Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 45.22
Liaison Mei May
Submission Date Nov. 27, 2019

STARS v2.2

University of Texas at San Antonio
AC-7: Incentives for Developing Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Mei L May
Director Office of Sustainability
Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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

A brief description of the incentive program(s):
the Office of Sustainability provides funding for faculty to develop coursework in a sustainable section to undergraduate or graduate students.
In 2019, the Office of Sustainability funded Dr. Antonio Martinez Molina and Dr. Neda Norouzi who developed a course studio in sustainable housing and aging in place. “Architectural design is typically carried out with little or no nvironmental consideration integral to the process. Once the design has reached a certain stage environmental considerations – whether material toxicity, water conservation, carbon emissions or energy conservation or something else – are then assessed. At this point decisions are made to revise and iterate the design for better environmental outcomes or to add ‘environmental features’. We know the results of this disjointed design process and we know this has to change if buildings are going to be better for people and the planet!
Unfortunately many environmental standards reinforce this process in two ways. Firstly by being separate from the design process, often as an assessment procedure. Secondly by requiring ‘environmental features’ be added in order to score points or increase the rating of the design.” Dr. Molina was awarded $30,000.

A brief description of the incentives that academic staff who participate in the program(s) receive:
Funding for materials, conferences, field trips etc. to facilitate new sections in sustainable coursework.

Website URL where information about the incentives for developing sustainability course content is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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