Category: Roosevelt

SUST 390 Preview: The Sustainable Campus (Spring 2016)

Following up on Roosevelt’s campus-wide strategic sustainability planning effort in 2015, the SUST Program will offer a SUST 390 honors seminar entitled The Sustainable Campus this coming Spring 2016 semester. Taught by SUST Program Director and Professor Mike Bryson, the class will meet at the Chicago Campus on Wednesdays from 2:00 to 4:30pm, and begins January 20th, 2016. Pre-requisites: ENG 102 and Honors standing.

The Sustainable Campus: More than Just a Cool Building

RU's distinctively blue Wabash Building (constructed 2012), a LEED-gold structure that complements the National Historic Landmark Auditorium Building (foreground) at the downtown Chicago Campus.
RU’s distinctively blue Wabash Building (constructed 2012), a LEED-gold structure that complements the National Historic Landmark Auditorium Building (foreground) at the downtown Chicago Campus.

What are colleges and universities doing to make themselves more sustainable institutions? How can their efforts serve as laboratories for innovation and models for larger communities, from small college towns to sprawling suburbs to bustling big cities? What have Roosevelt University and other area institutions accomplished the last few years in creating more sustainable campuses, and where are they headed in terms of sustainability planning, operations, academics, and community relations?

This seminar focuses on the microcosm of the university as a lens through view to explore how communities are striving to save energy, conserve water, reduce waste, encourage active transportation, restore biodiversity, foster environmental literacy, develop innovative curricula, and connect with local communities. Seen in this context, the Sustainable Campus is always a work in progress, yet has the capacity to model sustainable development strategies that may be applied to communities large and small (such as the suburb of Schaumburg IL, the focus of the RU student online project, Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future).

SUST students planting trees at Eden Place Nature Center, Chicago's South Side, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)
SUST students planting trees at Eden Place Nature Center, Chicago’s South Side, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)

Making the Plan Real

While we will analyze case-studies of other US colleges and universities that are well on the path toward sustainability, this section of SUST 390 will concentrate on Roosevelt’s efforts since 2010 to green its operations and curriculum, which last year included a series of university-wide sustainability planning workshops during the Fall 2014 semester. As a follow-up to the approval of RU’s Strategic Sustainability Plan in Spring 2015 and the submission of RU’s first STARS self-assessment in Fall 2015, our class will undertake several student-led projects to advance the plan’s priority initiatives in its four thematic areas:

    RU honors students in SUST 240 Waste conduct a waste audit of RU's AUD and WB buildings, fall 2014 (M. Bryson)
    RU honors students in SUST 240 Waste conduct a waste audit of RU’s AUD and WB buildings, fall 2014 (M. Bryson)
  • Energy and Climate
  • Waste and Natural Resources
  • Education and Outreach
  • Economics and Governance

Students in SUST 390 The Sustainable Campus thus will get an in-depth and hands-on perspective on the university’s sustainability efforts and, through their project planning and implementation, make an important and lasting impact in helping the university realize its vision of becoming a more sustainable institution, both inside its walls and throughout its connection with Chicagoland communities.

For more information on this upcoming course, please contact Dr. Mike Bryson via email (mbryson@roosevelt.edu) or phone (312-281-3148).

Fall 2015: Welcome Back to RU

I would like to extend a warm welcome to my students, advisees, and colleagues to the 2015-16 academic year at Roosevelt. Here’s to an excellent Fall 2015 semester! With the recent migration of the SUST program from RU’s College of Professional Studies to the College of Arts & Sciences, my office has moved a few blocks south on Michigan Avenue, from the Gage Building to the Auditorium Building (AUD 829). As noted on my Contact page, phone and email are the same as ever. Please drop by and say hello when you get a chance. And check out this post from the SUST Blog for what’s ahead this year in our program.

On a lakefront hike with students in ACP 101 Our Sustainable Future, 26 Aug 2015 (photo: E. Choporis)
On a lakefront hike with students in ACP 101 Our Sustainable Future, 26 Aug 2015 (photo: E. Choporis)

RU Releases Its First-Ever Strategic Sustainability Plan: a Roadmap for the Future

The Plan!
The Plan, at long last!

I’m very pleased to report that the last step of our 2014-15 strategic planning process for the sustainable future of Roosevelt is now complete: the university has officially released its Strategic Sustainability Plan this week. This is not only great news, but also a tribute to the hard work and collective efforts of the students, faculty, administrators, staff, and alumni who drafted the plan in Fall 2014 and shepherded its endorsement and approval by the university’s faculty senate and administrative leadership in Spring 2015.

