a tradition of innovation and discovery, developed and introduced an interdisciplinary academic and applied esports program. The study describes the importance of a multi-interdisciplinary approach to program development and building community, drawn from the voices and expertise of interdepartmental stakeholders including administration, faculty, staff, and students. The authors share the timeline of events and lessons learned in launching a successful esports program by applying an entrepreneurial mindset and accepting an appropriate level of risk.

scholarly journals 2020 Teacher Candidate Voter Turnout: Implications for K-12 and Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-77
Author(s):  
Hannah Jeffries ◽  
William McCorkle
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Carolina ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Civic Education ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
K 12 ◽  
National Trends ◽  
Nature Of Teaching

This study centers on low youth voter (18-24) turnout nationally by examining a study of teacher candidates at a South Carolina public university. The study is useful to understanding the civic engagement of two important demographics: youth voters and future educators. As teacher candidates, the students tended to have weak civic education backgrounds and a lack of understanding of the inherently political nature of teaching. Paralleling national trends for youth, candidates showed low levels of voter turnout, a disconnect between accessing political information and making informed decisions, and a general cynicism towards electoral politics. The study was able to explore multiple important demographic differences in attitudes towards voting. The study also explored attitudes of practicing teachers towards civic engagement and the implications of these attitudes for K-12 and higher education.

Environmental Political Theory’s Contribution to Sustainability Studies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Paul Thiele ◽  
Seaton Tarrant
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
First Century ◽  
Future Prospects ◽  
Social Environmental ◽  
Citizenship Skills ◽  
The Relationship

In this chapter, we examine the relationship between environmental political theory and the development of sustainability studies within US higher education. We assess the incorporation of environmental political theory authors in sustainability classrooms and the extent to which environmental political theory and sustainability studies classrooms engage in experiential, skills-based learning. We situate this pedagogy as an extension of the tradition of the liberal arts, especially as developed by John Dewey, and effectively, as citizenship skill development for democratic societies. To teach twenty-first-century citizenship skills, we maintain, is to teach sustainability skills. This entails educating and empowering students to grapple intellectually and practically with the interdependent social, environmental, and economic challenges that define their current circumstances and future prospects. Environmental political theory can and should become more relevant to sustainability studies programs, primarily by strengthening its mission of engaged theory through the cultivation of experiential learning opportunities.

A Resource-Efficient Modular Course Design for Co-Teaching Integrated Sustainability in Higher Education: Developing the Next Generation of Entrepreneurial Leaders

2020 ◽  
pp. 251512742096996
Author(s):  
Joanna C. Carey ◽  
Lauren S. Beitelspacher ◽  
Jennifer Tosti-Kharas ◽  
Elizabeth Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Opportunity Identification ◽  
Exit Survey ◽  
Business College ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Key Competencies ◽  
Sustainability In Higher Education ◽  
Social Environmental

Society faces mounting pressures related to economic growth, social injustice, and environmental degradation. Building upon scholarly consensus regarding the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches to address such complex problems, the entrepreneurship classroom, broadly defined, can be a learning laboratory to integrate across disciplines, encouraging more impactful opportunity identification for students looking to create social, environmental, and economically inclusive value. We examined recent exit survey data from graduating seniors at a small, private business college in the US that emphasizes entrepreneurship, finding large gaps in skills and knowledge related to ethics and creative problem solving – both of which are key competencies central to meeting the challenges of building a more sustainable world. To address these identified needs, we developed a co-taught course focused on sustainability and consumerism across liberal arts, physical science, and business disciplines. We present our course material in the context of five key competencies related to teaching sustainability in higher education, and review the strengths and drawbacks of this approach for schools looking to implement a similar design. In a time of economic uncertainty in higher education, our model may be useful for other schools looking to integrate entrepreneurship across disciplines—with little added expense to the institution.

Reasons for Student Behavior Codes: A Qualitative Study at Two Christian Liberal Arts Institutions

NASPA Journal ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad A. Lau
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Student Behavior ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Christian Higher Education ◽  
Liberal Arts Institutions ◽  
Institutional Values

One of the great challenges facing Christian higher education is the role and impact of student behavior codes in furthering institutional values and inculcating those values in the students served by such institutions. The perspectives of administrators, faculty members, and students regarding the rationale for codes of conduct at their institution are examined. To obtain data, administrators, faculty members, and students at two Christian liberal arts institutions completed questionnaires and participated in follow-up interviews based on individual responses to the questionnaire. The views of all three groups are described as they see behavior codes relating to institutional purpose and the development and implementation of such codes.

