During the Fall 2014 semester at Roosevelt University, undergraduate students from two of my Sustainability Studies classes — SUST 210 Sustainable Future (online) and 240 Waste & Consumption (honors) — contributed over 30 blog posts on news and topical developments in urban/suburban sustainability in the Chicago region, thus continuing the site’s blogging tradition when we launched the site as a SUST 210 student research project on Earth Day 2011.
In addition, these classes conducted in-depth research on sustainability efforts and waste-related environmental justice issues in several dozen communities, both locally and across the US. The fruits of this research will be posted in coming weeks to the Community Profiles and Environmental Justice sections of this site, so stay tuned for what will be a significant expansion of the SSF website. To date, the Schaumburg’s Sustainable Future (SSF) project includes 163 blog posts and 100 in-depth essays on a wide range of sustainability issues, problems, and solutions. The vast majority of this content is student-authored, which is a cool demonstration of the value of the site as a learning tool and educational resource.
Members of my SUST 240 Waste & Consumption honors seminar (Fall 2014) on a field trip to Canal Origins Park and Bubbly Creek, Chicago IL (Sept 2014)
Advising and registration are now ongoing (since Nov 1st) for the Spring 2015 semester at Roosevelt. RU students, please look over the Spring 2015 schedule using this coursefinder, check remaining course requirements on your curriculum checksheet, and 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.
Sustainability Studies courses offered in Spring 2015:
SUST 210 Sustainable Future (Chicago, M 1-3:30pm, Bryson)
SUST 220 Water (online, Jones)
SUST 230 Food (Chicago, T 6-8:30pm, Gerberich)
SUST 240 Waste (online, Bryson)
SUST 310 Energy & Climate Change (Chicago, W 6-8:30pm, Flower)
SUST 340 Policy, Law, & Ethics (online, Hoffman)
SUST 390 Sustainable Campus (Chicago, W 3-5:3pm, Bryson)
December is a super busy time of the academic year, but don’t neglect getting in touch with your advisor; it’s the best time to get signed up for classes. For additional useful info, see this Advising Resources page here on my website.
The Four Freedoms Fellowship offers Roosevelt University students a unique opportunity to develop leadership, public speaking, and advocacy skills to effect change on critical issues. Throughout the academic year, selected Fellows will participate in a series of interactive trainings to deepen their knowledge of the political landscape, learn effective strategies to influence decision-makers, and be able to powerfully articulate their personal stories as a tool for change. Trainings will take place on Friday mornings at the Chicago Campus starting on Sept. 26th.
Four Freedoms Fellows will be awarded $750 in the form of financial aid that will be divided between the Fall and Spring semesters. Both undergraduate and graduate students from all academic disciplines are encouraged to apply. Fellows will have the opportunity to take a leadership role in advocacy efforts at Roosevelt and have occasion to represent the University at press conferences or events with elected officials.
Interested students may apply here. The deadline for submitting online applications is Sept. 10th, 2014. For questions about the Fellowship, please contact Jennifer Tani, Assistant Vice President for Community Engagement at RU, at jtani@roosevelt.edu or 312-341-2375.
The Delta Institute has posted an opportunity for a Development Intern for either the Fall 2014 or the Spring 2015 semester this coming academic year. Check out its website and the detailed description below for position details and application deadlines.
Yesterday I took part in an event at Roosevelt sponsored by its Office of Institutional Research, Assessment, and Reaccreditation on academic program assessment. Faculty and staff from over a dozen academic departments across the six colleges of the university presented data and conclusions from the 2013-14 academic assessment work that was supported by a “microgrant” program for the Spring 2014 semester.
I gave a short presentation (see this pdf of the slideshow) on the assessment work we did in the Sustainability Studies Program in 2013-14: the Sustainability Literacy Survey that was administered to all Fall 2013 SUST classes as well as to a sub-sample of other CPS undergraduate courses in Criminal Justice and Professional & Liberal Studies gen ed seminars.
This preliminary survey was a key part of the SUST Program’s Assessment Plan for 2013-14, and was based on the “Assessment of Sustainability Knowledge” survey instrument developed in July 2013 by The Environmental & Social Sustainability Lab, The Ohio State University. This survey was endorsed as assessment tool by AASHE and has been promoted on the AASHE blog to other universities wishing to gather comparable data about the general level of sustainability literacy among US undergraduates.
