The syllabus is a document that outlines all the essential information about a given course. It includes course policies, rules and regulations, required texts, weekly topics, and a schedule of assignments. At Teachers College, faculty follow the Course Syllabi Policy, which specifies not only the basic elements required by New York State Education Department, but also statements about accommodations, religious observance, sexual harassment and violence reporting, and emergency plan.
Faculty at Teachers College indicated that they wanted to bring sustainability themes and practices to courses across the College, regardless of the topic. The Center for Sustainable Futures crafted a template for Sustainability Statement for faculty to consider. The implementation has been successful; a 2018 survey shows that one-in-five students at TC had at least one syllabus with a Sustainability Statement.
SUSTAINABILITY AT TEACHERS COLLEGE
I support sustainability initiatives on the TC campus. To make sure our class is relevant to the current climate crisis, for example, I will offer connections between our class and broader issues of sustainability. To reduce paper use, I will provide most of your course documents (including readings and assignments) on the course Canvas page. Please try to save paper by reading these documents online, if possible. If you must print out documents, please consider printing double-sided and with two pages per sheet of paper. I will accept all assignments turned in electronically; I will also grade these assignments electronically. If, as the semester proceeds, you have suggestions regarding how to make the course more sustainable, please let me know. I look forward to working with you to achieve a more sustainable course.