Faculty Forum on Sustainability and Academic Programs at UF

Stephen R. Humphrey, Director, School of Natural Resources and Environment

UF faculty are invited to a forum to discuss sustainability and academic programs at UF. Following last year’s workshops and wide-ranging local discussions of the subject, it’s timely to continue dialogue and sum up conclusions members of the faculty may have reached. We’ve scheduled two meetings for open-ended conversation to this end.

Monday, October 5, 2009
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Room 349 Reitz Union
Light refreshments will be served from 3:00 to 3:30.

Thursday, October 8, 2009
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Room 349 Reitz Union
Light refreshments will be served from 3:00 to 3:30.

For helpful read-ahead information, please see:
The Web of Sustainability at UF, by Tom Ankerson and Mackensie Ezell, 6 pages
http://snre.ufl.edu/pubsevents/files/AnkersonWebofSustainabilityUF26-Mar-09.pdf

Role of Sustainability as an Organizing Principle in Higher Education, by Tom Ankerson, 11 pages
http://snre.ufl.edu/pubsevents/files/AnkersonSustainabilityReport4-Jun-09.pdf
See conclusions and recommendations on page 1; these are followed by discussion of normative sustainability scholarship and UF context.

Academics and Sustainability at UF, by Kim Tanzer, 119 pages.
http://snre.ufl.edu/pubsevents/files/Tanzer2009Academics&SustainabilityUF.pdf
See recommendations on pages 14-16.

Some of the more explicit treatments of sustainability in UF academic programs are:
University-wide undergraduate Minor in Sustainability
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/sustainability/

BS in Sustainability and the Built Environment, College of Design, Construction, and Planning
http://www.dcp.ufl.edu/sustainability/bachelor

MS and PhD degrees in Interdisciplinary Ecology, SNRE, scroll down to curriculum section on Sustainability Studies
http://snre.ufl.edu/graduate/curriculum.htm

Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Architecture, College of Design, Construction, and Planning
http://www.dcp.ufl.edu/arch/pdf/Sust-Arch-11-05.pdf

Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Construction, College of Design, Construction, and Planning
http://www.bcn.ufl.edu/prospective/graduate/sustain.htm

Proposed Master of International Sustainable Development degree, planned to begin Fall 2010
http://snre.ufl.edu/pubsevents/files/MacArthurFound-MastersExcerpt.pdf

As identified in the Ankerson & Ezell “Web of Sustainability” list, numerous departments, centers, institutes, and unit programs or initiatives address sustainability. To appreciate the full scope of this activity at UF, please refer to this report.