Goals of the Sustainability Literacy (SL) Survey
Determine baseline SL of RU undergrads in 2013
Compare groups of students (by class, age, major, etc.)
Facilitate program assessment in relation to SL at other US universities
Despite the rather small sample size (173 surveys will returned) of this pilot study, some useful data resulted from the effort. The graph below displays how different majors performed on the survey in terms of overall % of correct answers out of 28 questions that covered environmental, economic, and social topics related to sustainability. SUST majors outperformed all other groups by a wide margin here.
Another useful way to view the data is to convert the % correct scores of each respondent to a letter grade, using the traditional scale of 90% = A, etc. This provides a more nuanced look at how students in different groups do on the assessment beyond the mean score. Notably, almost two-thirds of SUST majors scored a B or higher on the survey, while only 6% failed. In contrast, 87% of non-SUST majors scored a C or lower on the survey.
Conclusions
Sustainability Studies majors as a group score significantly higher on this sustainability literacy survey than non-SUST students at RU as a whole, or any other sub-group of undergraduate majors.
RU students as a whole score slightly lower than undergrads at the Ohio State University (64% vs. 69%, respectively), but their performance is comparable.
Overall, undergraduate students at RU are relatively illiterate about basic sustainability facts and issues, as their average score is a “D” when converted to a letter grade.
SUST majors scores potentially indicate the value of the curriculum at improving basic sustainability literacy at the undergraduate level, though some such students may enter RU with a higher baseline level of SL.
There is a real need for sustainability education across the board for all undergraduate students, regardless of major.
Next Steps for SUST Program Assessment
Continue analyzing results of SL Survey and share with SUST part-time faculty.
Explore feasibility of administering the student to a representative sample of all RU undergrads in 2014-15.
Contribute assessment data to RU’s Environmental Sustainability Committee and discuss relevance STARS 2.0 reporting for overall university sustainability efforts.
Follow up with other assessment activities: curriculum review, alumni survey, writing/communication/critical analysis skills, etc.
Special Acknowledgment: The “Rogers Factor”
Key contributions to this survey assessment and analysis were made by two invaluable people at RU, who together constitute the “Rogers Factor”:
Ester Rogers, RU’s Office of Institutional Research: helped with survey design & implementation, suggestions for modes of analysis, and Microgrant funding support during the Spring 2014 semester.
Scott Rogers, junior SUST major in the College of Professional Studies: performed key data entry work and contributed a wide range of preliminary analysis of survey results.
Resources on Sustainability Assessment
Sustainability Studies Assessment Plan (pdf), updated Jan. 2014
Yesterday afternoon I arrived in Eugene, Oregon, for the Sustainable City Year Program conference — the 3rd such gathering held annually at the University Of Oregon. I’m on a fact-finding mission to learn how the five-year-old SCYP got started at U of O, get insights from other colleges and universities who have started their own versions of the program at their institutions, and bring back good ideas to potentially implement at Roosevelt in Chicago.
13th Street at the Univ of Oregon in Eugene OR
I’ve already met some fantastic and interesting people here in Eugene, where we’re comfortably appointed at the downtown Eugene Hilton, and greatly anticipating today’s workshops and discussions. This gathering is rather small — more like a workshop than a conference — so I expect to get to know almost everyone in the group fairly easily in what will be three days of vigorous discussion and socializing. There are folks here from all across the US and even abroad (the Centre Transnational de Recherche Gabon), and it’s a nice mix of academics like myself as well as city professionals and officials — since the point of this program is connecting academic service learning to urban sustainable development in particular communities. But as far as I can tell, the only other folks from IL are a group from Augustana College in Rock Island; so I’m the sole participant from the Chicago Region. (That makes me rather happy, actually.)
According to By Nicole Ginley-Hidinger writing for the SCI blog, here’s an overview of the three-day conference:
A lot of student work goes to waste. After brilliant plans, layouts, and other assignments are turned in for a final grade, the reports, essays, and drawings are crammed into the back of a closet and forgotten about. SCYP changes that by creating a partnership between the University and a nearby city. Students get the chance to pitch ideas on real-world projects while cities get a wide array of proposals that they can incorporate into the development and growth of sites and programs.
