Sustainability

This two-credit course starts with a weekend intensive ‘Introduction to Sustainability’ where students and faculty engage in ‘immersive’ learning with workshops, guest speakers, organization representatives, and tours of sustainably run ranches and farms (e.g. Mannix Ranch). Students are introduced to the curriculum for the minor, explore their own career interests and are introduced to the different service learning opportunities available through the program. They will begin the process of formulating their personal learning prospectus and planning the course they will take to earn a minor in sustainability.

The second part of the course will involve weekly meetings where students will explore in more depth the origin of the discipline as well as the political, environmental, social, technological, and economic aspects of sustainability. By the end of the semester, student will complete their personal prospectus and have planned the courses and service learning experiences that will comprise their minor

Sed Vitae. This course is a Service Learning course, and it is designed to foster an inter-disciplinary conversation around humanitarian efforts seen throughout the world—both at international and local levels. Service Learning is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (Jacoby, Service-Learning in Higher Education, 1996). Pursuant of this, students each week will be asked, on the one hand, to read selections from various historiographic, philosophical, artistic, or theological engagements with humanitarian work and then analyze their arguments critically. On the other, students will be required to serve a total of 42 hours outside of the classroom over the course of its 16-week semester (approx. 4-hrs per week). Pre-approved service opportunities at Carroll College or in the broader Helena area will be made available for signup on the first day of class (additional opportunities can be approved at the instructor’s discretion). Once students have begun their service hours, they will be expected to submit weekly journal entries that reflect on their experiences (being respectful of any of their organization’s policies related to privacy and confidentiality), and they will need to come to class (a 1.5hr seminar held once a week) prepared to put those experiences in dialogue with the class’s assigned readings.

Sed Vitae. This is a Service Learning course designed to foster an inter-disciplinary conversation about environmentalism at both the international and local levels. Service Learning is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (Jacoby, Service-Learning in Higher Education, 1996). Organized around different philosophical models for human beings’ relationship to the natural world—anthropocentric vs non-anthropocentric— each week students will read selections from various historiographic, philosophical, artistic, or theological works that describe and/or advocate for one of these models, and they will then be asked to analyze those arguments critically. At the same time, students enrolled in the class will be expected to serve a total of 42 hours over the course of its 16-week semester (approx. 4-hrs per week) outside of the classroom. Pre-approved service opportunities and/or organizations at Carroll College or in the broader Helena area will be made available for signup on the first day of class (additional opportunities can be approved at the instructor’s discretion). Once students have begun their service hours, they will be required to submit weekly journal entries that reflect on their experiences (being respectful of any of their organization’s policies related to privacy and confidentiality), and they will need to come to class (a 1.5hr seminar held once a week) prepared to put those experiences in dialogue with the class’s assigned readings.

This course is the 1-credit capstone to Carroll College’s Sustainability Minor. The purpose of this capstone is twofold: First, students will reflect on and synthesize all of their previous academic and experiential content related to the minor that they have engaged at the College. Second, this capstone intends to supply students with language and materials that they can carry forward into and will have a positive impact on their future lives and careers. To this end, there is one ongoing project for this class: a Sustainability Portfolio that requires students to reflect on and compose a narrative of their academic experiences related to the minor, on the one hand, and compose a Curriculum Vitae and Cover Letter, as well as secure two names of recommenders from persons working in the organizations at which the students served, on the other (specific details of this assignment are listed in the “Assignments” section below).