Collaborative Environmental Stewardship Projects

A tour of campus, with both online and physical components, was created to highlight sites on the JMU campus where facilities, environmental stewardship and learning are interconnected. Importantly, the tour is the gateway for information about how to request facilities data and projects so that campus is used as a living laboratory, how to participate in campus environmental stewardship activities, and how to identify and enroll in classes that use the facilities. Partners: Members of Facilities Management, College of Integrated Science and Engineering, Institute for Stewardship of the Natural World, Creative Services, Integrated Science and Technology Department Laboratory Operation, Information Technology, Public Safety, The Student Success Center, Office of Sponsored Programs, and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

Campuses can leverage their facilities and operations investments to directly support student education by expanding the vision of the role of the grounds. The East Campus Hillside project transformed a typically managed lawn area into a natural educational landscape that diversifies the campus aesthetic, approaches the landscape as an ecosystem, provides educational space outside, and demonstrates environmental stewardship. Partners: Scholar-in-Residence Michael Singer, and members of the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Integrated Science and Technology, and Department of Biology.

JMU assesses student environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge, as well as sustainability values, attitudes, perceptions, and engagement. For example, JMU developed student learning outcomes and a corresponding assessment instrument to measure the change in undergraduate students’ environmental stewardship reasoning and knowledge over time. Partners: Members of the ISNW Education and Scholarship Committee and the Center for Assessment & Research Studies.

A faculty professional development program sought to present content and effective course redesign for teaching about sustainability through a backward design approach. Three cohorts of participants, from seven colleges and eighteen programs at JMU, completed sustainability-enhanced course design (or redesign) of twenty-two courses in areas that often did not include sustainability content. The courses included ten major-level undergraduate courses, three graduate-level courses and nine general education courses. The impact of the yearlong faculty development program on the participants' courses and professional development is presented in "Incorporating sustainability content and pedagogy through faculty development" (Hurney, C.A., Nash, C., Hartman, C.-J.B. and Brantmeier, E.J. (2016), International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 17 No. 5, pp. 582-600.) Partners: Members of the Center for Faculty Innovation.

With the support of an Ethical Reasoning in Action Program Innovation Grant, the Institute for Stewardship of the Natural World developed and launched a new community program series called “A Book for the ‘Burg” (B4B). The ISNW established a partnership between JMU and four community entities--the City of Harrisonburg, Eastern Mennonite University, Arts Council of the Valley, and Massanutten Regional Library. A Book for the ‘Burg encourages participants to engage with others in meaningful dialogue around a thought-provoking theme. For example, the inaugural book selection in 2013, Mountains Beyond Mountains, prompted dialogue around poverty and health, globalization and global resource distribution, equity, sustainability, service, and decision-making in difficult ethical situations. Partners: Multiple departments at James Madison University, the City of Harrisonburg, Eastern Mennonite University, Arts Council of the Valley and Massanutten Regional Library.