Systems Thinking and Sustainability grew out of the success of my fall semester class “People, Environment & Sustainability.” It was developed in response to student requests to create a course that talked about how to operationalize the ideas of corporate social and environmental responsibility. Systems Thinking and Sustainability is offered in the spring semester, and, though it flows from the fall semester class, People, Environment & Sustainability is not a prerequisite.

One of the course objectives is to “to foster awareness, sensitivity and literacy regarding global environmental and social change, and to provide students the tools and the confidence to bring about change in the organizations that they will work in or with after they leave the university.”

 
Clearly, this isn’t your traditional university course. However, slowly but surely, it is the type of course that is showing up in sustainability programs around the world. This class brings together students from across campus with students from the Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies to dialogue on the relevance of sustainability in a focused and constructive way. It has been organized to provide better insights into how sustainable development can be a part of most decisions that are made, whether at the individual lifestyle level or at the organizational level. The class will consist of lectures supplemented with student discussions based on readings and case studies, and information gathering and writing about ways that we can change things right now so that as a society we are able to live in a more sustainable manner.