After a competitive national application process, Moraine Valley Community College was named one of 13 Centers for Sustainability Across the Curriculum by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).
As a center, Moraine Valley will work with AASHE to offer workshops and professional development opportunities on sustainability in the curriculum to faculty in the region. The goal is to have the greatest number of faculty across the country inject sustainability content into their curriculum through every subject.
For nearly 10 years, Moraine Valley has offered its faculty professional development to learn how to infuse sustainability into existing or new curricula. This effort was led in part by Michelle Zurawski, Moraine Valley professor of biology and sustainability coordinator of teaching and learning. The program is almost completely online, but Zurawski along with Stephenie Presseller, Moraine Valley sustainability manager, have offered face-to-face workshops as well.
“That’s what made our program so unique and attractive to AASHE—our flexibility and ability (online) to have a very broad reach and impact,” Presseller said. “The intent is to offer our program to other faculty, staff and K-12 teachers beyond Moraine Valley so that those trainees can return to their campuses and implement their new coursework or (staff) activities. The result is an exponential increase in the amount of faculty teaching sustainability and the number of students learning about it. We are excited to move forward on this project with AASHE.”
AASHE works to empower higher education staff, faculty, administrators, and students to be change agents and further sustainability efforts. In the last 10 years, AASHE has trained more than 500 faculty around the country. This pilot program intends to leverage this network of trained teachers.
For additional information on AASHE and the centers, visit www.aashe.org.