I want to especially commend SUST major MaryBeth Radeck, who did vital background research on sustainability planning in Spring 2014 for her SUST 395 internship, then managed the planning workshops as well as wrote/edited the plan document in Fall 2014; Paul Matthews and Tom Shelton of Physical Resources, who were co-leaders on the planning process and have supported RU’s sustainability work since 2010; Beeka Quesnell and Mary Rasic, SUST majors and Environmental Sustainability Associates in Physical Resources during 2014-15, who provided tremendous logistical support for the planning workshops; and my students in SUST 390 Sustainable Campus, who took on the initial task of researching baseline data in the Spring 2015 semester for RU’s first STARS assessment, one of the key steps that will help us drive the Plan forward in 2015 and beyond.

Check the full plan out here on the RU Green Campus website, and join the effort to work on its many goals and priority projects. There’s lots to do, so the more folks we have on board, the better!

Congratulations to Roosevelt’s May 2015 Graduates!

A warm congratulations to all Roosevelt University graduates, young and old, today as you grace the stage of RU’s beautiful Auditorium Theatre. In particular, I salute the accomplishments of our seven Sustainability Studies graduates this spring, soon to be proud alumni: Melanie Blume, Colleen Dennis, Jordan Ewbank, Ana Molledo, Kelsey Norris, Beeka Quesnell, and Jesse Williams.

Congrats to all on your achievements, hard work, and perseverance in earning your degree and, in the process, making countless positive contributions to our campus community. Best wishes for the future! I’m proud of all of you.

RU Graduation 2015

 

For more photos, check out #Roosevelt2015 on Twitter. . .

Bikes, Tweets, and Symposia on Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Here at Roosevelt, we’ve got some great events to mark the day, which I will start with a humble but well-intentioned two-mile bike ride to my train station in Joliet for my morning commute to Chicago, in honor of #RUEarthWeek2015 (pdf). Then, after dutifully putting in a few morning hours in my office, I shall repair to the Wabash Building (425 S. Wabash Ave, downtown Chicago) for these activities:

1-2pm (WB 1317) — Join me on Twitter (@MikeBryson22) for an #RUjusticechat on the relations between campus sustainability efforts and social/environmental justice. You can chat from wherever you are in the world . . . but if you’re in my neck of the woods, stop by WB 1317 for some F2F interaction and home-made cookies!

3-5:30pm (WB 616) — Attend the 2015 SUST Student Symposium, the signature Sustainability Studies event of the semester. Learn about the research and internship projects undertaken by four of our Sustainability Studies majors this year, and enjoy great conversation as well as free refreshments aplenty, courtesy of RU’s Physical Resources Dept. Hosted by the students of my SUST 390 Sustainable Campus class, who are undertaking RU’s first-ever STARS sustainability assessment this spring.

Bike2CampusWeek 2015 Flyer_Version2

Interdisciplinarity, Sustainability, & Service Learning

A little while back, I was asked by some of my environmental studies colleagues outside of RU to briefly describe my take on interdisciplinary scholarship in under 200 words. Here’s what I came up with:

An interdisciplinary scholar can speak different disciplinary languages, recognize how they work together, and use that facility to say something unique in the process. Interdisciplinary scholarship is about integration: fitting things together in a complementary, cohesive, creative fashion so that the whole is niftier than the mere sum of its parts. I’ve sung in choirs where men and women blend the different pitches and timbres of their voices in 4, 6, even 8 part harmony. At its best, interdisciplinary work is like that: creating beautiful music from difference, even the occasional dissonance, such as in the give-and-take dialogue of interdisciplinary team-teaching. While most university landscapes remain dominated by disciplinary silos, interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship open up new ground for discovery and connect faculty and students working on problems of mutual interest. 

The last few years I’ve taught in and directed the Sustainability Studies program here at Roosevelt, the curriculum for which was designed in a consciously interdisciplinary fashion to integrate methods and insights from the natural and social sciences as well as the arts and humanities. My own academic background in biology and literature, as well as my many years of working within a multidisciplinary faculty teaching general education to returning adult students in RU’s College of Professional Studies, means I have keen interest in integrating knowledge and research methods from the humanities and natural sciences — something that is an excellent fit within the inherently interdisciplinary endeavors of environmental studies and the newly emerging sustainability studies. In a previous post, I reflect on the relevance/importance of the arts and humanities to matters of environmental science and policy.

Another thought is that service learning provides a powerful vehicle for interdisciplinary teaching and learning — both within the context of a single (potentially interdisciplinary) class as well as in the collaboration of two or more courses from different academic departments. A fascinating model for this is the Sustainable City Year Program, pioneered recently by the University of Oregon and spun off in various ways by other US colleges and universities. This is an action-oriented and sustainability-directed approach to interdisciplinary learning and scholarship that can be tailored to the particular strengths and capacities of a given university.

