PARTICIPATE | Beyond Business as Usual:
Achieving and Teaching Sustainability
A Conversation with David Orr
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Dr. David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Executive Director of the Oberlin Project. At Oberlin College, Professor Orr has worked to make the campus and community into a learning laboratory and to design spaces that teach about sustainability by being sustainable. This work is built on a foundation of environmental and sustainability literacy as essential to training tomorrow’s leaders.
If you want OSU to move in similar directions, teaching sustainability effectively across disciplines, come join us to begin to frame the discussion in terms of what students hope to learn. It’s one thing for sustainability-minded faculty and administrators to push for sustainability teaching, but these efforts are empowered by considering the creative and integrative possibilities that students demand.
We will hear Orr’s ‘teaching’ on how to teach sustainability, and put that in dialogue with the various questions, challenges, and sustainability teaching efforts participants will bring to the table. This is an opportunity to share best practices and promote the opportunities and resources that already exist at OSU, to collaborate and network for further development here, and to build a bridge between the disciplines that will allow students to find the many opportunities that exist at OSU for sustainable learning.
Schedule of Events (Revised)
| 1:00–2:30 p.m. | Lunch with David Orr | Mason Hall 2nd floor rotunda Fisher College of Business |
| 2:45–4:45 p.m. | Forum on Sustainable Design and Sustainable Communities |
Round Room (3rd floor) |
| 5:00–7:00 p.m. | 2nd Annual Sustainability Summit | Great Hall Meeting Room (1st floor) Ohio Union |
Event Descriptions
Lunch with David Orr
12:00–2:00 p.m.
Mason Hall 2nd floor rotunda
Fisher College of Business
A collaboration of interested groups from across campus will host a lunch with special guest David Orr.
Forum: Sustainable Design and Sustainable Communities—Lessons from the Oberlin Project and Visions for OSU
2:30–4:30 p.m.
Location: Ohio Union, Round Room (3rd floor)
This sessions is currently FULL. We are accepting registrations for the wait list.
This forum puts OSU’s sustainability plans in dialogue with projects led by Dr. Orr at Oberlin College. Laura Shinn, Director of Planning, and Aparna Dial, University Director of Energy Services and Sustainability, will present OSU’s latest designs for sustainability on campus, and Dr. Orr will highlight the Lewis Center and Oberlin Project initiatives at Oberlin before opening up to further dialogue about challenges, implementation, and future vision.
In 1996, Dr. Orr organized the effort to design the first substantially green building on a U.S. college campus. The Adam Joseph Lewis Center was later named by the U.S. Department of Energy as “One of Thirty Milestone Buildings in the 20th Century,” by The New York Times as the most interesting of a new generation of college and university buildings, and as “the most important green building of the past thirty years” by an AIA panel. It is a laboratory in sustainability that is training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems. More recently, Dr. Orr became the Executive Director of the Oberlin Project, which is focused on making the City of Oberlin a model of full-spectrum sustainability and replicating that effort through a National Sustainable Communities Coalition. These visionary projects share many of the goals outlined in OSU’s One Framework Plan and Sustainability Plans. Join us in this forum for an engaging discussion aimed at advancing these goals and strengthening OSU’s leadership in meeting the sustainability challenges of the 21st century.
Sponsors for the events above:
UCAT
OSU Faculty Learning Community on Sustainability Across the Curriculum
Environmental Sciences Network
School of Environment and Natural Resources
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology
Humanities Institute Environmental Citizenship Project
OSU Office of Energy and Environment
OSU Office of Energy Services and Sustainability
Partners for the events above:
Fisher College of Business' Net Impact Group
Center for Resilience
Environmental Policy Initiative
Knowlton School of Architecture
2nd Annual Sustainability Summit
5:00–7:00 p.m.
Ohio Union, Great Hall Meeting Room (1st Floor)
Join us for the Second Annual Sustainability Summit at The Ohio State University: A changing climate at OSU. The keynote speaker, Dr. David Orr of Oberlin College, will provide a thought provoking look at sustainability, the future of humanity and the planet, and what responsibility institutions of higher education have in this debate. Other voices are to include student, staff and faculty perspectives. Olga Ovchinnikova, current president of Students for a Sustainable Campus, Aparna Dial of the Office of Sustainability, and Professor Jason Box, climate change researcher who has studied mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet, will share their perspectives on what climate change and sustainability means to the campus, community and planet. The Sustainability Summit also wants to hear from you—make your voice, opinions, and ideas part of the discussion. Free local and sustainably raised food will be provided after the summit, as well as a short opportunity to learn about sustainability-focused student organizations.
Contact Lauren Kleinman with questions about the event at lauren.kleinman@osumc.edu. To reserve a table to promote your sustainability-related student organization, please contact Adam Sauer at sauer.93@buckeyemail.osu.edu.
Sponsors:
Undergraduate Student Council
Council of Graduate Students Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility Committee
Inter-Professional Council
Office of Student Life
Partners:
OSU Ecological Engineering Society
OSU Students for Recycling