New, Existing and Evolving Directions for Sustainability Leadership in Higher Education
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (12 July 2021) | Viewed by 6697
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Several challenges for leaderships of sustainability education programs in higher education exist. Traditional leadership challenges have often focused on those associated with interdisciplinary programs in general (recognition of sustainability as a “valid” academic discipline, resources in an institutional hierarchy focused on disciplinary programs, recruiting and retention of students and faculty, providing a curriculum dependent upon faculty from several departments, etc.).
This special issue focuses on more recently recognized concerns for sustainability leaders such as effectively fostering diversity in sustainability leadership, faculty, and student populations, developing effective community engagement partnerships in a COVID-19 world, what ideal core competencies in sustainability should be identified and promoted, and what consensus next steps should be taken for all of these priorities. Major concerns and challenges in attracting students of color to careers in sustainability include addressing relatability, how sustainability is relevant to and contributes to challenges in non-white majority communities and cultures and defining sustainability graduate employability and market demand.
One way to attract a more diverse student body and professoriate is to identify a normative competence as a key competence in sustainability. This competence could focus on a student’s ability to explore, articulate, and apply their own norms and values both individually and collectively. The curriculum could identify sets of learning activities to assist students in their efforts to bring their own cultural and social norms and values to the application appropriate sustainability knowledge, skills and abilities to community engagement and problem-solving.
Developing new pedagogies and assessments are critical to advancing sustainability education. One possible way is to more broadly focus curricula on meeting the objectives of the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals, not just those goals most obviously tied to traditional sustainability curriculum. Broader and more hands-on partnerships with community partners in sustainability, social and environmental justice, and community development are other possible future directions for sustainability education. Operationalizing these efforts through rigorous assessments of students’ mastery of key competencies in sustainability is another evolving task for sustainability education leaders.
Articulating possible competence hierarchies for education in sustainability that may emphasize a broader approach to sustainability, for example through the Sustainable Development Goals, could be identified that do not undermine the existing, integrated nature of learning activities in sustainability.
We welcome authors willing to address these and other challenges sustainability leadership in higher education must address if sustainability education is to thrive in future educational settings.
Prof. Roderic A. Parnell
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- sustainability leadership
- sustainability education
- higher education
- diversity
- curriculum
- evolving issues in sustainability
- recruitment
- retention
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