Week 2: Working Remotely / Prof B’s Classes Meet on Zoom

To my SUST 101 and 220 students — This week of 9/5/23 I will again work remotely from my home office in Joliet, in the Lower Des Plaines River watershed. Please check your course Bb site and your RU email for communications and instructions regarding your class(es) this week. We will meet via Zoom during our regularly scheduled times, so plan accordingly in order to have a relatively quiet and appropriate space for logging in.

Questions? Please get in touch via email or phone, as noted on my Contact page.

Yours in environmental stewardship,
Prof B

Wanna Learn More ’bout Sustainability? Here’s 10 Ways You Can this Fall @RooseveltU

Let’s be real, shall we? A world rocked by climate change, toxic pollution, devastated biodiversity, and persistent environmental injustice demands change. The folks in charge? While some have their hearts in the right place, and others even know full well there’s a crisis ongoing around us that demands immediate action, the fact is they’re not getting it done.

So who is going to do it? Who’s going to actually get off their duffs, get us out of collective fossil-fuel guzzling garbage-spewing junk-food-eating rut, and create healthy sustainable future for people and the planet? Everyone has a stake in this, of course, particularly the current generation of college students (of all ages). Here @RooseveltU, creating a sustainable future isn’t just a cool and fun thing to do with like-minded folks (though it certainly is); it’s an obligation mandated by our social justice mission.

Education, experiential learning, and activism are key parts of the struggle to create a truly sustainable planet (not to mention college campus), and that’s where SUST courses come in. RU students should look over the Fall 2023 schedule using this Coursefinder, (2) check the remaining course requirements in Degree Works, and (3) email or call your assigned academic advisor with your planned schedule and any questions you have about your upcoming classes. Your advisor will provide you with an RU Access registration code so you can register. Click on selected titles below for detailed course previews!

Sustainability Studies courses still open for enrollment this Fall 2023:

  • SUST 101 Humans & Nature (TTh 11am-12:15pm, Ideas, Prof. Bryson)
  • SUST 210 Sustainable Future (M 9:30-12pm, EXL, Staff)
  • SUST 220 Water (Th 2-4:30pm, EXL, Prof. Bryson)
  • SUST 230 Food (W 2-4:30pm, Staff)
  • SUST 240 Waste (online, 8/28-10/21, Prof. Jones)
  • SUST 261 Writing for Non-Profits (TTh 2-3:15pm, EXL, Prof. Blancato)
  • SUST 320 Sprawl, Transportation & Planning (online, Prof. Gerberich)
  • SUST 330 Biodiversity (Field Museum, Th 9am-1pm, EXL, Prof. Kerbis; see course preview)
  • SUST 362 Climate, Cities & Justice (W 2-4:30pm, Prof. Farmer)
  • SUST 390 Environmental Crime (MW 12:30-1:45pm, Prof. Green)

Ideas = Ideas of Social Justice course (CORE gen ed credit)
EXL = Experiential Learning course (ditto)

For additional useful info, see this Advising Resources page on Prof. Mike Bryson’s faculty website as well as this Registration page on the RU website.

Students of SUST 250 Sustainable University (April 2022) after their team presentations of campus sustainability projects

Thoughts on Writing, AI Chatbots, & HAL 9000

As I entered the final week of my summer online gen ed seminar at RooseveltU called “Humans & Nature,” I wrote the following note to my students in our Writing Workshop discussion forum. Their final assignment was to compose a Creative Nature Essay of approximately five pages in which they reflect on their personal connection (or lack thereof) to the natural world and discuss at least two of our required readings. The instructions for the assignment are appended below.

On the subject of possibly giving in to the temptation to use ChatGPT4 or any other AI-based tool to draft or edit your Creative Nature Essay, your nature outing reflections, or any and all posts to our discussion forums in Blackboard . . .

First, and I can’t say this strongly enough: don’t do it!

The writing you do for this key assignment in our class, from the brainstorming to the drafting to the revision to the final editing stage, must be your own. I say this for many reasons, but most importantly these:

  • I don’t care what a chatbot thinks about nature, humanity, and our course readings. I want to know what you think about it. The only way you can do that is through your own thoughts and words, not a AI robot’s.
  • Using AI to assist your writing might seem efficient and fast, and thus far easier (sorta kinda) than doing your own hard work. But I’m not interested in reading things that are efficient and easy and quick. The only way you can grapple with what you know and think is to go through the difficult and, yes, sometimes painful process of writing, reflecting, reconsidering, and rewriting. That’s how we learn and grow.
  • AI-generated text might use a lot of big words and be structured in a superficially logical way and thus sound knowledgeable, but it’s usually boring, predictable, and highly mechanical. It lacks soul and feeling. It’s often embarrassingly cliché. It’s pretty much devoid of humor or wit. In short — it’s not good writing.In fact, it often sucks, as I found out recently when I asked ChatGPT to write an urban nature poem set on Chicago’s South Side.The result was indeed poetry — but of the doggerel variety.
  • Most profs can spot this kind of seemingly-good-but-actually-bad writing a mile away, because we’re read thousands upon thousands of papers, emails, blog posts, and discussion board entries by college students over years (in my case, decades) of teaching, and I have a very good sense of the normal range of writing ability in undergraduates.
  • Last but not least: using AI to write a discussion post, a term paper, a creative essay, a song, etc. is technically and quite obviously plagiarism, and thus academically dishonest.

Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was based on the novel of the same title by Arthur C. Clarke. The film is slowly paced, even ponderous, but complex and and somewhat inscrutable; consequently, people usually love it (me) or hate it (the rest of my family). Notably, pretty much everyone agrees that the best character in the movie is an AI-powered supercomputer, who (which?) is truly one of the great villians in movie history: HAL 9000, the all-powerful guidance computer system aboard the interstellar spacecraft “Jupiter.”

HAL was developed by computer scientists at the University of Illinois in 1992 and represents state of the art computational speed and acumen circa 2001, or so the story goes. As the quintessential embodiment of Artificial Intelligence, HAL carries on deep conversations with the human crew members of the spaceship, which is on a secret and important mission (about which we don’t know hardly anything).

A key plot point of the story is that HAL goes haywire: it becomes concerned that the human crew leaders falsely suspect it of malfunction, and thus are jeopardizing completion of the ship’s mission. So HAL, since it controls everything on the ship, goes on a killing spree, eliminating the crew one by one. Eventually the mission leader, Dave, is the only one left. Iin this scene, he’s outside the main ship in a small “pod,” trying to dock with the main ship and return safely.

2001 was a prescient story about, among many other things, the profound and often unforeseen dangers of technology and, more specifically, the possibility that AI could pose a danger to those who created it, by dint of its acquiring various aspects of human intelligence and, by extension, behavior.

In the decades since 2001 was released in 1968, computer technology and AI research has increased exponentially and at shocking speed. 2022/23 will go down in history as an important milestone in the development of this technology, which up until recently had advanced in comparative fits and starts. Right now, in real time, we’re witnessing an explosion of AI search tools, chatbots, and more — with global tech giants racing each other to advance and market the newest development. All this has had profound consequences for untold aspects of social and economic life, including education.

AI-generated writing is in the process of shaking up the entire education establishment, as students grapple with when to use / not use these powerful tools, and faculty strive to figure out how to account for them in their assignment design. Policies and procedures for using and/or prohibiting AI writing are going to evolve over the next several months and years, as the use of such tech tools grows.

Honestly, I have no idea where this is going to go — but I hope I don’t end up like the professor equivalent of Dave in 2001, begging HAL to let him back on to the ship and then realizing he’s really “up a creek,” as my grandma would say.

Right now, for SUST 101, we’re hewing closely to the title of our course: Humans & Nature. May all of your text for this class be human-generated, warts and all.

Questions and comments are welcome in this thread. Meanwhile, I encourage you to carefully review the Academic Honesty statement in our SUST 101 syllabus: SUST 101 Assignments 2023Sum.pdf

Prof B*

*I certify that 100% of the text above was human generated by me, Michael A. Bryson, a flesh-and-blood person, on 26 June 2023 and slightly updated on 14 Aug 2023. I am not a bot, but a flawed human being who makes various kinds of mistakes and unforced errors on a daily basis, as my wife and daughters would freely attest.

101 Creative Nature Essay Instructions (2023Sum)

5wk Online Summer Course: SUST 101 Humans & Nature

Hey there, RU students! Looking for an Ideas of Social Justice course to take this summer to make progress on your CORE gen ed requirements? Here’s a great option: a 5-week fully online seminar, SUST 101 Humans & Nature, taught by Prof. Mike Bryson of the Sustainability Studies Program at Roosevelt from 5/30 to 7/10.

SUST students explore Northerly Island, March 2023
SUST students explore Northerly Island, March 2023

To register for this class: please visit RU’s Registration page for info and contact your academic advisor for your summer (and fall!) registration code(s). You can find the name of your advisor in Degree Works.

