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Ten Years of Sustainability at Minerva
The theme of Unitas 2025 is 'Our Story in Motion'.
The following timeline captures many stories about sustainability at Minerva from the last ten years, which has accelerated in the last five years.
Ahead of the Learning Round session on Sustainability and New Program Innovation, take 5 minutes to scroll through the timeline to see how Sustainability fits in Minerva's history. It will help us collectively imagine the next chapter for Minerva Sustainability.
AY 2015
Minerva's Inaugural Class arrived in San Francisco
One of Minerva's early academic goals was to prepare students for jobs that don't even exist yet.
It is now increasingly clear many of those will focus on solving the climate crisis and improving sustainability.
Minerva Cornerstones taught HCs through topics like food security, water allocation, and climate change.
Many Minerva HCs map onto the Sustainability Competencies recommended by the National Academies of Sciences.
AY 2016
M19s moved to Berlin and Buenos Aires, opening Minerva's first rotation cities outside the United States.
Core courses were launched.
AY 2017
Seoul and Hyderabad were opened as new rotation cities.
Concentration courses were launched, including ones with substantial sustainability content, like Keeping Earth Habitable and Global Development and Applied Economics
AY 2018
The addition of London and Taipei completed the original 7 city rotation.
Tutorials launched for seniors, with sustainability-focused classes like:
Designing Livable Cities
History of the Environment
Food System Sustainability
The Food System Sustainability tutorial resulted in a student-led publication.
Many Capstone projects focused on sustainability, including a sustainable fashion startup and an initial Sustainability Assessment of Minerva
M19s Graduated!!!
AY 2019
A Student Sustainability Work Study position was created to follow up on the recommendations of the Sustainability Assessment of Minerva.
Minerva students started the Sustainability Union of Minerva (SUM), a sustainability-focused Student Initiative
The COVID-19 Pandemic hit, stranding some students in places like Hyderabad and Buenos Aires, disrupting the Global Rotation
AY 2020
Students began the academic year in a limited number of rotation cities with different quarantine and lockdown procedures.
The Minerva Sustainability Coffee Talk Series was started, with a dedicated group of Minervans meeting once every two weeks to discuss Sustainability at Minerva.
The initial working definition of Sustainability at Minerva was defined as:
"meeting the educational goals of our student body without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and building students' capacity to create solutions that contribute to the ability of future generations to meet their needs."
Faculty began a process of auditing the curriculum according to guidelines set by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).
AY 2021
The Sustainability Coffee Talk group continued to meet.
Coaching and Talent Development launched the Climate & Sustainability Careers Guide.
A Minerva Flight Greenhouse Gas Calculator was created.
Preliminary data indicate that faculty, staff, and student flights account for over 80% of Minerva's carbon emissions.
AY 2022
The audit of Sustainability in Minerva's curriculum laid the groundwork for Minerva's Interdisciplinary Sustainability Minor.
Inspired by Minerva's AI Lab, a Sustainability Innovation Lab is proposed.
AY 2023
A team of Minerva students, faculty, and staff traveled to EARTH University in Costa Rica for a collaborative design thinking internship focused on developing Sustainability Programming.
The Minerva Student Sustainability Collective was launched as a Work Study Initiative inspired by Study Kit.
Collective students started Sustainability Newsletter Tellus Mater, and organized Climate Week activities.
Minerva launches 2-credit IL120 courses on Middle East History and Sustainability, the latter in partnership with EARTH U in Costa Rica and Zamorano U in Honduras.
Sustainability Coffee Talk sessions were held that involved students on topics like the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Progress and Minerva and Remote Sensing of SDGs.
The working definition of Sustainability at Minerva was redefined to:
"Sustainability at Minerva strives to equitably ensure that current and future generations and the environments they depend on can flourish. We do not limit ourselves to a single framework in pursuit of that goal. Our approach encompasses a range of values and actions that (1) recognize the local differences of common global problems, (2) capitalize on our global diversity, and (3) are rooted in the ethically-centered, systems-thinking, and problem-solving education of Minerva."
AY 2024
The Minerva Sustainability Lab was launched.
The Minerva Climate Tech Coffee Talk Series brought outside experts together with students on the topic of Sustainability Startups.
Students, faculty, and staff collaborated on Minerva Climate x SDG Week programming.
The Minerva Sustainability Coffee Talk team are actively discussing:
Sustainability Learning Outcomes
Progress on the Sustainability Minor
The possibility of creating a Minerva Sustainability and Climate Action Plan.
Twenty students will participate in the Tokyo Summer 2025 Sustainability Lab.
What sustainability moments do you remember from the past ten years?
Whether it's something small or large, consider how sustainability has touched your Minerva experience. If you are inspired to share, you're more than welcome to send a photo or written memory to sustainability@minerva.edu
2025 - 2035: The next ten years
Sustainability at Minerva has been an incredibly collaborative endeavor.
In the Unitas Learning Round Session on Sustainability and New Program Innovation, be ready to learn more about current initiatives, share thoughts of how Sustainability fits with your work, and envision what the story of Sustainability at Minerva could look like ten years from now.
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