Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 56.72
Liaison Christie-Joy Hartman
Submission Date May 12, 2017
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.1

James Madison University
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Christie-Joy Hartman
Executive Director
ISNW
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have an ongoing program or programs that offer incentives for faculty in multiple disciplines or departments to develop new sustainability courses and/or incorporate sustainability into existing courses?:
Yes

A brief description of the program(s), including positive outcomes during the previous three years (e.g. descriptions of new courses or course content resulting from the program):

The OESS offers travel funding for faculty to participate in workshops and other professional development opportunities on sustainability in the curriculum offered by AASHE and the Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum. The program is new.

JMU previously offered three cohorts of faculty professional development at JMU through the Arboretum Collaborative. The faculty professional development program sought to present content and effective course redesign for teaching about sustainability through a backward design approach. Assessment of the program concluded in 2014 and subsequently a paper was published.

As a result of the Arboretum Collaborative, three cohorts of participants, from seven colleges and eighteen programs at JMU, completed sustainability-enhanced course design (or redesign). The last time an inventory was taken, twenty-two courses had been impacted, all in areas that often did not include sustainability content. The courses included undergraduate level courses in majors, undergraduate level courses for general education, and graduate level courses. Some faculty have continued to incorporate sustainability in other courses. "Honors: The Psychology of Sustainability and Connection to the Natural World" is an example of a very recent course offering (2016) by a faculty member who participated in the Arboretum Collaborative. See https://www.jmu.edu/international/abroad/programs/jmu-malta-honors.shtml.


A brief description of the incentives that faculty members who participate in the program(s) receive:

Faculty can apply for travel funds to attend Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum workshops. The program is new, and no faculty have gone yet, but an application for JMU faculty to apply is posted online.

Faculty applied and were competitively selected for the Arboretum Collaborative. They received stipends to revise courses or create new ones.


The website URL where information about the programs or initiatives is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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