In support of The Ohio State University’s Academic Plan, Executive Vice President and Provost Melissa L. Gilliam recently launched an initiative to develop a bold and transformational vision to advance sustainability education, research and community engagement at the university.
Ohio State has been at the forefront of sustainability for years, including introducing a suite of institutional sustainability goals reflecting the university’s academic mission and operations. At the same time, governments and companies worldwide and within Ohio adopted increasingly ambitious pledges to reduce emissions and improve their environmental footprint.
While many at Ohio State have been deeply engaged in this work, the university is defining strategies to increase impact. Achieving these new goals will position Ohio State graduates to fill the growing workforce demand for sustainable programming and operations. Additionally, the university’s enhanced work in sustainability research, innovation and engagement will allow Ohio State to increase help to companies, organizations and communities aiming to advance sustainability practices.
The provost’s initiative is designed to respond to this urgency by building engagement across the breadth of the university. The initiative will dive deep into Ohio State’s programmatic strengths to develop recommendations on how it could build upon past successes to advance its position further. Work began this spring with assessments of Ohio State’s education and workforce development programming. Additional assessments will be conducted throughout the autumn as the university’s research and community engagement activities will be reviewed.
“We are starting with a focus on education and workforce development to ensure our students gain the knowledge they need to have a holistic understanding of sustainability and compete for the growing number of sustainability workforce opportunities and blossom into successful leaders in those roles,” said Elena Irwin, faculty fellow in the Office of Academic Affairs who is leading this initiative on behalf of the provost.
Sparing no time, an interdisciplinary Sustainability Education Visioning Committee, which includes 26 faculty members from across Ohio State, has already begun collecting input and data to inform the education-oriented visioning process.
Just within the month of March, this work included:
- 87 individual interviews of Ohio State faculty members and instructors, students, employers and peer institution colleagues
- 50 public and private employers providing feedback on workforce training and knowledge needs through surveys and three listening sessions
- 55 faculty and instructors providing their ideas and aspirations through two online town hall events
This outreach continued in April with a survey of current Ohio State undergraduate and graduate students developed and issued by an Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability (EEDS) major capstone student group. With guidance from faculty and staff advisors, the group is analyzing the survey’s response data to develop a final report as their capstone project.
Throughout May, the Sustainability Education Visioning Committee will assemble all input into an interim visioning paper on education and workforce development, aiming to complete that work in early June. Once complete, the overall process will be replicated in the autumn to develop recommendations toward research and community engagement, leading to a comprehensive white paper in December.
“Our goal is to be fully inclusive of different perspectives from across the university and within the communities we serve,” Irwin noted. “The enduring strength of any recommendations for program improvement will be from the diversity of voices expressing the need to accelerate the university’s response to address very complex and interwoven sustainability challenges.”
More information about this initiative, including future engagement opportunities as they are available and contact information for input at any time, is available here.