Abstract: Universities are sustainability trailblazers, achieving a more sustainable future through research, community, and education. Critical to their pursuit of sustainability is ensuring that university stakeholders are supportive of university sustainability priorities. As a large stakeholder group, undergraduate students can exert a significant impact on sustainability priorities at the university and thus play a pivotal role in its sustainable development. However, research finds this group is often underutilized in university sustainable development. This paper accordingly examines opportunities to enhance student involvement in university sustainability. Over two research phases, the inquiry explores student evaluations of university sustainability initiatives through a classroom assignment and focus group interviews. Findings reveal that students’ perspectives of the university’s sustainability priorities do not align with what they feel is essential for the student experience. In the focus groups, students provide insight for how to create “buy-in” for university sustainability. The final phase of the inquiry applies the research findings in a service-learning consulting experience. Student teams work on a sustainability consulting project to implement suggestions for connecting university sustainability initiatives to the student experience. The service-learning consulting project allows students to apply their knowledge and skills to real sustainability challenges and, in turn, helps the university connect important sustainability initiatives to the student experience.
Continue Reading
A systems theory approach to sustainability in five contexts—social/cultural, economic, environmental, technical, and individual—is a realistic and useful approach to researching and teaching sustainability in the university. As a springboard for social change, the university needs to develop values-based sustainability content for classes across disciplines, and especially address the careful assessment and evaluation of both human and technical factors for solving sustainability problems.
Continue Reading
Journal of Sustainability Education is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. 
