Sustainability Education
PSU is working toward an integrated understanding of sustainability as a unique learning outcome for all Portland State students. We are approaching sustainability not as a new and separate topic but as a way of living and working and thus integrating sustainble concepts into both displinary majors and general education. To assist with the process of integration, PSU has developed the following programs:
Please note that this website may not fully represent all that PSU has to offer in sustainability as it is a multidisciplinary subject. If you cannot find something you are looking for or would like to learn more about an academic sustainability program, please contact us at sustainability@pdx.edu.
New Spring 2008 Sustainability CoursesAir Pollution
This course is an overview of urban air quality issues facing cities around the world. We examine sources of emissions, the fate and transport of these emissions, the effects of air pollution on public health and the environment, and how these all relate to goals for improving air quality. Control technologies and regulatory practices used to achieve air quality goals are reviewed. Students will understand fundamental air pollution measurement and modeling techniques that are used to assess regulatory compliance and guide policies. Guest speakers include state regulators, industry representatives, air quality community advocates and consultants.
Examines how companies develop strategies based on financial, social and environmental criteria. The course looks at how organizations integrate the principles of sustainability into key functional activities, including strategy, marketing, human resources, accounting and information systems and obtain competitive advantage through sustainability-based approaches. Students learn the importance of a multiple stakeholder perspective of organization management and change based on engagement with employees, consumers, competitors, non-governmental organizations and public agencies. The course will taught in a seminar style, utilizing a variety of learning materials and approaches such as cases, videos, guest speakers, discussion and short lectures. Focuses on the challenges involved in attempting to turn international commitments and policy promises into action. Using examples from around the U.S. and around the world, we examine sustainable development policy implementation and operation in an effort to see what worked, what did not, and how implementation challenges can be addressed.
New Summer 2008 Sustainability Courses
Building a Local Living Economy: Exploring the Frontier of Sustainability Business Sustainability is the subject of countless business initiatives around the world. This interest reflects increased awareness of environmental and human social crises emanating from climate change, fresh water scarcity, species extinction, topsoil depletion, deforestation, and other problems. The global business system is often seen as a root cause of these crises and problems. How should businesses face up to and address this issue? What changes in business and economic institutions might insure that conditions exist for human and all other life on Earth to thrive undiminished, indefinitely? That question is at the core of this new course. The course asks if the business world can effectively address the issue of sustainability within the context of the finance-oriented and growth-driven paradigm that shapes current business and management thinking. Drawing on systemic, evolutionary, and ecological modes of thinking implicit in modern biological, physical and cognitive sciences, the course will consider an alternative paradigm that is grounded in nature – particularly in knowledge gleaned from modern science about the operation of natural living systems. The course will draw largely, but not entirely, on the books Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living by physicist and life scientist Fritjof Capra and The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition by entrepreneur and activist Michael Shuman. There are no prerequisites. No prior knowledge of business or science is assumed. |
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