Business View Magazine September 2018

64 65 THE UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA We didn’t have a central spot on campus that networked these groups together effectively, and connected instructors, researchers, and others in a way that built synergies amongst them beyond what they’ve already done, themselves. “So, the role of the new unit is, in part, to do that – to connect people, to provide information, to build certain programming structures. One of our existing programs, the Certificate in Sustain- ability that our students can take as part of their degree program has been in place for a number of years. We are looking to raise awareness of the program, which we expect will expand the num- ber of students taking the Certificate program.We are also looking to develop some courses that are very specific to that program, that will help our students navigate the breadth of sustainability learning and to empower them to better engage across different approaches to sustainability. “We see potential for an introductory course in sustainability which is a notion introduced in our Academic Sustainability Plan a few years ago. My own hope would be to have all students going through the University taking such a course. I see such a course as helping students navigate the diverse and complex ways that different disci- plines approach sustainability. As an example, a student might take a course in one discipline where they critique the current global economic system and the role of capitalism in creating an unsustainable trajectory for global societies. Then, they might take a course in economics in which environmental challenges are considered as ‘col- lective action’ problems, and different economic tools such as environmental taxes are presented as a means to addressing them. Students may struggle to understand how and why there are different perspectives and approaches to sustain- ability.We are hoping to offer one or more cours- es that help empower students to understand this. “We’re also looking at ways to develop transfor- mative courses, where students have experiences that truly and deeply change either their perspec- tive or their knowledge base; courses that have a huge experiential component – a large project with a client, a research project with an academic, or cases where they can go on a field study, per- haps overseas to different parts of the world. “We also have the Sustainability Scholars Pro- gram, which we’ve expanded to include more employers. A few years ago, it was just the City of Edmonton and the University of Alberta that were employing students. These are graduate students who go out and do an applied internship program with an employer.We’ve added four more em- ployers to that, and next year, we plan to expand that further. “Campus as a Living Lab is another existing program that we’ll be looking to expand. This program focuses on supporting research on sus- tainability within the campus environment itself.