SUST 101 (CRN 31950) features interactive online discussions on Bb and three self-directed “nature outings,” wherever you are, that give you a great excuse to get outside and enjoy summertime while earning credit for this unique learning experience. For more information on that, just email Prof B (mbryson@roosevelt.edu).

Detailed info for those who want to learn more:

This summer 2023 section of SUST 101 Humans & Nature takes place fully online on a compressed five-week calendar from 5/30 to 7/10. We’ll be using the virtual learning environment of Blackboard (hereafter referred to as “Bb,” for short). The key thing to understand about online courses, like this one, is that they’re interactive — just as my on-campus students read assignments, write papers, construct arguments, do research, and come to class to engage in lively discussion, so too will you share ideas and interact in virtual time. Bb gives us the web-based tools to do just that.

For the vast majority of our interaction, we’ll use threaded discussion forums, which are asynchronous (i.e., not in real time) means of communicating, to exchange ideas and materials on a weekly basis. Reading and posting to the discussion board is like coming to class, except that you can do it any time of day throughout a given week.

Learning Objectives

Students who complete SUST 101 successfully should be able to:

  • Understand how different individuals, whether political theorists, philosophers, artists, activists, scientists, and/or writers, have characterized the relationship between themselves and nature (and, more broadly, between the human species and the non-human environment)
  • Appreciate the complexity of the physical and biological world, and understand the various impacts humans have upon local and global ecosystems
  • Draw connections between their own life experiences as they evaluate and expand upon their understandings of the texts of this course
  • Articulate ways in which the course themes embody or illuminate ideas of social and environmental justice
  • Demonstrate skills in foundational academic skills: close analysis of texts, idea-centered dialogue, and essay writing
  • Become a better communicator by honing one’s writing and discussion skills, using words powerfully and strategically, and gaining confidence in the mastery of these skills

SUST Program Learning Objectives addressed in SUST 101:

  • Understand the relationships among social justice, environmental justice, and corporate social responsibility; and analyze sustainability issues in light of this ethical framework.
  • Apply knowledge about sustainability to areas of personal, educational, and/or professional interest through applied research, community service, environmental activism, project management, or related activities.

Required Textbook

The selections in our textbook comprise the bulk of our assigned readings for this semester. It is available in print from the RU bookstore as well as a free e-book from the RU library. Make a note of the ISBN # so you get the correct edition when ordering. Additional reading selections will be available to you on our course Blackboard (Bb) site.

Deming, Alison, and Lauret Savoy, eds. The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World. 2011. Milkweed Editions. Paper. ISBN 9781571313195.

Requirements and Key Assignments

This class is five weeks in duration (running from 6/1 through 7/5) and has a distinct weekly rhythm. Required readings will include selections from our assigned textbook, supplemented by assorted websites related to each week’s topic, student-selected readings and videos, and/or other documents (usually pdfs) available in the Readings section of our Bb site. Key course requirements include:

  • Class Participation: regular and engaged participation during our weekly online discussions of assigned readings
  • Discussion Leadership: an assigned week during which you select and lead discussion on one selection from our anthology (this is on top of your regular class participation for that week)
  • Nature Outings: three self-directed nature excursions (30 minutes or more) in which you observe and experience nature in whatever context is appealing and available to you, then post your reflections about it on the DB
  • Creative Nature Essay: a 4-5 page paper that creatively engages and explores your relationship with the natural world, as well as critically reflects upon two of our course readings

Elevate Your Education & Beautify RU’s Campus this Summer 2023 in SUST 390 Rooftop Garden

Looking for an out-of-the-ordinary summer class? Get some fresh air and dirt under your nails in RU’s Sustainability Studies program innovative special topics course, SUST 390 Rooftop Garden, at the Chicago Campus! The class will utilize RU’s unique 5th-story rooftop garden on its LEED Gold-certified Wabash Building as a living classroom for a hands-on, place-based, get-your-hands-dirty learning experience. This hybrid / experiential learning class is quite flexible, so it can fit into your summer schedule!

  • Title/number: SUST 390 Rooftop Garden (section 10)
  • Semester offered: Summer 2023 (from May 30 thru Aug 14)
  • Location: Chicago Campus
  • Day/time: Online learning commences 5/30, with garden workdays and field trips to selected urban farms/green rooftops in the Chicago region scheduled by the instructor according to students’ availability
  • Pre-req: ENG 102

SUST majors and minors may take this class to fulfill an upper-level SUST 3xx requirement, but 390 also is open to students at large seeking an experiential learning course, needing a general education course, or desiring elective credit.

