Summer 2008

Center Serves as Academic Resource for Sustainable Development

For the past five years, Rose-Hulman’s Center for Sustainable Development has made itself a resource for faculty and the furtherance of sustainability within the college’s curriculum.

The goal of the center is to provide a central clearinghouse for materials related to sustainable development, according to Co-Chair Michael Robinson, who also is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. The other co-chair is Penney Miller, assistant professor of chemistry.

The center provides a place for faculty to learn about academic research and grant opportunities related to sustainable development curricula. It lets them learn ways to incorporate sustainability into their curricula, Robinson explained.

Sustainability is applicable across all disciplines, and the center makes those avenues known, Robinson said. For example, in a materials design class, a homework problem could be developed to deal with recycled materials.

While the center is endorsed by the college administration, it is driven by faculty. One of the key gains from the center has been coordination among faculty in the sustainable area. “It surprised me that as small as we are, there are many things going on and we didn’t know about it,” Robinson said.

In addition to the faculty’s growing interest in the topic, more students are seeking information about sustainable development in the engineering and science disciplines, Robinson said.

“From an engineering standpoint sustainability is simply good engineering,” Robinson said. “It is protective of the environment. It is not ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ anything. When we look at design and processes, we need to minimize the impact on the environment and that’s just good engineering. This is not an environmental movement.

“If our students want to be good engineers, companies are going to be looking for these things in their portfolios.”

Looking ahead, the center could see an expansion of areas such as sustainable transportation and renewable energy. For more information, visit the center’s Web page at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~robinson/csd/.