Learning Resources

Abstract: Ten recommendations outline a strategy for departments to make gradual, visible, and rewarding improvements in the learning outcomes of their degree programs. Time is a crucial factor. Change occurs slowly in universities, so the strategy needs to be persistent and cumulative.Among the levers for improvement: familiar technology used by students and faculty to save time on core disciplinary tasks, curricular change, and group work; peer support among faculty; short, accessible increments of faculty development; extensive use of assessment and evaluation to help make glacially slow change visible and subject to conscious control; and careful development of coalitions inside and outside the academy.

Abstract: The past decade’s growth of campus sustainability planning has created a cadre of new planners. As exemplified by Richard J. Martin’s article in this issue of Planning for Higher Education, the work of higher education planners is enhanced by the new Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). STARS is a boon for those who wish to see more comprehensive, integrated planning on college and university campuses.