Institutions in over ten states have now implemented SCYP, adopting the program and crafting their own innovative approach. During April 16-18, many of these schools will converge in Eugene to share ideas and teach other universities interested in developing their own program during the SCYP conference.
The three-day conference includes SCI faculty who will discuss the Oregon model, panels made up of cities Oregon has worked with, cities other universities have worked with, and panels of program coordinators and faculty who will address how the format can be adapted and utilized in different locations.
During the 2014 SCYP Conference, scheduled for April 15-18, the University of Oregon, will share tactics to creating a successful program centered on sustainability with the help of SCYP-like programs across the nation.
“The conference is huge,” says SCI co-director, Marc Schlossberg. “The conference will give new programs all of the context, and the nut and bolts, of how a program like this is organized, how it can be effective, and how to navigate through the system of cities and universities to get something done and organized.”
The SCI staff will share everything, from inspiring moments like the support they receive from the city staff and community to the more difficult aspects, such as not being able to find a city last year.
The three-day conference includes the SCI “program how-to”, where the Oregon model is broken down into city, student, and institutional engagement. The model is explained through presentations and discussions with cities Oregon has worked with, cities other universities have worked with, and panels of program coordinators and faculty who will address how the format can be adapted and utilized in different locations.
“There’s been schools around the country that have been interested in this type of work and to this scale,” says SCI co-director, Nico Larco. “They have an interest in developing programs that are similar. We have all these different adaptations of this model.”
SCI wants to share that their model is versatile and can be implemented at any school, no matter the size or the type.
“The basic idea is that it takes advantage of classes that are already being taught in the university and leverages them in a different way,” says Schlossberg. “It can work anywhere there’s students, courses, and faculties.”
The main goal of the conference is to help schools build programs that take advantage of the resources that they already have to help the communities around them. In SCYP programs, classes help address vital community issues, such as climate change, minority outreach, and how to handle limited fiscal resources in conjunction with a community need for fresh ideas that are from a neutral source.
“Students are demanding applied learning opportunities and to make an impact in the world now, while they are students,” says Schlossberg. “We have idea-generating machines in students, classes and faculty, so if we’re going to make any progress at all on these big vexing multi-disciplinary problems in a community, the university should be active in addressing them.”
The first day of the conference will focus on schools that are interested in developing a program of their own. The University of Oregon is the sole presenter and will teach curious schools the ins-and-outs.
“[It’s on] everything from how you structure within the university, like the faculty, to how you structure things within the city, like contracts, the schedule throughout the year, and the breath and depth of the projects” says Larco.
The second day is focused both on schools who already have programs and schools who want to build them. The discussions will center on engaging faculty, students, budgeting issues, funding issues and different ways to work with cities.
It will feature schools who have adopted the program and implemented it in unique and innovative ways, from the Oregon model where all thirty classes focus on one community to other campuses who engage with several communities at one time.
The third day is focused on developing a national network of SCYP programs and how universities can go after funding and develop together.
“We are interested in changing the way higher education is delivered in this country,” says Schlossberg. “The more people that are engaged in that endeavor, the stronger the message is.”
This is the third year the University of Oregon will put on the SCYP conference. The 2014 SCYP conference strives to share how to create an effective program while building a peer to peer network of institutions who are ready to improve the higher education model.
First SUST 350 workday at EPNC, 2 Sept 2014 (M. Bryson)
This coming fall semester (2015) I will be offering a transformational service learning course, SUST 350 Service and Sustainability, at the Chicago Campus. Our course theme is Urban Farming, Environmental Education, Community Development, & Social Justice.
Title/number: SUST 350 Service and Sustainability (section 01)
Semester offered: Fall 2015
Location: Chicago Campus / Eden Place Nature Center
Day/time: Tues 12-3pm
Pre-req: UWR
SUST majors and minors may take this class to fulfill an upper-level SUST requirement, but 350 also is open to students at large who need a general education course or desire elective credit.
