‘Sustainability’ a growing area of college study

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Students participate in a sustainability project on the gardens, or edible landscape, at The Apeiron Institute’s Center for Sustainable Living in Coventry. / COURTESY THE APEIRON INSTITUTE
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Students participate in a sustainability project on the gardens, or edible landscape, at The Apeiron Institute’s Center for Sustainable Living in Coventry. / COURTESY THE APEIRON INSTITUTE

With “Rubbish” the title of an anthropology course at Rhode Island College, it’s the latest sign state colleges are stepping up the focus on sustainability.
“It’s an eye-opening course about the way we dispose of things. We have diminishing space for garbage and that’s where technology comes in,” said RIC Sustainability Coordinator Jim Murphy, who’s held that position since it was created a year ago.
“It’s just one of the courses where we’re making our students aware of the fact that sustainability cuts into every discipline, including history and economics,” said Murphy. “Sustainability is everywhere.”
Rhode Island College has created a new course identification for Sustainability Studies. The first course, SUST 200: Introduction to Sustainability, is the kick-off for the Sustainable Systems Initiative launched during the first summer session, which began May 20.
“We’re putting all the eggs into one basket with this – economics, anthropology, social justice, environment, chemistry and biology,” said RIC professor of technology education Charlie McLaughlin, who is teaching the four-credit undergraduate course.
Student interest in experimenting and creating energy devices signaled a good time to broaden the studies into a campuswide minor in sustainability, said McLaughlin.
“In the last couple of years my students have done a solar project. They have to heat 32 ounces of water up to 90 degrees in 30 minutes,” McLaughlin said.
Hands-on projects as undergraduates will give students a chance to explore job possibilities, and focus education and skills, as they continue their college work, he said. That can be an advantage when they go into the job market.
“More people are looking closely at green efforts. The fewer resources you use, the more money you can hold on to. It’s a balance between the economy and the environment,” McLaughlin said.
The emphasis on sustainability is written into the name of the nonprofit The Apeiron Institute for Sustainable Living in Providence. Interim Executive Director Mark DeMoranville will be working in collaboration with McLaughlin in the Sustainable Systems Initiative. “We want the students to go out to see energy efficiency. So they might spend the mornings in the classroom and in the afternoon be out looking at examples,” said DeMoranville.
Agriculture will be part of the program.
“We want the students to connect with farmers in the local food movement, or go to Pawtucket to meet with the new urban farmers organization,” said DeMoranville.
The University of Rhode Island has also seized the moment with the rising interest in the intersection of the economy and the environment to create a double major in green business. It consists of completing the existing majors in environmental and natural-resource economics and general business.
“The school can’t just create a new major. That has to go through a long approval process,” said Emi Uchida, URI professor of environmental and natural-resource economics. “So we’ve started telling the students you can get two degrees in four years.”
That can be accomplished if they get on the path in their freshman year, especially in the popular general business major. Or it can take longer if they choose the double-major program after the freshman year.
The first students in the program will graduate in 2016, said Uchida, who added the outlook for jobs with the double degree should be promising.
“In 2011, at least 130 of Fortune 500 companies employed an executive who focuses on sustainability,” said Uchida, who worked in international corporate finance in Japan. “Businesses used to be interested in sustainability for social responsibility or corporate appeal. Now they’re looking at it as more cost-effective business.”
As businesses have evolved in their view of sustainability, so have students.
“These studies used to attract students who were primarily interested in conservation, who would possibly work in government agencies or nonprofits,” said Uchida. “Now there is a societal need for people who understand that businesses can be economically viable and also be environmentally viable.
“We envision graduates who want to go into energy sectors for renewable energy. That’s an expanding sector,” said Uchida. University of Rhode Island sophomore Marissa Pereira, 18, of Cumberland, started in the school’s business program, has taken the environmental-economics course and plans to continue and earn the double major.
“I took environmental science in high school and was interested in it and I’ve always wanted to work in business,” said Pereira. “Now I see I can incorporate business into working with the environment.”
Bryant University has offered a master’s degree in global environmental studies since fall 2012. So far, the program only has one student, who is expected to complete her degree in May 2014, said Gaytha Langlois, chairman of the department of science and technology, and professor of environmental policy.
The program is targeted to local and regional professionals already active in organizations and agencies focused on environmental issues and undergraduates who want to continue their education with the environmental focus, Langlois said in an email.
“We do envision that our program will enhance the professional skills of workers in northern Rhode Island, as well as to upgrade the quality of environmental services throughout the state and region,” said Langlois. “We have planned for about five graduates a year as our program gains momentum and becomes better known.”
A working knowledge of environmental issues has been a focus since Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies was formed in 1978, according to the website for the center. The mission is to “solve challenging environmental problems, both at the local and global levels.”
Its Urban Environmental Laboratory is located in a 100-year-old carriage house on Angell Street in Providence, “retrofitted with superinsulation, passive solar heating and a solar greenhouse,” according to the website.
So many schools have hopped on the sustainability bandwagon nationally that since 2011 the Princeton Review Guide to 322 Green Colleges has been published in cooperation with the U.S. Green Building Council. •

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