1. Integrating SUSTAINABILITY
into Core Programs
at UNC-Asheville
Grace G. Campbell, MLA
Humanities Program
UNC-Asheville
March 19, 2012

2. “Whenever society faces large problems, there is
a tendency to think that either their roots or their
solutions lie at least partly in
the educational system.”Andrew Brennan, 2008
“What if higher education [were] to take a leadership
role, as it has in the space race and the war on
cancer, in providing the knowledge to achieve a just
and sustainable society?
Second Nature. Education for Sustainability,2008

3. 2012Sustainability - core public value
in society and in Higher Ed

4. Purposeof Educating for Sustainability:
To cultivate
engaged, informed
citizens capable of
leading good lives and
contributing to
betterment of society
and all life

5. Undergirding Values of Sustainability
1. Obligations to future generations
2. Duty to increase/ protect human well-being
3. Duty to reduce global environmental harm/
transnational injustice
4. Stewardship of nature

6. Sustainability in Education:
UNCA Rationale
 Keep pace with contemporary environmental
discourse
 Prepare students for eco-focused future
 Implement Goals of UNC Tomorrow
 Respond to student interest/demand
 Uphold UNCA’smission -
interdisciplinarity/engagement
 UNCA Strategic Plan

7. Sites of Sustainability Education:
Why Core Curriculum?
 Every student across curriculum
 UNCA Integrative Liberal Studies (ILS) Model
(supports new course design)
 UNCA Interdisciplinary Humanities Program
(team-designed/ team taught)

8. Sustainability: (df) Pluralist Definition
UNCA FOCUS ON
INTERDISCIPLINARITY
Capacity to endure and flourish:
 Sciences: empirical /material
 Social Sciences: choice
architecture/ policy
 Humanities: values /culture

9. Challenges addressed in curriculum
1. Inadequate Knowledge/
Concepts
 Scientific uncertainty
 Lack of e-literacy
 Cradle-to-Grave design
 Risk Analysis v. Risk
perception
 Public Goods

10. Challenges addressed in curriculum
2Inadequate Policies/
Mechanisms
 Collective action problem
(diffuse responsibility)
 Perverse incentives
 Lack of human agency

11. Challenges addressed in curriculum
13. Un-sustainable Values
 High social discount rate
 Nature/culture split
 Consumerism/Greed/Materi
alism

12. “Sustainability Norms”
(as taught in ILS)
 Conservation /Limits to Growth
 New concepts of human flourishing
 New concepts of rational choice
(satisficing)
 Cosmopolitanism: global
citizenshiptransnational solidarity
 Biophilia
 Global Justice / Human Rights

13. How we do it:
General Education at UNCA
1. Senior Capstone Colloquia
LS 479: Cultivating Global
Citizenship
2. Undergraduate Research

14. LS 479 Course Learning Outcomes
 LS 479 Outcome 1:
 Students analyze and interpret primary texts in Eastern and Western ethics
in terms of the structure of arguments, the historical context of the works,
and the students’ own values.
 LS 479 Outcome 2:
 Students can explain the concept of sustainability-including its economic,
social and environmental aspects and can evaluate sustainability initiatives
using contemporary ethical theory and ideas.
 LS 479 Outcome 3:
 Students can explain, in scholarly written form, how cultural contexts have
produced humanity’s most significant global challenges, and how these
contexts must also inform ethically-motivated responses.
 LS 479 Outcome 4:
 Students can produce a written assignment or class project on engaged
global citizenship that links to their accumulated undergraduate learning
and demonstrates understanding of diverse, contemporary ‘knowledges’
and cultures.

15. Sustainability at UNCA: Structural Advantages
 custom-published “Asheville
Readers” (Copley)
 regional emphasis on outdoor
recreation
 Small campus (@ 3600 students)
 Culture of Team-designed courses
 “Common Lecture” format
 Integrative liberal Studies Program
(ILS)
 Undergraduate Research

16. Sustainability in Core Programs:
Shared Concepts
 “cradle-to-cradle”
 biodiversity
 anthropogenic change
 collective action problems
 “tragedy of the commons”
 non-renewability
 “maldevelopment”

17. Sustainability: Auxiliary Learning
Outcomes
 Understanding Intersections
(race / class / ethnicity)
 Understanding human
agency / choice
architecture
 Analyzing technology
 Familairity with global
studies/ multi-cultural
studies
 Cross-disciplinary
cooperation

18. Sustainability: Sample texts
Singer, Peter, “Animal Liberation” Kuhn, Thomas, “Scientists and their Worldviews.”
Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights Leopold, Aldo, “Thinking Like a Mountain.”
AmartyaSen, Development as Freedom Leopold, The Land Ethic
Arne Naess, “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Lester Brown, “The Economy and the Earth”
Philosophical Aspects”
Lovins, Amory, “Technology is the Answer (But What
Berry, Wendell, “Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Was the Question?)”
Front.”
McDonough and Braungart, Cradle to Cradle
Bryan Norton, “Environmental Ethics and Weak
Anthropocentrism” Paul Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature”
Deen, Islamic Environmental Ethics Peter Singer, One World
Dillard, Annie. From: “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” Sallie McFague, “The World as God’s Body”
Dobel, Patrick, “The Judeo-Christian Stewardship Vandana Shiva, “Development, Ecology, and Women”
Attitude to Nature.”
Wilson, Edward O, “Storm Over the Amazon”
Dykeman, Wilma, “Who Killed the South French Broad?”
Wilson, Edward O, The Diversity of Life
Gordis, Robert, Judaism and the Environment
Hardin, Garret, “The Tragedy of the Commons.”
Keown, Buddhist Environmental Ethics

19. Sustainability Education:
general working areas
 Apocolyptic tone
 No “value-free” ideals
 Neglect of “urban environment”
 Starting late
 More faith-based content
 Book prices

20. Sustainability Impacts (UNCA)
 Increased numbers of
undergraduate research
projects related to
sustainability
 Measurable increase in the
number and scope of courses
incorporating Sustainability
 Further integration of
environment content in
humanities disciplines