Yes, the university has a commitment to meaningful education around the SDGs across the university that is relevant and applicable to all students.

Penn State’s commitment to education around the SDGs is evidenced by the number of employees who conduct research on the SDGs and the number of courses and degree programs that address the SDGs. It is also evidenced by the degree programs in sustainability leadership, sustainable food systems, and renewable energy and sustainability systems.

Sustainability Attribute for classes: Work to develop a Sustainability Attribute that will identify classes in the bulletin (a complete listing of all classes and degree programs available) as focused on sustainability started in 2023. Faculty Senate voted in favor of a new senate policy (SP 180-50), which creates a sustainability course attribute. The criterion for the attribute was developed by Curricular Affairs members, in consultation with a broad team of faculty, staff and students. The idea for this new policy came from students’ desire for more sustainability coursework across disciplines.

This new curricular policy allows for courses to be voluntarily identified in the course catalogue (LionPATH) as meeting key sustainability outcomes. In order to satisfy the criteria for the attribute, the course must define sustainability in a personally, civically or disciplinary relevant context and include at least one course learning objective that demonstrates an enduring course focus on sustainability. In addition, classes which receive the sustainability attribute must meet one of the following sustainability learning objectives:

  • Analyze relationships – Distinguish system types appearing in the literature, attends to temporal literacy and directs it through interpersonal literacy to analyze the sustainability of relationships between interconnected systems as they change over time.
  • Employ moral and ethical frameworks – Direct student learning into the ethical realm, providing opportunities to spot ethical issues, analyze those issues, and develop and communicate personal, professional, and public moral/ethical positions.
  • Cultivate interpersonal competency – Utilize others’ ways of knowing and communicating empathetically to engage and motivate diverse stakeholders around sustainability-related challenges and solutions.
  • Explore designs, solutions, and changes for a sustainable future – Identify, create, advocate for, and/or affect resilient and/or sustainable designs, solutions, or changes in a disciplinary-relevant context.

Examples of how courses address the SDGs include:

  • Over 400 credit-bearing classes related to SDG2 are offered during the academic year
  • SDG 14 classes addressing ocean acidification were offered by philosophy, meteorology, and religious studies
  • SDG 11 is addressed in supply chain management, geography, architectural engineering, and polymer engineering science courses and classes.

The full list of classes offered for each SDG has been sorted by SDG number on each SDG Progress Page and can be accessed by clicking on the “Classes” icon.

The Course Descriptions & SDGs spreadsheet reflects classes which were identified by sorting and filtering for search terms in the entire class bulletin. A sampling of SDG search terms used to filter from the class bulletin include:

  • SDG 2: food
  • SDG 11: diversity, community
  • SDG 14: ocean, lake, pond
  • SDG 15: biodiversity
  • SDG 17: civil society

See the Course Descriptions & SDGs spreadsheet for the results.

 

Learn more about Penn State’s progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals HERE and on progress towards SGD 17 HERE.