Introduction to the Course
SUST 350 focuses on one of sustainability’s “Three Es” — social Equity — within the broad context of Environmental stewardship and Economic development. Students will learn about one of the most important components of sustainability — food production and consumption — in the context of urban neighborhoods and ecosystems.
By doing hands-in-the-dirt labor at Eden Place Nature Center on the city’s South Side neighborhood of Fuller Park, students will gain direct knowledge of contemporary organic/urban agricultural systems as well as learn about pressing urban social justice issues such as food deserts, gentrification, pollution, environmental racism, and persistent poverty. The initial class meeting will be at RU’s Chicago Campus, and subsequent class meetings will take place at Eden Place Nature Center.
Repairing fences at EPNC, 9 Sept 2014 (D. Cooperstock)
An urban farm is about food, but so much more besides. The Fuller Park community is an economically stressed neighborhood that is bisected by the Dan Ryan expressway and bounded by railroads on its eastern and western borders. Here, an urban farm and community nature center is a source of freshly grown, organic produce; a training ground for local youth in need of practical job skills; a stop valve in the Cradle-to-Prison pipeline; a gathering place for people of all ages in the community for physical exercise, informal education, and social events; a demonstration site for sustainable agricultural and ecological restoration techniques; a model of economic development on a local, sustainable scale; and a means of reconnecting urban folk to the natural world. More generally, in urban areas starved for jobs, green space, safe outdoor gathering places, and fresh quality food, enterprises like Eden Place productively and powerfully address the need for social equity and progressive change.
Hauling fence at EPNC, 9 Sept 2014 (C. Dennis)
Our main focus will be on helping with various urban agriculture and environmental restoration projects at Eden Place Nature Center at 4417 S. Stewart, as well as at the Eden Place Farm at 4911 S. Shields. Our typical day will consist of meeting at the WB Lobby ~11:30am to take the Red Line to EPNC (students have the option of commuting there directly to meet at noon); convening at 12pm for discussion of assigned readings and, later in the semester, informal student presentations; and then working with Eden Place staff on various environmental, farm, and/or public education projects according to the needs and schedule of Eden Place.
Planting trees at EPNC, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)
The vast majority of our work takes place outside, regardless of weather. We built trails, planted trees, pulled weeks, raked leaves, managed compost piles, helped set up activities and structures for Octoberfest, repaired and installed fences, and many other chores/activities. We also interacted with EPNC staff to learn about their mission and vision for the future. Last but not least, we always had a little time each week to visit with EPNC’s many animals, including Gaga the goat (who loved to intervene during our roundtable discussions in the gazebo!).
Michael Howard teaches schoolchildren from Chicago’s South Side how to plant (photo: EPNC)
“In 1997, community member, founder, and Executive Director of Fuller Park Community Development Michael Howard [pictured at left] was concerned about the serious lead poisoning problems affecting the neighborhood children. Through research he discovered that Fuller Park contained the highest lead levels in the city of Chicago. As a community leader he wanted to make some serious changes for the sake of his family and his entire neighborhood, and he decided that this work would start with the illegal dumpsite located across the street from his home.
“Mounds of waste over two stories tall encompassed the entire three acres of land. Mr. Howard acquired the deed for the land and involved the community in a large scale, three year clean-up of the dumpsite. Alongside his wife and fellow activist Amelia, and in partnership with hundreds of volunteers and community members, Mr. Howard led a clean-up project in which more than 200 tons of waste including concrete, wood, tires and other toxin-laced materials were removed from the site.
Talking with EPNC founder and director, Mr. Michael Howard, 2 Dec 2014 (M. Bryson)
“Upon clean-up of the site, the next step was development. Tons of fresh soil were brought in to establish the Great Lawn, and the Hope Mound was established as the first permanent fixture on Eden Place. South Point Academy trainees contributed a number of early structures to the Eden Place grounds, including the gazebo, DuSable Trading Post, and the storage sheds. The Mighty Oak and other surrounding trees formed the woodland at the north end of the property, including a reflecting pond meant to encourage reflection and respite from the urban surroundings.