RU Alumni Scott Rosenzweig & Jeff Kressman: Starting ESG Core Advisors LLC

Corporate/Industrial ESG — Operations, Management, and Organizational Culture
RU Alumni Scott Rosenzweig, MBA ’98, Founder and CEO of ESG Core Advisors (LinkedIn profile) and Jeff Kressman, MSMC ’83, VP Marketing of ESG Core Advisors (LinkedIn profile)

This Tuesday 4/25 at 5pm CST, please join us for our third virtual Master Class on the relations between sustainability business, when we host Mr. Scott Rosenzweig (MBA ’96), Sustainability Entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of ESG Core Advisors, and sustainability consultant/strategist for mid-market companies seeking to integrate sustainability into their mission and operations. As a proud 1996 alum of RU’s Heller College of Business, Scott is highly engaged with our university in various capacities, notably serving on the HCB Advisory Board and mentoring business students as they seek out their career pathways.

Scott is a dynamic and engaging speaker who will share his compelling personal story of business and management success as well as why and how he started ESG Core Advisors to help transform and inspire corporations to lead us toward a sustainable future.

Joining Scott is his colleague and fellow RU alum Jeff Kressman (MSMC ’83), VP Marketing of ESG Core Advisors.

Zoom Login Info:

https://roosevelt.zoom.us/j/99002167623?pwd=Q3VKdndzVE1RdndEOTQzVUNpNVdZdz09
Meeting ID: 990 0216 7623
Password: 871074

This Earth Month 2023 @RooseveltU on Tuesdays we explore different aspects of the critical role of sustainability in today’s business world. Distinguished RU alumni from the Colleges of Business and Arts & Sciences are giving special guest presentations each Tuesday 5-6pm CST, in Prof. Jennifer Muryn’s MGMT 390 Contemporary Topics in Business online class. These SUST + MGMT alumni talks are open to the RU and Resilience Studies Consortium community via Zoom. Please join us!

Earth Week 2023 Action @RooseveltU!

It’s Earth Week 2023 @RooseveltU! Students in the RU Green club and the SUST 210 Sustainable Future course have a whole bunch of cool stuff planned today 4/19 through Fri 4/12. Please attend and spread the word!

Wed 4/19 from 5-6:30pm (WB 1111) — Powerlands film screening: Join RU Green for a viewing of the documentary Powerlands, in which a “young Navajo filmmaker investigates displacement of Indigenous people and devastation of the environment caused by the same chemical companies that have exploited the land where she was born.” A short discussion will follow the film, and snacks will be provided!

 

Th 4/20 from 11am-1pm (WB 5th Floor Fitness Center) — WB Rooftop Garden Clean-up (waiver required; see below). Get some fresh air and your nails dirty by helping to clean up the garden and prepare it for the spring planting season!

Th 4/20 from 11:30am-1pm (WB Dining Center) — Ice Cream Social! Calling all Roosevelt Students! We need your help spreading the word about LakersDay. Come to the LakersDay Ice Cream Social on Thursday, April 20, take a picture in our photo booth, and post to social media using the #rulakersday. You will receive $20 in LakersDay bucks to place in the college fund of your choice.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is lakersday-ice-cream-social-2023.png

Th 4/20 from 12:30-1:45pm (WB 616 / Dining Center) — Students in SUST 210 Sustainable Future are staging two good-old-fashioned environmental happenings as part of the WorldWide Teach-In for Climate & Justice. A team focused on the sustainability in our Dining Center will be staffing an info/outreach table in the caf, while six other teams will present a provocative series of lightning talks on Athletics, Environmental Justice, Food, Transportation, Waste, and Water!

Join us in WB 616 as well as on Zoom for those presentations, and check out these other RU Green-sponsored Earth Week activities and events. Zoom link: https://roosevelt.zoom.us/j/92892253109

RU Student Waivers are required for all participants in the Th Rooftop Garden clean-up and the Eden Place community service field trip.

  • Please return a signed pdf version to Prof. Mike Bryson (mbryson@roosevelt.edu) and to RU Green president Natalie Seitz (nseitz@mail.roosevelt.edu).
  • Waiver document: ru-green-travel-waiver-forms-2023april (pdf)

For more info, email Prof. Mike Bryson (mbryson@roosevelt.edu), SUST 210 Instructor and Dedicated Composter, and/or Natalie Seitz (nseitz@mail.roosevelt.edu), RU Green president. Keep using those green bins for your banana peels!

Don’t Go Without Water this Week: See “Without Water . . .” on Tue 4/11 @RooseveltU

Next Tuesday 4/11 as part of the 2023 Roosevelt Student Research and Inquiry Symposium as well as the WorldWide Teach-In for Climate and Justice, CCPA Acting and SUST 360 Honors students will collaborate on an interdisciplinary arts + humanities event combining performance and critical discussion.

