Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.01
Liaison Cindy Shea
Submission Date July 18, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
AC-9: Academic Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 12.00 / 12.00 Cindy Shea
Director, Sustainability Office
Campus Enterprises
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Number of the institution’s faculty and/or staff engaged in sustainability research:
434

Total number of the institution’s faculty and/or staff engaged in research:
2,649

Number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that include at least one faculty or staff member that conducts sustainability research:
72

The total number of academic departments (or the equivalent) that conduct research:
93

A copy of the sustainability research inventory that includes the names and department affiliations of faculty and staff engaged in sustainability research:
Names and department affiliations of faculty and staff engaged in sustainability research:
A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the research inventory:

Methodology
Resources:
UNC Facts and Figures Book 2012-2013: http://oira.unc.edu/files/2014/04/fb2012_2013.pdf
Page 2- Faculty Total (including Full-Time and Part-Time)= 3,608
Excel list of faculty comprising Faculty Total of 3,608, including Name, Title and Rank, and Department fields (provided by the UNC Office of Institutional Research and Assessment).
UNC Research Administration Management System & eSubmission (RAMSseS) Database:
https://research.unc.edu/offices/research-info-systems/enterprise-applications/data_res_oris_rams/
List of Sustainability-related keywords- internal document
First, the UNC Office of Institutional Research and Assessment provided a list of all full-time and part-time faculty. The list includes individual names, title/rank, and department information. Rank field options include:
1. Adjunct Assistant Professor
2. Adjunct Associate Professor
3. Adjunct Instructor
4. Adjunct Professor
5. Assistant Professor
6. Associate Professor
7. Clinical Assistant Professor
8. Clinical Associate Professor
9. Clinical Instructor
10. Clinical Professor
11. Director
12. Distinguished Associate Professor
13. Distinguished Professor
14. Distinguished Term Assistant
15. Distinguished Term Associate
16. Distinguished Term Lecturer
17. Distinguished Term Professor
18. Instructor
19. Lecturer
20. Master Lecturer
21. Professor of the Practice
22. Professor
23. Research Assistant Professor
24. Research Associate Professor
25. Research Instructor
26. Research Professor
27. Senior Lecturer
There are 3,608 TOTAL Faculty. There are 962 faculty within this list with “Clinical” modifiers in their rank (“Clinical Assistant Professor,” “Clinical Associate Professor,” “Clinical Instructor,” and “Clinical Professor”). Most of these faculty members are associated with UNC Health Affairs and focus more on practice (for example, seeing patients). These faculty were removed from the total list of researchers and were not counted as part of the “Total Faculty,” therefore decreasing the TOTAL FACULTY count to 2,646. All other faculty titles and ranks were retained in determining the Total Faculty count.

A keyword search was then conducted in the UNC Research Administration Management System & eSubmission (RAMSseS) Database. The Sustainability Office, with guidance from the Sustainability Advisory Committee, compiled a list of sustainability-related keywords to use for identifying sustainability-related research and courses. These keywords were used to identify principle investigators (PIs/faculty) who submitted proposals to conduct sustainability-related research. This keyword search limited results to faculty who held appointments within the last three fiscal years (FY11, FY12, and FY13).

Keyword results from RAMSeS were then matched to the OIRA faculty list. The keyword lists served as a guide for identifying faculty conducting sustainability-related research. Further investigation helped describe research activities and contributions to or collaborations with Centers and Labs.

There are 428 faculty who conduct research related to sustainability, out of 2,646 total faculty, or 16.2%.

There are three specific faculty members who hold “Clinical” designations, but are professors of the practice and conduct research related to sustainability. These three faculty members are: Greg Gangi, Institute for the Environment, and Carol Hee and Ted Zoller, Kenan-Flagler Business School. These three faculty are designated with an asterisk in the attached spreadsheet. Their omission would be a major oversight. Adding these three researchers back to the list, and also to the total faculty count, results in 431 faculty who conduct sustainability-related research, out of 2,649 total faculty, or 16.3%.

To determine the number of departments that include faculty who conduct sustainability-related research, the list of sustainability-related researchers was compared to the original list of 3,608 total faculty from OIRA. The OIRA list includes a “Department” field for all faculty. The list includes faculty representing 93 different departments. This list includes departments with “Clinical” faculty. Of these total departments, 70 departments have faculty who conduct sustainability-related research, or 75.2%.



A brief description of notable accomplishments during the previous three years by faculty and/or staff engaged in sustainability research:

1. Jamie Bartram
Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and Director of UNC’s Water Institute

Jamie Bartram works at the interface of science and policy regarding water and environmental health. A former administrator at the World Health Organization, Bartram’s research focuses on drinking water and sanitation; water scarcity, climate change, and system sustainability; and regulatory and finance capacity. He brings together researchers, academics, policy makers, practitioners, and experts from diverse disciplines to coordinate efforts worldwide. Bartram is co-chair of UNC’s first pan-campus academic theme “Water In Our World.”

2. Alice Ammerman
Professor of Nutrition and Director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Alice Ammerman teaches a service learning course in sustainable local food systems and a new graduate course, Entrepreneurial Solutions to Local and Global Health Challenges. Her research includes the design and testing of innovative clinical and community-based nutrition and physical activity intervention approaches to reduce chronic disease risk in primarily low income and minority populations. She also focuses on school nutrition policy associated with childhood obesity, sustainable agriculture as it relates to improved nutrition, and social entrepreneurship as a sustainable approach to addressing public health concerns. Ammerman also chairs the Academic Plan Implementation Committee.

3. Thomas Meyer
Chemistry Professor and Director of UNC’s Energy Frontier Research Center in Solar Fuels, led a breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis with a single catalyst. With further development, the process could create storable solar energy in a liquid or gaseous form to replace or supplement fossil fuels for transportation or electricity generation.

4. Rachel Noble
Marine Sciences Professor, created a DNA-based test to detect E. coli bacteria in water samples to enable lab technicians to collect water samples at 7am and public health officials to post the results on a beach sign by 10am. The test is now used across the country at both saltwater and freshwater recreational beaches.


The website URL where information about sustainability research is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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