Welcome to Roosevelt and to Chicago, Dr. Ali Malekzadeh, RU’s President-elect

Ali_Malekzadeh-200pxYesterday I attended a rare event in the history of any university: a reception honoring the formal election of new president. Faculty, staff, administrators, students, alumni, and trustees gathered in the glorious space of Roosevelt’s Murray-Green Library on the 10th floor of the landmark Auditorium Building to welcome Dr. Ali Malekzadeh, Roosevelt’s sixth president, who will take over the leadership of our institution on July 1st, 2015.

One notable thing about yesterday’s reception was that four generations of RU presidents were in attendance: Chuck Middleton, our current president; Ted Gross, who led RU from 1988 to 2002, and was president when I was hired in 1996; and Rolf Weil, who presided from 1964 to 1988. Dr. Weil is very elderly now, but still with it — and it was inspiring to see him obviously enjoying the proceedings. Like him, President-elect Ali (as he kindly insisted on being called, rather than by his full name and title) is a business-oriented lifelong academic, rather than the last two presidents who came from literature and history, respectively.

I got to speak with Dr. Malekzadeh twice, albeit briefly, and found him funny, warm, articulate, charming, and friendly. He seemed very comfortable working a room and schmoozing, and perhaps that is among the many important qualities a president must have. When I identified myself simply as “Mike Bryson, Sustainability Studies,” with no other explanation, he looked at me keenly and said emphatically, “That is the future. We will talk.” I can only guess at his true feelings on the subject of sustainability and higher ed — but his response seemed to imply that on an important fundamental level, he gets it. We will see!

I wish President-elect Malekzadeh all the best in what I hope will be a long and fruitful career for him at Roosevelt as he leads us through a tremendous time of transition and, it must be noted, great financial challenges. His reputed fundraising acumen will be most welcome and is urgently needed.

Selected press articles: Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and Daily Herald

Sustainability and Biodiversity at the Field Museum

Last Monday, as a warm 60+ degree (F) day enveloped downtown Chicago in a splendid preview of spring, my students and I hiked from Roosevelt’s Gage Building in the Loop to the lakefront, where we strolled southward to that great edifice of natural history and biodiversity, the Field Museum. Once there, we met up with Carter O’Brien, the Museum’s sustainability manager (who basically created the job over a number of years after spearheading the FMNH’s recycling program). Carter gave us a comprehensive walking tour of the museum’s grounds, community garden, and loading dock.

SUST 210 visits the FMNH with Carter O'Brien (front left), the museum's sustainability manager (aka "green guru")
SUST 210 visits the FMNH with Carter O’Brien (front left), the museum’s sustainability manager (aka “green guru”)

Along with many of staff and researchers at the FMNH, Carter has spearheaded the museum’s efforts to green its practices in energy consumption, waste management, food service, recycling, transportation, exhibit design, and gardening. Despite being an institution dedicated to studying and conserving the world’s rich trove of biodiversity, the Field Museum until recently was not at all sustainable in its own operations, an irony not lost on environmental advocates such as Carter and many of his museum colleagues. Now the FMNH is a recognized leader in transforming old buildings into sustainably-managed facilities, as it recently garnered a LEED Gold rating on its operations and maintenance from the US Green Building Council, only the 2nd existing museum building in the US to do so, and it has just received a $2 million grant to redevelop its grounds within Chicago’s famed Museum Campus in ways that enhance biodiversity, water conservation, and public education.

Carter brought us inside through the seemingly ancient (and surprisingly small) loading dock, thorough a phalanx of heavy doors, narrow passageways, and claustrophobic elevators (all part of the FM’s 19th Century charm), and to the Botany research division, one of the four major research/collections areas of the museum. There we met up with the equally ebullient Dr. Matt Von Konrat, who has many titles at the museum but is best known as an early land plant botanist (which means he studies mosses and liverworts both here and abroad) and the Head of Botanical Collections at the museum.

Dr. Matt Von Konrat in the Botany Collection at the FMNH (photo: M. Wasinka)
Dr. Matt Von Konrat in the Botany Collection at the FMNH (photo: M. Wasinka)

Dr. Von Konrat was kind enough to set up a sampling of preserved plant specimens from the Museum’s vast collection, which when arrayed on a huge wooden table represented a journey of 500 million years of land plant evolution. Many of these examples had special significance as type specimens, which are recognized as being archetypal examples of the species that are used for benchmarking certain key identifying characteristics.