Please join us at 2pm CST in the Fainman Lounge in RU’s historic Auditorium Building for an encore performance of the original devised play, “Without Water,” conceived and written by the first-year BFA Acting Class of 2026 and directed by Prof. Elise Kauzlaric in the CCPA’s Theatre Conservatory. The performance will be bracketed by commentary on the role of water in the urban environment by students in Prof. Mike Bryson’s SUST 360 Writing Urban Nature honors seminar, followed by an interactive discussion among the two groups of students and the audience.

This is the first-ever creative collaboration between the CCPA Theatre Conservatory and the Sustainability Studies Program of the College of Arts & Sciences at Roosevelt University in Chicago. The event also is part of the annual week-long scholarly and creative extravaganza known as the Roosevelt Student Research and Inquiry Symposium as well as the WorldWide Teach-In for Climate and Justice and RU’s Earth Month 2023 programming. Hope to see you there!

The cast of “Without Water” (BFA Acting Class of 2025, CCPA)

SUST 360 Honors students hiking at Northerly Island, March 2023

Questions or to RSVP:
Contact Prof. Mike Bryson (mbryson@roosevelt.edu)
Dept. of Sociology & Sustainability / College of Arts & Sciences

Application Deadline Extended to 3/27 for the 2023 FACE Program Summer Fellowship @RU

The Mansfield Institute’s Fellowship for Activism and Community Engagement (FACE) program will support 15 undergraduate Fellows over Summer 2023. This cohort-based summer fellowship includes funding for a 3-credit Social Justice in Action internship-based course in May 2022. In addition to tuition for this course, Fellows will receive a stipend of $2,500.

Following their course work in late May, Fellows will work in a social justice–focused community-based organization in or around Chicago for 9 weeks (11 hours/week) over the summer starting in early June. Fellows will have an opportunity to meet and work with past Fellows, attend University events together, and potentially present work at conferences. Applicants should have sophomore or junior standing with an interest in social justice and at least a 2.0 GPA (see below). Students receive a $2,500 stipend and 3 credits tuition-free for this experiential social justice-focused, cohort-based Fellowship.

New Deadline: Apply for the Fellowship by March 27, 2023

Eligibility

  • Open to all Roosevelt University students in any college or major
  • Students must have between 45 and 72 credit hours completed on March 13, 2023 (sophomore or junior standing)
  • GPA of at least a 2.0
  • Have an interest in Social Justice

What Fellows Can Expect To Do

  • Work with program faculty to select and secure a paid summer internship
  • Participate in a 3-full day seminar at the end of May 2023
  • Work in a community-based organization (100 hours over the summer)
  • Develop networks and build friendships
  • Earn $2500 and 3 credits toward graduation

Application Info

Apply here for the Mansfield Fellowship for Activism and Community Engagement (new deadline is March 27th, 2023)

Applications Open for the 2023 FACE Program Summer Fellowship @RU

The Mansfield Institute’s Fellowship for Activism and Community Engagement (FACE) program will support 15 undergraduate Fellows over Summer 2023. This cohort-based summer fellowship includes funding for a 3-credit Social Justice in Action internship-based course in May 2022. In addition to tuition for this course, Fellows will receive a stipend of $2,500.

Following their course work in late May, Fellows will work in a social justice–focused community-based organization in or around Chicago for 9 weeks (11 hours/week) over the summer starting in early June. Fellows will have an opportunity to meet and work with past Fellows, attend University events together, and potentially present work at conferences. Applicants should have sophomore or junior standing with an interest in social justice and at least a 2.0 GPA (see below). Students receive a $2,500 stipend and 3 credits tuition-free for this experiential social justice-focused, cohort-based Fellowship.

Apply for the Fellowship by March 13, 2023

Eligibility

  • Open to all Roosevelt University students in any college or major
  • Students must have between 45 and 72 credit hours completed on March 13, 2023 (sophomore or junior standing)
  • GPA of at least a 2.0
  • Have an interest in Social Justice

What Fellows Can Expect To Do

  • Work with program faculty to select and secure a paid summer internship
  • Participate in a 3-full day seminar at the end of May 2023
  • Work in a community-based organization (100 hours over the summer)
  • Develop networks and build friendships
  • Earn $2500 and 3 credits toward graduation

Application Info

Apply here for the Mansfield Fellowship for Activism and Community Engagement (deadline is March 13th, 2023)