Winning the Argument and Moving the Fight: The Legacy of a Grassroots Humanitarian

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Mary Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Winning Strategy ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Trade Offs

The author of this article argues that the two-decades-long litigation struggle was necessary to push the political actors in Mississippi into a more virtuous than vicious legal/political negotiation. The second and related argument, however, is that neither the 1992 United States Supreme Court decision in Fordice nor the negotiation provided an adequate riposte to plaintiffs’ claims. The author shows that their chief counsel for the first phase of the litigation wanted equality of opportunity for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), as did the plaintiffs. In the course of explicating the role of a legal grass-roots humanitarian, Coleman suggests lessons learned and trade-offs from that case/negotiation, describing the tradeoffs as part of the political vestiges of legal racism in black public higher education and the need to move HBCUs to a higher level of opportunity at a critical juncture in the life of tuition-dependent colleges and universities in the United States. Throughout the essay the following questions pose themselves: In thinking about the Road to Fordice and to political settlement, would the Justice Department lawyers and the plaintiffs’ lawyers connect at the point of their shared strength? Would the timing of the settlement benefit the plaintiffs and/or the State? Could plaintiffs’ lawyers hold together for the length of the case and move each piece of the case forward in a winning strategy? Who were plaintiffs’ opponents and what was their strategy? With these questions in mind, the author offers an analysis of how the campaign— political/legal arguments and political/legal remedies to remove the vestiges of de jure segregation in higher education—unfolded in Mississippi, with special emphasis on the initiating lawyer in Ayers v. Waller and Fordice, Isaiah Madison

scholarly journals Lessons Learned from the Medical University of South Carolina Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center (TCC) in Precision Medicine and Minority Men’s Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 155798832097923
Author(s):  
Chanita Hughes Halbert ◽  
Caitlin G. Allen ◽  
Melanie Jefferson ◽  
Gayenell S. Magwood ◽  
Cathy Melvin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Precision Medicine ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Men’S Health ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Men's Health ◽  
Dissemination And Implementation ◽  
University Of South Carolina ◽  
Minority Men ◽  
Medical University

The Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center (TCC) in Precision Medicine for Minority Men’s Health was established at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 2015 to address disparities in the translation of precision medicine approaches among racial minority groups. This regional consortium focuses on three primary areas: (1) the development of a consortium of regional and national partners, (2) conducting transdisciplinary research examining synergistic effects of biological, social, physiological, and clinical determinants of chronic disease risks and outcomes, and (3) dissemination and implementation of precision medicine approaches, with an emphasis on reducing disparities in health care and outcomes among minority men. Given consistent calls to better translate precision medicine approaches and the focus of this consortium on addressing disparities among minority men, we provide an overview of our experience in developing the MUSC TCC, including barriers and facilitators to conducting translational research on minority men’s health issues in the context of precision medicine. Lessons learned and areas for improvement include providing enough time to create consistent partnerships and community engagement to improve recruitment and retention, identifying unique ways to engage diverse partners from across the region and nation, and better approaches to dissemination and communication for large partnerships focusing on precision medicine.

A Compass During the Storm: Offering Students Critical Rigor for Polarizing Times

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Wender ◽  
Valerie J. D’Erman
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Learning Objective ◽  
First Year

ABSTRACT Teaching and learning in higher education is occurring, unavoidably, within the broader civic context of today’s extraordinarily polarizing political times. We seek to help students situate themselves with respect to and, above all, thoughtfully assess others’ as well as their own perspectives on issues of profound contention, without contributing to exacerbated polarization ourselves. Specifically, we offer students in our first-year exploratory political science course a vital tool—critical rigor—for navigating but not being inundated by the storm. This article discusses our experiences in teaching the course titled, “The Worlds of Politics,” as we attempt to help students deeply engage in cognitive processes of critical thinking and analysis, without undue infringement from their own—and least of all our own—personal political biases. Our focal learning objective is the cultivation of critical-thinking skills that promote students’ drawing of distinctions between advocacy and analysis, as well as their discerning civic engagement.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document