California University Faculty Create Climate Change Resilience Content To Prepare Students For A Changing World

Energize Colleges, a program of SEI, an environmental education and workforce organization, is supporting the February 2022 launch of a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) across the 23 campus California State University (CSU) system. The FLC will facilitate integrating climate change and resilience content across the breadth of disciplines offered at the CSU campuses. This initiative is designed to offer faculty practical tools, resources, and ideas to integrate key concepts related to climate change and climate change resilience into student learning outcomes. 

The FLC arose from Chico State’s Office of Faculty Development and the Campus Sustainability Curriculum Subcommittee’s actions to meet their President’s Strategic Priority for Resilient and Sustainable Systems. Dr. Mark Stemen, Chico State professor of Geography and Planning, will be the FLC Facilitator. Professor Stemen has hosted over a dozen faculty development workshops on integrating sustainability in the college curriculum as part of the annual California Higher Education Sustainability Conference.

Since 2016, SEI’s Energize Colleges program has supported California higher education institutions to advance sustainability education, applied learning and career exploration with students. A dedicated Climate Corps Energize Colleges Fellow will support the CSU Chancellor’s Office in coordinating the statewide FLC initiatives through close collaboration with key faculty, department chairs, and deans across participating campuses. ​

“This Faculty Learning Community would not be possible without the support of the Climate Corps Energize Colleges Fellow. Our partnership with SEI enables us to bring together faculty members from across the CSU system to innovate ways to empower our students to integrate climate solutions and resilience into their communities. We need this now more than ever,” said Dr. Mark Stemen, Chico State professor of Geography and Planning and FLC Facilitator.    

Through regular 90-minute workshops, consultation sessions, and collaborations, FLC participants will redesign significant portions of one of their courses to integrate climate change and resilience into student learning outcomes. The content will be submitted for publication in The CSU Journal of Sustainability and Climate Change, further disseminating resources for teaching on topics such as energy efficiency, climate impacts, and other key areas related to sustainability.

“Sustainability leaders are found in every sector of our society, and we are grateful that Energize Colleges can be a vehicle for creating a cleaner, healthier, and more resilient future by training the engineers, analysts, building scientists, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs who will lead the transformation to a clean energy future,” said Cyane Dandridge, Executive Director of SEI, the nonprofit that offers the Energize Colleges program.

For questions related to this FLC in general, contact Dr. Mark Stemen, mstemen@csuchico.edu