Florida Gulf Coast University
AC-2: Learning Outcomes

FGCU specifies sustainability learning outcomes at the institutional level for all undergraduate programs by requiring all students to complete the University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future.

FGCU has structured its curricula to emphasize the interrelationship of knowledge across disciplines and to provide students with the ability to think in whole systems. A three credit hour course, University Colloquium, brings together students and faculty from all disciplines in an interdisciplinary learning experience. The university’s guiding principles and values are discussed in this course, and students are expected to develop critical thinking and communication skills. Because this course is required for all undergraduates, the University Colloquium is housed within Undergraduate Studies. It is a writing intensive course and students are required to complete ten hours of service-learning related to the natural environment as part of the course.

Conceptual basis for University Colloquium
Adopted January 15, 1997: Dean’s Council Meeting
We have made a commitment as a university to make environmental education an integral part of our identity. One of our university-wide outcomes is that all students will develop “an ecological perspective.” A way to accomplish this perspective is to devise a course, or group of experiences, with an environmental focus that all FGCU undergraduate students must complete, and in which faculty from all five colleges would be involved. Because “ecology” applies to our total living space and interrelationships, human and natural, it is relevant to all our disciplines and professions. Thus, an ecology course would touch on all the university-wide goals and outcomes, and more. Students would not be introduced to FGCU values, they would participate in them.

Goals:
The University Colloquium is an interdisciplinary environmental education course designed to explore the concept of sustainability as it relates to a variety of considerations and forces in the environment. In particular, we will consider ecological, social, ethical, historical, scientific, economic, and political influences. The course goals are:

-To provide a "sense of place" and an understanding of the unique ecological features of the environment of which you are a part;
-To assist in developing an ecological perspective and a commitment to community awareness and involvement in order for students to know the issues related to economic, social, and ecological sustainability, analyze and evaluate ecological issues locally and globally, participate in projects requiring awareness and/or analysis of ecological and environmental issues;
-To provide experiences to assist in moving toward achieving the university learning goals of effective communication skills and critical thinking skills as well as the university’s stated mission of “practicing and promoting environmental sustainability" and “encouraging civic responsibility”;
-To enable a practical understanding of sustainability, of environmental education, and of ecological literacy.

Student Learning Outcomes
Students are expected to:
-Demonstrate an understanding of environmental issues through writing and class participation.
-Critically analyze environmental issues from economic, social, political, and ecological perspectives.
-Describe the unique ecological features of the area and analyze Southwest Florida’s unique environmental and ecological challenges.
-Demonstrate a practical understanding of sustainability, sense of place, and ecological literacy.

Please see our course catalog for more details: http://www.fgcu.edu/Catalog/colloquium.asp

Since students from all programs must successfully complete the University Colloquium to graduate, individual undergraduate programs learning outcomes were not analyzed. A list of undergraduate degree programs is available at http://www.fgcu.edu/undergrad.html

FGCU does not have specific sustainability learning outcomes at the institutional level for graduate programs. Therefore, we analyzed the Learning Outcomes for individual graduate programs and certificates in the spreadsheet that accompanies this credit.

To determine the amount of graduate students awarded degrees from programs with Sustainability Learning Outcomes, we asked program leaders and chairs to let us know whether or not graduates from their programs should be counted. If we did not receive a response after multiple follow-ups, we made a judgment call based on reading the learning outcomes written on the program's website. Some programs identified by program leaders did not meet AASHE's criteria of including environmental dimensions of sustainability and these were removed during the review process.

59 out of 299 graduate and doctoral students were awarded degrees from programs that declared sustainability learning outcomes. Please see the additional documentation to support the submission of this credit to see a list of programs counted. Sustainability SLOs are listed in the attached document for applicable programs.

This data covers students graduating in Summer 2015, Fall 2015, and Spring 2016.

The number of total undergraduate students (2331) was taken from the December 2016 Board of Trustees Information Systems Quarterly briefing report available at http://www.fgcu.edu/trustees/Agenda.asp or http://www.fgcu.edu/trustees/AgendaFile/2017/01-10-2017/BOTIS_1-10-2017.pdf

Many programs that have declared sustainability learning outcomes are new. As such, no students have yet graduated from these programs during our reporting period.

Certificate programs are not included because neither the Graduate Studies office nor the Registrars Office tracks the amount awarded each year.