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E-117: Sustainability - The Challenge of Changing Our Institutions
Student Feedback
Instructors
Registration
About the Course
Course Description
Join Us This Spring 2008 for HGCI's Sustainability Course!
The course aims to address the real life challenges of environmental sustainability by building change agent capacities of students who operate within a myriad of institutional and other contexts. [ more ]
The course can be taken in the classroom or online via the Harvard Extension School Distance Learning Program.
What do students have to say about this course?
"A terrific course! Jam packed with valuable and original info and wisdom. I learned so much just observing Leith and her way of being and putting things into words. ... I also appreciated the balance with nuts and bolt nitty gritty of LCCA and social marketing and green high-performance building. Truly you teach the wide swath of skills needed to rebuild our ship as we sail... Thank you for sharing this powerful transformational work with us and for each of you modeling wholeness."
Student, Spring 07
"Speaks to a complex subject, and effectively sorts through the issues. I particularly was impressed that the professors had identified some of the most challenging issues, not those of sustainability content, but the issues of organizational change, and an individual's challenges in integrating this topic into their institution's thinking. I am in the midst of this exact process at my workplace, and the relevance of this course is dead-on. I also found the course a terrific emotional boost in recognizing the challenges, and outlining realistic steps and timetables for change. Using Harvard as an example was extremely helpful."
Student, Spring 07
"I think this class is a great catalyst for getting students to see the art of becoming a change agent. It's not really understood how difficult it is to really implement change and to prepare for the obstacles that come without going through the process. I think the project is an excellent hands-on approach to really learning the theories taught in class."
Student, Spring 07
"The concept of teaching students to become agents of change is excellent and a life long and life changing learning experience. I expected a class on sustainability, but this is a dream come true to have tools as well as knowledge about sustainability practices."
Student, Spring 06
Course Instructors
Leith Sharp
Director, Harvard Green Campus Initiative.
Jack Spengler
Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation,
Harvard School of Public Health
Registration
Registration for the course is available December 3rd, 2007 through February 3rd, 2008, and late registration (additional $25 late-registration fee) goes through February 10th.
For a detailed registration schedule or to register for the course online, go to the Harvard Extension School Registration page.
Or to order a 7006-2008 course catalogue, call the Extension School at 617-495-4024.
Course Logistics :
- 4 Units.
- Graduate credit ($1,625)
- Undergraduate credit ($700)
- Non-credit ($700)
- Wednesdays: 7:35 to 9:35pm (begins January 29, 2008)
- 1 Story St, Room 306 (Or from the comfort of your own home!)
About the Course
Past Years Video Highlights
Watch the Video of Lecture from Week One, Spring 2007»
Video of Lecture from Week Two, Spring 2007 »
"After turning Harvard green for three years, the Harvard Green Campus Initiative is sharing the lessons it learned, reaching out through an Extension School course to students as far away as Australia and Iraq."
Harvard Gazette article, October 2003 »
Course Description:
In order to operate within the limitations and capacities of the Earth to renew and sustain key life support systems, best estimates indicate that western society will need to reduce its natural throughput by 90% within one generation. This will require deep and rapid transformation within all of our institutions.
The course begins by exploring the wide range of institutionally related environmental impacts and the associated roles of individuals within these settings. Harvard University is used as a primary case study to illustrate institutional practices including procurement, utility supply and consumption (energy, water), building design and operations, transportation, and waste production and recycling.
The principles and practice of environmental sustainability for institutions and individuals will be taught and demonstrated in this course. The course will focus on the university sector as a case study for examining how organizations with complex structures make a myriad of decisions with environmental consequences.
The course will provide students with a thorough exploration of methods and approaches that can be drawn upon to catalyze organizations, such as universities, to pursue environmental sustainability.
Illustrative examples of university sustainability programs, including campus planning, building design and operations, energy supply, purchasing practices, food services and waste management among others, will be presented. These examples will be further explored to reveal strategies for generating engagement, learning capacity and behavioral change at the level of both the individual and the organization. Financial, environmental, political, cognitive and organizational dimensions will be addressed.
The course is designed to cover three key topic areas:
- Institutional Impact
- Institutional Operations
- Institutional Transformation
The primary assignment for this course is a semester long independent project in which each student chooses an organization that they are familiar with and implements a real change with the practice of that organization, producing a quantifiable environmental impact reduction. Past projects have ranged from implementing a green cleaning program at the John Harvard Brew Pub to putting a local congregation on a "low carbon diet." Through these projects, students gain hands-on experience and practice in the skills they are learning during course lectures and readings. Teaching Fellows work closely with students on their projects, and students get feedback from the peers during the semester.
Students will ideally leave this course with the knowledge, understanding and confidence to develop their own capacities as change agents, leaders or catalysts for generating institutional commitment to environmental sustainability within a myriad of organizational settings.