Photo: M. Wasinka
Photo: M. Wasinka

One plant, a particularly tiny moss, held special significance in a recent court case about Burr Oak Cemetery scandal  in the far South Side Chicago neighborhood of Dunning. Cemetery caretakers dug up several hundred human remains and dumped them in a mass grave in order to sell additional plots in the cemetery over a several year period. The moss was part of forensic evidence analyzed by Dr. Von Konrat that proved the involvement of cemetery employees in this heinous crime. The story illustrates the profoundly important role that environmental evidence can play in forensics, and the potential value in aligning the study of botany (and sustainability) with that of criminal justice.

After both of these splendid tours, my students and I ventured forth into the public area of the museum — its exhibits, naturally! — where we inspected the notable (and LEED Gold certified) conservation exhibit, Restoring Earth, which documents FMNH efforts to conserve natural and human communities in South America as well as restore local prairie, woodland, and wetland ecosystems here in the Chicago region.

Photo: M. Wasinka
Photo: M. Wasinka

SUST 390 “Writing Urban Nature” Course Preview (Summer 2015)

RU students paddle the North Branch of the Chicago River, Fall 2013 (M. Bryson)
RU students paddle the North Branch of the Chicago River, Fall 2012 (M. Bryson)

This May 2015 one-week-intensive section of SUST 390 Writing Urban Nature is an environmental literature and writing special topics course distinguished by in-the-field explorations of various natural and urban environments. The class provides a unique immersive experience in “nature close at hand” at sites of ecological and cultural significance in the Chicago region. Strong emphasis on close observing place and people; walking and exploring landscapes and neighborhoods; and reflecting on / discussing compelling ideas, stories, and images of urban nature, broadly defined.

Sand County AlmanacAssigned readings will include selections from May Watts, Reading the Landscape of America; Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac; Joel Greenberg, Of Prairie, Woods, and Water; blogs such as City Creatures and The Nature of Cities; and other texts. The reading list will be distributed well in advance of the class so that students will have time to read ahead prior to the week’s explorations and discussions.

Daily activities will consist of field excursions to sites of interest in Chicago’s urban landscape; discussion of assigned readings; quiet time for personal reflection, journal writing, and photography; and potential service work for local environmental organizations. Students’ daily journal and photo archive will provide material for a personal/critical reflection essay (due one week after the class ends) that incorporates text and image, critically analyzes selections from the course reading list, and reflects on the student’s individual experience in the class. Collectively, the class will produce an online project (“Chicago’s Urban Nature”) as part of the SUST at RU Blog that features creative/reflective writing that reflects upon their experience and incorporates both text and image.

SUST students visit the North Park Village Nature Center, Fall 2012 (M. Bryson)
SUST students visit the North Park Village Nature Center, Fall 2012 (M. Bryson)

Potential sites we will explore include Chicago’s lakeshore parklands and public spaces, the Chicago River (on foot and/or by canoe), neighborhood parks of cultural and ecological significance, nature centers on the North and South Sides, selected urban farms within the city, and the natural and industrial lands of the Calumet Region on the far South Side. The week’s schedule is still under development, but the varied locations will give students an opportunity to explore many seldom-seen parts of the city within a unique learning context. Most of these activities will be free, though a small fee may be charged to cover certain trips (e.g., canoe trip on the Chicago River). Public transportation will be used to access most sites. Carpooling options will be discussed at the May 6 pre-session (see below).

Who Should Take this Class

SUST students working at the Eden Place Nature Center on Chicago's South Side, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)
SUST students working at the Eden Place Nature Center on Chicago’s South Side, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)

SUST 390 Writing Urban Nature is cross-listed with ENG 340 Writing Urban Nature and PLS 371 Humanities Seminar II. SUST majors can take SUST 390 Writing Urban Nature for major credit as a SUST core course, as a Relevant Elective within their major, or as a general elective. Students who have taken a previous version of SUST 390 are eligible to take this version for credit. English majors may use this as an upper-level ENG credit or as an elective course in SUST or ENG. Students in the PLS Flex-Track program may register for PLS 371 for Humanities II credit as an upper-level general education course, or take SUST 390 for elective credit.

Registration Information

  • SUST 390-X1 Writing Urban Nature — CRN 30666 / Pre-req: ENG 102 with a grade of C- or better
  • ENG 340-X1 Writing Urban Nature — CRN 30689 / Pre-req: ENG 220 with a grade of C- or better
  • PLS 371-X1 Humanities Seminar II — CRN 30690 / Pre-req: PLS 370 or concurrent; admission to Flex-Track program for adults or advisor consent

Meets May 18-22 from 10:30am to 5pm at RU’s Chicago Campus. Required pre-session on May 6 from 4:30-6pm, room TBA. Some additional work online required; final assignment due May 29.

For more information, contact Prof. Mike Bryson (mbryson@roosevelt.edu or 312-281-3148).