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Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering (2014/02/09)
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4.1.2. Goals

The goal of the Center is to develop and implement activities to enhance education in Sustainable Enginee-

ring at colleges and universities around the world. A number of specific activities are planned:

Workshops (2 days each) have been organized to assist faculty who wish to add Sustainable Engineering to

their courses. The workshops also help these faculty improve their teaching, evaluate their courses, obtain

funding for educational innovations, and become part of a growing network of educators in Sustainable
Engineering.

A website is being established with peer-reviewed educational materials on Sustainable Engineering. The site

will be set up in cooperation with a professional society.

An assessment of Sustainable Engineering programs and courses around the U.S. is being conducted to ben-

chmark the status of education in this emerging discipline. Measures of quality in these programs will be ex-

plored and used to initiate an award program for excellence in Sustainable Engineering Education.

4.1.3. Benchmark Assessment

Project Period: May 15, 2005 through December 31, 2008

Project Amount: $350,000

The Center has recently completed an EPA-funded project to determine the status of sustainable engineering

education at four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. As part of this project, the Center has collected in-

formation on courses and curricula, sustainability centers and institutes, conferences related to sustainability,

and other activities related to Sustainable Engineering. In addition, the Center has collected information on

the content of courses, such as the key concepts, types of educational activities, and written materials.

Based on the project results, the Center is developing a roadmap for achieving excellence in Sustainable En-

gineering education, and will summarize the data and the roadmap in journal articles and on the Center

website.

Benchmarking Sustainable Engineering Education: Final Report

Objectives:

The primary objectives of this project were to: (1) identify accredited engineering programs at US institu-

tions that incorporate sustainability concepts into engineering curricula and within these programs characteri-
ze the design decision levels being employed and the degree to which information and concepts from non-

engineering disciplines are being employed; (2) identify faculty who incorporate sustainability concepts into

their research and other activities; (3) map results into a sustainability matrix that captures system complexi-

ty and size and the degree to which data and concepts from non-engineering disciplines are being employed;

(4) identify best practices for sustainability engineering and leading contributors to sustainability engineering
education; and (5) develop a preliminary roadmap with a protocol for a more formal roadmap that will define

a path for achieving excellence in sustainability engineering education in the United States.

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