“In May of 2004, Eden Place was honored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Chicago Wilderness with The Conservation and Native Landscaping Award. The winners were recognized for their extensive and creative use of natural landscaping to support native plants and animals that contribute to the region’s biodiversity. That same month, Eden Place was filmed for a PBS special documentary called Edens Lost & Found. This documentary profiles activists and organizations in Los Angeles, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Chicago who are attempting to ‘improve the quality of life and public health by encouraging community and civic engagement through the restoration of their urban ecosystems.’
Photo: Eden Place Nature Center
“Eden Place has continued to develop and grow with the support and recognition of local leaders and organizations. We have worked to raise awareness amongst community members about the environmental problems that have affected their families for years. Local residents are making connections with nature like never before, and they are feeling a sense of community pride like never before. However, our work in the community is not finished. More than 3/5 of the local area is comprised of abandoned lots where homes and various industries once thrived, and Fuller Park residents still carry the burden of one of the highest local lead contents in the city. Through our partnership with local and national conservation organizations such as the Chicago Zoological Society, the Audubon Society, the U.S. Forest Service International Programs, Chicago Wilderness, Openlands, and NeighborSpace, we will continue to establish green community space and education that will improve the health and well-being of our community.”
For more information on this unique service learning course, please contact Prof. Mike Bryson (mbryson@roosevelt.edu or 312-281-3148).
As Labor Day recedes sadly into the distance and we come to grips with the fact that, yes, another school year has officially begun, I can’t help reflecting on the pervasive and damaging myth within American educational culture that junior high is a terrible place to be —something to be survived, not enjoyed.
Sure, the sheer size of a big junior high school is intimidating at first. Yes, there are bullies, and they hit harder than they did in grade school. And there’s no doubt that adolescents can be obnoxious and hurtful, especially when it comes to teasing and tormenting their weaker, geekier, or more awkward peers.
But junior high also can be a place for kids to have fun, to mature into their new minds and bodies, to make new friends, and to relish that time of innocence before the reality of working a part-time job or sweating over college applications. Junior high is, in fact, the last sweet time of true childhood — a realization that occurs to me now as a middle-aged parent.
I suppose that my rosy view of junior high is somewhat colored by my own mostly positive experiences growing up in Joliet, where I attended Hufford several, um, decades ago. As a short kid who wore goofy-looking glasses, favored brown corduroys, sported hair that refused to “feather” properly by late 1970s standards, and was universally known as a bookworm, the odds of my fitting in and avoiding physical trauma weren’t exactly favorable. So how was it that I actually enjoyed my junior high school years, let alone survived them with all of my teeth intact?
Here’s the secret.
Early on in sixth grade, I joined the school’s long established and much-ballyhooed Drama Club, which convened during school hours just like band, orchestra, or choir. Every day thereafter, I lived for tenth period, when our teachers Jack Prendergast and John Nordmark brought us into what to me seemed like an entirely different and wonderful place: the World of the Stage.
Sixth through eighth graders worked, learned, and joked together in this alternate world. We practiced monologues and scenes; competed in speech contest every fall; tried to one-up each other at every audition; and put on a fall play and a full-blown spring musical each school year. In the process, we honed our oratory and acting skills and . . . perhaps most importantly . . . learned how to mount the stage with confidence, take risks, and deal with failure.
To this day, I have had few tests of personal courage that matched that of having to kiss the leading lady in our Spring 1981 production of “Bye, Bye, Birdie” in my eighth grade year, while 400 screeching and hooting adolescents raised the roof of Hufford’s auditorium in hormone-fueled delight at the spectacle.
So here is my advice to all the junior high schoolers out there, assuming you’re precocious readers of this blog:
(1) Join something. Band, orchestra, choir, drama, scholastic bowl, chess club, basketball, volleyball, cross country — whatever it is, try it out and see if it suits you. This is a good way to make some friends outside of the hot lunch line.
(2) Be yourself. Just because you join a group doesn’t mean you have to become a sheep. Hey, America is all about celebrating the individual! So I say, go gonzo with that Mohawk.
(3) Don’t take any crap from bullies. Even if you’re small. Remember, little guys are dangerous, especially if they’re smart enough to make big/older friends. (See #1 above.)
(4) Enjoy your time there. I’m sad to report it’ll be over in a blink of the eye. And when you get old like me, you just might miss it.
