The Tool

This searchable database of New School courses that address sustainability issues is meant to be a student resource as well as impetus to expand the university’s offerings in this area.  The university's pursuit of a STARS rating required this inventory of sustainability in our curriculum. More specifically, the university was asked to account for its sustainability-focused and sustainability-related courses across all divisions.

Sustainability-focused courses have assessment tasks that involve two of the three sections of the definition below. Sustainability-related courses have assessment tasks that involve one of the three sections of the definition below.

Curriculum [+]

The Definition

Sustainability names a concern for the quality of the future that is likely to result from the structure of societies today. That concern can be widespread, extending from a concern for evolutionary viability of particular non-human species to issues of the equity of access to resources of different human communities.

For 2010-11, The New School is defining sustainability as a concern about future generations' equitable access to complex materials, dense energy sources, clean air and water, when a diversity of non-human species also depend upon all those for their well-being.

At The New School, learning about sustainability involves understanding:

1. rationales for concern about sustainability, such as valuing
   • being precautionary (by limiting the extent of what is done or ensuring its reversibility)
   • equity (across peoples of different race and culture and between current and future generations)
   • a diversity of non-human species and the uniqueness of places
   • democratic principles of transparency and inclusiveness
     
     
2. qualities of sustainable systems, such as natural ecosystems, that tend to be
   • negentropic (attempting wherever possible to stem the cosmic dissipation of energy into less concentrated and ordered forms)
   • resilient (with redundancies and networking that can absorb unexpected impacts)
   • biocompatible (with outputs that can be non-destructive inputs to mostly non-human (i.e. 'natural') systems, or non-interfering of those systems (i.e., valuable inputs to subsequent industrial systems)
   • dematerializing (decoupling demand satisfaction and value creation from material resource consumption)
     
     
3. capacities of institutions and communities to prioritize those rationales and qualities, by incorporating 
   • scientifically-produced knowledge into decision-making
   • long term planning that take account of variable scenarios and risks
   • whole-of-life costing, internalizing environmental costs and restoration
   • timely, authentic consultation with a wide set of stakeholders and communities
   • accounts of humans that assume culturally-specific reasonableness constrained by socio-technical systems and routine everyday practices