Webinar: Data Driven Collaboration for Sustainability Course Development

The Office of Sustainability (OS) and UT’s Data to Insights (D2I) team teamed up to develop a Sustainability Course Directory that collates campus-wide academic data including course information, enrollment numbers, degree and flag requirements, and course sustainability content into a public database. The Course Directory was published in January 2022 and is accessible to the public (https://sustainability.utexas.edu/teaching-research/curriculum). This database is being used to determine the number of UT students currently receiving sustainability education and where there are gaps. With this information, we collaborate with faculty and academic leadership to target sustainability course development towards degrees and programs that will fill gaps and have the greatest impact. Analysis of this data supports understanding how many students already take sustainability education courses related to their degree fulfillment, which will help us achieve the Academics goal (below) set forth by the UT Austin President’s Sustainability Steering Committee. Additionally, as a verification step, OS and D2I conduct a degree audit of all graduating students to determine the sustainability courses students in any given degree or college are taking. In lieu of a campus-wide sustainability degree requirement, which is a top-down approach, this information informs how OS and faculty and students collaborate to target popular courses within specific degree programs for a more bottom-up approach. Initially an effort to report on STARS AC1, the effort has evolved and become internalized into a collaborative curriculum development program.