2011 Sustainability Curriculum Development Mini-grant Awards Announced

05/16/11

The Partnership for Sustainability Education (PSE) coordinating team announces three awardees of $1,000 mini-grants for sustainability curriculum development and one Phase II Case Study grant of $400 for 2011. PSE mini-grants are intended to support curriculum development work to infuse sustainability-related content into Ithaca College courses or other educational experiences. Such curricular development may include new courses, development of new components for existing courses, or revision of existing courses to deal with issues relating to sustainability. Online course proposals are encouraged, as are proposals that involve community partners in developing projects that will benefit their organization and meaningfully engage students.

Phase I Sustainability Mini-Grant Awards ($1,000 each):

Jonathon Ablard, Associate Professor and Latin American Studies Coordinator
Department of History
School of Humanities and Sciences
Dr. Ablard will review the growing body of scholarly literature that examines the intersections between disease, health, and the environment in Latin America. He plans to incorporate this new content into his course titled “History of Disease and Health in Latin America” for Fall 2011, deepening his students’ understanding of the importance of sustainability in health systems.

Linda Gasser, Assistant Professor of Management
Business Administration Program
School of Business
Dr. Glasser proposes to continue to research and collate a school-wide library of information and resources (e.g. books, articles, Ithaca-area experts and organizations, videos, internet links, professional contacts) to enhance faculty efforts to educate students about sustainable business practices. Dr Glasser further proposes to fill resource gaps in certain business disciplines (accounting and law), organize the material in order to facilitate search/access by discipline and medium (video, articles, case studies, books, contacts, etc), design a means to make the material accessible online, and create a training workshop for faculty on why and how to use these sustainable enterprise resources.

Srijana Bajracharya, Professor and Chair Graduate Program
Health Promotion and Physical Education Program
School of Health Sciences and Human Performance
Dr. Bajracharya proposes to integrate a Service-Learning component into the graduate course titled “Environmental Health.” Partnering with the Cayuga Nature Center, graduate students will gain hands-on experience in developing an educational program for local schoolchildren that incorporates environmental health and sustainability issues. This training will enable the participating graduate students to meet some of New York State Teacher Certification standards, and the Cayuga Nature Center will gain valuable assistance to enhance its educational programming around sustainability issues.  

Past recipients of sustainability mini-grants were eligible to apply for Phase II Case Study Grants of $400 each. Phase II grants are awarded to faculty or staff upon successful submission of a detailed description which specifies how they integrated sustainability into the course or other educational activity funded by the initial mini-grant.

PHASE II Case Study Grant award ($400):

Lauren O’Connell, Associate Professor
Department of Art History, School of Humanities and Sciences
Dr. O’Connell successfully infused a sustainability perspective into “Architectures Across Cultures” (ARTH114), updating her course by integrating an environmental perspective on the history of buildings. A part of the course includes an analysis of “green buildings” on the Ithaca College campus. This revised course has now been taught for four years.  

Congratulations to this year’s awardees, and to all those who submitted a proposal for consideration. Click for more information about the Partnerships in Sustainability Education

And a reminder: all faculty – whether at Ithaca College or on other campuses – are invited to attend the Finger Lakes Project workshop from May 25-27th and learn more about how to infuse considerations of sustainability into courses across disciplines. Click for more information about the Finger Lakes Project.

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