I am a 1981 graduate of Hufford Junior High School, where I first learned to diagram a sentence, bake a cake, operate a jig saw, draft designs for a building, give a speech, solve algebra equations, and square dance. A version of this essay will appear on 15 Sept 2013 as my regular op-ed column intheJoliet Herald-News.
Last month I had the great fortune of playing host at Roosevelt’s Chicago Campus to a terrific group of Chicago Public High School kids from the far South Side — the Calumet region, specifically — for a sustainability-themed tour of the university and a little bit of urban nature field-tripping.
CIMBY students tour the Wabash residence hall at RU; this is the student lounge on the 31st floor!
These students are leaders within the noted Calumet Is My Back Yard environmental education program, in which dozens of high school teachers and hundreds of students participate in several ecological/community restoration projects on Chicago’s Far South Side — and in the process, learn about urban ecology, community development, and the history of this industrialized yet still biodiverse landscape. The 12-year-old program is a collaboration between the Field Museum of Natural History and Chicago Public Schools.
Our day started by meeting up at RU’s Wabash Building, then heading up to an 11th floor classroom that features spectacular views of the city’s lakefront. I conducted a simulated college class session on the topic, “Sustainability and Urban Nature: An Introduction to Roosevelt University and Exploration of the Chicago River” (pdf). There was no trouble getting discussion going with this group! We had such a good give-and-take during my talk that I could cover only half of my slides.
RU’s fitness center, looking out on Wabash Ave in downtown Chicago
After this session, we enjoyed a student-led tour of the Wabash Building residence hall, fitness center, and other highlights — with a short stop at the Tutoring / Student Support center in the historic Auditorium Building. Then, a tasty lunch at the 2nd floor Dining Center, where I got to visit with several of the students as we munched our hot dish.
To cap off our day, we headed outside with work gloves and trash bags to hop the L and ride the Orange Line to Stearns Quarry, aka Palmisano Park — a relatively new urban parkland on the near SW Side in the Bridgeport neighborhood. A former limestone quarry until the 1970s, and then a landfill until the 2000s, Stearns Quarry Park is now a model of sustainable parkland development, and a great place to talk about land use, the relation between land and water, urban biodiversity, and the history of Chicago.
Looking out at the wetland at Stearns Quarry; CIMBY coordinator Samantha Mattone talks about the restored wetland and fishing pond here on the boardwalk.
We hiked the park’s extensive trails, chatted and laughed, and collected litter and recycling along the way. I don’t know how many readers have had a chance to do that with boisterous and fun-loving high schoolers, but I can tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed it! The highlight of our visit was when we took in the view at the meadow on the hilltop, which offers great views of the downtown skyline as well as the Fisk Generating Station — a recently shuttered coal-fired power plant which for many decades spewed pollution here on the SW Side until environmental activists succeeded in pressuring Midwest Generation to shut it down.
Two students talk about their environmental justice work here on Chicago’s South Side.
Here, in the shadow of the Fisk plant, two CIMBY students told of the community service work they’ve been doing with key grassroots environmental organizations — the Southeast Environmental Task Force, which is based in Calumet; and the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, here on the SW Side. These inner-city teens were passionate, articulate, and highly informed — and the impact of what they had to say in just a few minutes didn’t just complement my previous lecture about sustainability and social justice . . . it totally blew it away.
I’m extremely gratified to see the launch of the Roosevelt Sustainability Initiative’s new Green Campus website, which was unveiled on August 1st. Not only does it do an admirable job detailing the university’s recent awards and accomplishments on making its operations and curriculum more sustainable, but also it features a terrific section on learning about sustainability that will be great use as a teaching and public education tool.
The lion’s share of credit for this website goes to SUST undergrad MaryBeth Radeck, who is an Environmental Sustainability Associate at RU working under the leadership of our university’s sustainability guru, Paul Matthews, in Planning and Operations. MaryBeth is a talented writer, marketer, and researcher who has over two decades of professional experience. She’s currently working on her BPS in Sustainability Studies, is an occasional contributor to the SUST at RU Blog, and on a part-time work-study basis coordinates the Schaumburg Campus’ sustainability initiatives.
Great job, MaryBeth! And special kudos to RU web designer Vickie Bertini, who worked closely with MaryBeth on the website’s format and development.