SUSTAINABILITY AND THE LIBERAL ARTS:

AN ACS WORKSHOP FOR COURSE DEVELOPMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Announcing Fall Workshop at Hendrix College

October 4-7, 1998

This is the first conference on "Sustainability and the Liberal Arts" to occur in the United States.

Today many people throughout the world are asking how humans might live more sustainably on the planet. For them sustainability implies ecological and biological integrity, cultural diversity, economic efficiency, and human well being (including attention to problems of poverty, violence and community disintegration).

This conference will deal with the role of liberal arts colleges in helping prepare students for a sustainable future. Emphasis will be placed on all dimensions of education at a liberal arts college: curriculum, campus design and operations, career planning, social outreach, and research. Leaders will be coming from around the country to help lead ACS faculty and staff in discussions.

These national leaders include:

• David Korten (Author of When Corporations Rule the World)
• John Cobb (co-author with Herman Daly of For the Common Good)
• David Orr (Author of Earth in Mind)
• Mary Evelyn Tucker (Author of Worldviews and Ecology)
• Sharon Parks (Author of Common Fire)
• Tony Cortese (Director of Second Nature)
• Trileigh Stroh (Department of Geology, Seattle University)
• David Brubalier (Department of Biology, Seattle University)

Each of these national leaders, as well as all workshop participants, are asked to consider the following questions:

• "What do students, faculty, staff, and administrators in liberal arts colleges need to know about the state of the world, environmentally and socially?"
• "What can students, faculty, and administrators do to respond to this challenge?"
• "Is there a particular quality or role that, in your view, the liberal arts can play in helping us respond to the state of the world?"
• "What things are already being done in different parts of the country and world which, in your view, we ought to know about?"
• "What distinctive approach do you bring to these questions, from which you hope we might learn?"

These and other questions will be addressed in short presentations and in panel discussions in which ACS faculty and staff will be active participants. Opportunities will also be provided for two ACS faculty from each institution, and also for career development officers from each institution to (1) enter into discussion with the speakers and panelists, and (2) brainstorm with one another concerning collaborative efforts in the future.

Planners of the conference hope that, in the summer of 1999, a follow-up conference will occur in light of these discussions. Some of the participants in the conference might reconvene to begin developing an adaptable, interdisciplinary set of teaching aids, that might be used throughout the ACS, to help further the study and promotion of sustainability on the various conferences. The "Sustainability and Liberal Arts Conference" is a step toward this larger aim.

The four-day conference is sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) and the Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE) in Washington, D. C. in cooperation with the Sustainability and Global Education (SAGE) working group of Hendrix College. It is made possible with the support of numerous foundations and organizations including the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

Tentative Conference Schedule

For additional information contact: