Curriculum development for the sustainability PhD program at RIT

Abstract

The typical disciplinary approach that underlies most research areas is fragmented. Consequently, advances in science and technology are often disconnected from and uninformed of the potential sustainability implications of new technologies. The PhD program in Sustainability at RIT establishes a program of study that links discipline-specific science with an understanding of the integrative sciences of sustainability, such as industrial ecology, ecological economics, risk analysis, energy policy, and ethics. Ultimately, the proposed program will transform the graduate experience by making it highly collaborative, team-based, and embedded in the broader context of economic, environmental and social understanding.

Full text

Abstract—The typical disciplinary approach that
underlies most research areas is fragmented.
Consequently, advances in science and technology are
often disconnected from and uninformed of the potential
sustainability implications of new technologies. The PhD
program in Sustainability at RIT establishes a program of
study that links discipline-specific science with an
understanding of the integrative sciences of sustainability,
such as industrial ecology, ecological economics, risk
analysis, energy policy, and ethics. Ultimately, the
proposed program will transform the graduate experience
by making it highly collaborative, team-based, and
embedded in the broader context of economic,
environmental and social understanding
Index Terms—education, sustainability, curriculum
development, multidisciplinary, institutional barriers
I. MOTIVATION
onsumption of materials in the United States as
well as globally has risen exponentially over the
last century[1]. This growing usage requires
increased production, which is often accompanied
by a higher environmental burden in terms of
increased energy usage, waste, and emissions.
These issues, coupled with growing materials
scarcity, climate change, population growth, and
industrial development threaten our planet’s ability
to sustain its current environmental quality.
Industrial development poses particularly complex
challenges, as it drives both improvement in the
quality of life and degradation of the environment.
All authors are with the Golisano Institute for Sustainability,
Rochester Institute of Technology, 111 Lomb Memorial Drive,
Rochester, NY 14623, USA. Gabrielle Gaustad is the corresponding
author and can be reached at Room 78-2418, phone: 585-475-6089,
fax: 585-475-5250, e-mail: gabrielle.gaustad@rit.edu. Paul Stiebitz
can be reached at Room 78-2410, e-mail: phseie@rit.edu; Thomas
Seager at Room 78-2414, e-mail: Thomas.seager@rit.edu; Callie
Babbitt at Room 78-2416, e-mail: callie.babbitt@rit.edu; and Nabil
Nasr at Room 78-1000, email: nzneie@rit.edu.
Industrialized countries—with all their benefits—
generate more than 90% of the world's annual total
of 325-375 million tons of toxic and hazardous
waste[2]. In the mid-1990s, the wealthiest countries
belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) produced 1.5
billion tons of industrial waste and 579 million tons
of municipal waste[3]. The United States alone
produced 214 million tons of hazardous waste. For
every ton of post-consumer waste, approximately
20 tons of pre-consumer waste is created in the
manufacturing process[4].
In 1987, the United Nations World
Commission on Environment and Development
identified the grave and inevitable consequences
that will result from a failure to change our
industrial production, consumption, and
development practices. Despite widespread
agreement about the positive impact of sustainable
production and consumption practices on industrial
development, such practices have been narrowly
implemented at best. Indeed, most indicators cited
in the 1987 report have since worsened. The term
sustainable development is defined by the
Brundtland Commission as “development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs." To achieve sustainable
development will require meaningful changes in
current practice. Through education and research,
institutions of higher education are the most likely
agents of this meaningful change. Since the
problems and the solutions of sustainability
transcend the boundaries of traditional academic
disciplines, their efforts will only succeed if they
are allowed to develop within horizontal, multi-
disciplinary settings. According to Science
magazine, “Attaining sustainability will require
concerted interactive efforts among disciplines,
many of which have not yet recognized, and
Curriculum Development for the Sustainability
PhD Program at RIT
Paul Stiebitz, Thomas Seager, Callie Babbitt, Gabrielle Gaustad, and Nabil Nasr Golisano Institute of
Sustainability, Rochester Institute of Technology
C

internalized, the relevance of environmental issues
to their main intellectual discourse.”[5]
II. CURRICULUM
While the theoretical foundations of the
sciences and technologies, which are essential to the
removal of barriers to achieving sustainable
systems, lie in such traditional academic disciplines
as engineering, science, mathematics, and
economics, it is necessary to integrate these
sciences and technologies to create a new systems-
level understanding of both causal and response
phenomena. Literature on integrating sustainability
in higher education often highlight this need for
new[6], multi-disciplinary[7], and even eclectic[8]
approaches to achieving this. There has also been
much thought on the barriers present to achieving a
cohesive integration of sustainability in current and
new curriculums[9-12], not least of which is the
definition of what constitutes sustainability
itself[13-15]. A significant barrier to progress has
been the absence of a multi-faceted,
interdisciplinary, systems approach to solving
seemingly intractable sustainability problems.
Local optimization approaches by researchers,
corporations, and policy makers are destined to
yield marginal positive impacts, or may even
negatively impact other aspects of our global
systems. True improvements in our global systems
require a holistic systems view of both
sustainability problems and potential solutions.
The educational community at the Rochester
Institute of Technology (RIT) has traditionally
engaged and motivated students through a variety of
stimulating and collaborative experiences and,
because our mission as a university is to provide
technology-based educational programs for personal
and professional development, we rigorously pursue
new and emerging career areas. In this context, a
Ph.D. program encompassing advanced scholarship
in the emerging field of sustainability was
developed. This program is founded upon the
increasingly demonstrated premise that the
challenge of sustainability is beyond the scope of
any single traditional discipline. The program,
which admits students from a variety of educational
backgrounds, consists of a unique core of
interdisciplinary courses, a wide array of associated
electives from multiple RIT departments, and
original, systems-based research—all directed at
graduating experts capable of bringing an
integrative approach to sustainability research. The
program will be a model for team-based graduate
education in which team members with diverse
backgrounds and complementary expertise will
integrate multiple knowledge bases. The research
questions that motivate these teams will be related
to the understanding of systemic interactions and
the integration of economic, social, and
environmental context, content, and connectedness.
Four key areas will be the focus of research within
the Golisano Institute for Sustainability (GIS),
housing the RIT PhD program in Sustainability: 1)
sustainable production and manufacturing, 2) eco-
IT (environmentally efficient information
technology), 3) sustainable transportation and
mobility, and 4) sustainable energy systems.
The curriculum combines required core courses
in Sustainability; elective courses from the GIS and
other RIT colleges as appropriate to the student’s
background and interests; a three quarter research
seminar; and a research dissertation. The purpose
of the core curriculum is to develop in the students a
broad-based understanding of the interdisciplinary
aspects of sustainable systems and to teach students
to view both problems and solutions systemically.
The following six courses constitute the program’s
core:
• Fundamentals of Sustainability Science
• Risk Analysis
• Industrial Ecology
• Multi-criteria Sustainable Systems Analysis
• Economics of Sustainability (offered by the
Department of Economics in the College of
Liberal Arts)
• Technology, Policy, and Sustainability
(offered by the Science, Technology and
Public Policy Department in the College of
Liberal Arts).
Students will normally complete the core courses
over a two-year period. Core courses completed in
the first year will build a foundation in
sustainability science, industrial ecology,
sustainability economics, and policy. “Multi-criteria
Sustainable Systems Analysis” and “Risk
Analysis,” taken in the second year, allow students
to integrate their foundation knowledge with that

gained from several electives chosen to support
their research focus. The elective courses can be
drawn from over thirteen programs across the
university which include a diverse array of subject
areas. Some example programs of study in each of
the four research focus areas are illustrated below.
1) Sustainable Production and Manufacturing: an
example student in this track may be interested in
cleaner production and have an industrial
engineering undergraduate degree, courses of
interest may include:
• Solid & Hazard Waste Management
• Air Emissions Management
• EHS Management System Design
• Managing for Environmental Sustainability
• Remanufacturing Processes
• Supply Chain Management
• Tribology Fundamentals
• Fundamentals of Fatigue and Fracture
Mechanics
• Design & Analysis of Experiments I
2) Eco-IT: students in this track may have
undergraduate backgrounds in computer science,
software engineering, or information technology
and be interested in research regarding smart
products, electronic waste, green data centers,
electives may include:
• Electronic Packaging Fundamentals
• Systems Health Management
• Data Warehousing
• Signal Processing;
• Fundamentals of DBMS Architecture and
Implementation
• System Identification
• Telecommunications Policy Issues
• Telecommunication Transmissions Systems
• Secure Wireless and Wired Data Networks
3) Sustainable Transportation and Mobility:
students in this track may have backgrounds in
industrial or mechanical engineering or industrial
design and be interested in tackling research on
smart grids, alternative fuels, battery powered
vehicles, or fleet carbon reduction and take electives
in:
• Material Degradation: Corrosion
• Advanced Systems Integration
• Life Cycle Assessment and Costing
• Design for Environment
• Solid & Hazard Waste Management
• Product and Process Development and
Design
• Logistics Management
• Alternative Fuels and Energy Efficiency
• Air Emissions Management
4) Sustainable Energy Systems: students in this
research track may come from physics and/or
chemical or materials engineering undergraduate
programs or wish to conduct research in alternative
energy sources such as batteries, fuel cells, solar,
and wind. Electives could include:
• Managing for Environmental Sustainability
• Systems Engineering
• Fuel Cell Technology
• Renewable Energy Systems
• Sustainable Energy Management
• Environmental Economics
• Introduction to Photovoltaics
• Natural Resource Economics
• Energy Policy
Other requirements for candidates in the program
include an international experience, publication,
qualifying exam process, a teaching experience, and
a final dissertation defense.
The resulting core, electives, and research thrusts
involved a development period greater than two
years and the input of many university and external
stakeholders, an advisory committee, and others.
The history of this development and the barriers
confronted along the way are the subject of a
forthcoming journal article from the authors.
III. STATISTICS
RIT is committed to offering its students a diverse
campus community, and recruitment efforts reflect
this goal. Recruitment initiatives through both
graduate enrollment services and the GIS will target
students from around the globe, from different
cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds,

and genders. Recruitment efforts through RIT’s
Graduate Enrollment Services will be broad-based,
with GIS initiatives and follow-up targeted toward
specific groups or individuals.
Toward this goals, the Golisano Institute for
Sustainability has already seen some success. In its
initial year, GIS received 30 applications for new
Ph.D. positions, with women and minorities
comprising 47% and 17%, respectively, of the
applicant pool. Of the 11 students accepted and
enrolled, 55% and 27% were women and
minorities, respectively. Incoming students also
come from diverse educational backgrounds,
including engineering, materials science,
mathematics, meteorology, economics, and
industrial design. All incoming students have at
least one Masters Degree, and many have
professional experience in industry and business.
For fall 2010 admission, the number of applicants
nearly doubled to a total of approximately 43. Of
these applicants, roughly 35% were female and 45%
minorities. Statistics on the matriculated class are
not yet available.
Not only does the underlying and experiential
diversity of students in GIS provide for a breadth
and depth of knowledge and experience which can
be brought to bear on research conducted, but also
enables a unique experience to provide academic
training to persons traditionally underserved or
underrepresented in the Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. As
such, conducting the research described herein at
GIS would support producing diverse university
faculty and students with the ability to directly
contribute to solving global and regional
environmental problems.
Graduates of the program will have opportunities
to serve in positions ranging from teaching faculty
to research scientists in a rapidly growing number
of higher education institutions offering or initiating
sustainability programs. Because of their
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education
and research, graduates will be especially well
suited to join institutions reaching beyond the scope
of traditional academic disciplines in order to
address sustainability issues. Graduates will also
have a wide range of career opportunities in the
manufacturing and service industries in capacities
such as developers of sustainable product systems,
and corporate sustainability managers; in the
executive and legislative branches of government as
technical and policy analysts; in non-governmental
agencies as sustainability analysts and advocates; in
professional associations as education specialists; in
the finance and investment industries as
sustainability technology analysts; and in the
indemnification industry and legal profession as
technical specialists and policy advisors.
IV. FUTURE WORK
Further work includes the development of a
master’s program in Sustainable Systems and well
as joint PhD offerings, most notably, in the
Golisano College of Information and Computing
Sciences in the eco-IT research area. A sustainable
architecture graduate program is also under
development in conjunction with the RIT School of
Design. The most important future work will be
continued recruitment of graduate students and new
faculty and program assessment. The successful
graduation and placement of our current graduates
will be of the utmost importance in determining the
success of the program.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
All those affiliated with the GIS are thankful to
the Henry Luce Foundation for providing a grant to
support initial curriculum development.
Special acknowledgement to the curriculum
committee and working group members: John
Albertini, Stefi Baum, Alex Bitterman, Marcos
Esterman, Michael Haselkorn, Katherine Mayberry,
Jacqueline Mozrall, Nenad Nenadic, Nabil Nasr,
Ryne Raffaelle, Jennifer Schneider, William
Stevenson, Michael Thurston, and James
Winebrake.
Thank you also to the external advisory board
who provided tremendously helpful feedback and
advice: Joseph Allen, Robert Bechtold, Patricia
Calkins, Edward J. Daniels, Joost Duflou, Mathew
H. Fronk, V. Daniel R. Guide, Jr., Jack Jeswiet,
Sami Kara, Hartmut Kaebernick, David M. Kiser,
Edward Krause, Clare Lindsay, Jeffery Sama, Steve
Schaffer, Gunther Seliger, Ernst von Weizsaecker,
I would also like to acknowledge Alicia Tejada-
Abreau – one of the Sustainability PhD candidates

for updating me on some of the literature regarding
sustainability in education.
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