At a FENS meeting on February 12, Sarah Slaughter led a discussion on the new Certificate in Sustainability that is now
offered to graduate students in the MIT Sloan School of Management. Here is a copy of her PowerPoint slides in PDF form.
In the coming weeks, the FENS will be briefing the Committee on Curriculum (CoC) and the Committee on the Undergraduate Program (CUP) about the newly revised proposal for Undergraduate Minor.
C-ROADS—Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-Support Simulator—was demonstrated by FENS member John Sterman at our meeting on October 9, 2009. For more, see Professor Sterman's presentation to the FENS on C-ROADS. Teachers, it includes a free simulation you can use in class. It's a remarkable teaching tool.
The FENS issued its progress report for academic year 2008-2009 and its plans for academic year 2009-2010.
We received a grant from the Provost's Office to help underwrite the costs of organizing the MIT Faculty Environmental Network.
78 members of the faculty and teaching staff joined the FENS. All five schools and Woods Hole are represented.
We met monthly throughout the year for lunch at the Faculty Club and had an average of 20 members present each time.
10 members made presentations during the Fall of '08 and helped launch our effort to identify key concepts and methods that "every environmentally literate graduate of MIT ought to know about."
We developed preliminary curriculum proposals for an undergraduate minor in Environment and Sustainability and an interdisciplinary Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in Environment and Sustainability.
We identified "faculty correspondents" to help develop possible lists of (existing) undergraduate and graduate subjects that might be included in possible sub-specialties as part of the undergraduate minor and the graduate certificate.
We hope to:
Receive a new grant from the Provost's Office to continue the work of the FENS.
Increase our faculty membership to 100 in the coming year.
Meet monthly (on Fridays from 12:30 - 2) at the MIT Faculty Club. Meeting dates will be distributed as soon as we know that we have the funds required to reserve the MIT Faculty Club.
Start the year with short Environmental Literacy presentations at our September, October, and November meetings. FENS members willing to be presenters should contact Professor Lawrence Susskind. We will also spend part of every meeting refining our curriculum proposals.
Meet with all relevant Department Heads and Deans to seek their advice and support regarding the listing of proposed sub-specialties and the identification of faculty to teach new undergraduate and graduate core subjects.
Meet with Sustainability@MIT and other relevant student organizations to seek their reactions to our preliminary undergraduate and graduate curriculumproposals.
Meet with the relevant Institute committees to review drafts of our curriculum proposals once they have been approved by the membership of the FENS.
Meet with the President, Provost and Chancellor to discuss the fund raising efforts required to support implementation of our undergraduate and graduate curriculum proposals.
Meet with the Committee on Environmental Research to discuss ways in which our efforts can support each other.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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