Sustainability Course Modules for Information Systems and Interdisciplinary Courses

This workshop will demonstrate how the development of curriculum for sustainability can become a strategic opportunity for IS departments. We will discuss our efforts to introduce modules to existing IS courses that target sustainability and energy literacy. Sustainability, first identified as a characteristic of eco-systems, is the capacity to maintain a process indefinitely. The UN Commission on Environment and Development defines sustainability as the ability to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainability has gained significant public and government attention, such as global warming, decreasing energy supplies, and increasing food costs. Many colleges and universities have received positive notice for their greening efforts. In many respects, the academy is expected to be a leader in efforts to improve sustainability. We argue the growing emphasis on sustainability is a strategic opportunity for information systems. Many IS themes are highly relevant to sustainability. There are global, social, technical, and cognitive components that all impact on the use of natural resources. Social behaviors must be changed as a result. For example, an individual’s energy consumption is directly related to their interaction with technologies that both rely on and control energy use. Workshop Co-Leader Information Name: Catherine Dwyer Affiliation: Pace University Postal Address: 163 William Street #225, New York, NY 10038 Telephone: 212-346-1728 Cell: 917-561-1498 Fax: Email: cdwyer@pace.edu Workshop Co-Leader Information Name: Elizabeth Avery Gomez Affiliation: New Jersey Institute of Technology Postal Address: 5600 GITC University Heights Newark NJ 07102-1982 Telephone: 973-596-5481 Cell: 973-727-5630 Fax: Email: Elizabeth.avery@njit.edu Speakers' background, description of workshop, and envisioned activities during the workshop (please provide information for each speaker) Catherine Dwyer’s Background: Dr. Catherine Dwyer is a member of the Pace University faculty and a social media consultant with over twenty years experience in the IT field. She is an internationally recognized scholar whose research on privacy management in social networking sites has been referenced in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The St. Louis Post Dispatch and Computerworld. Inspired by her husband’s successful effort to build the first solar panel installation in a cooperative apartment building in New York City, Dr. Dwyer has been developing projects, class exercises, and homework assignments related to sustainability issues and energy use for the last two years. Dr. Dwyer received the Distinguished Faculty Service Award in 2003 for her development of an online computing literacy curriculum. She has also served as a faculty leader for numerous conferences and events that promoted science and technology careers to high school girls. For more information on her research go to http://csis.pace.edu/~dwyer . Elizabeth Avery Gomez’s Background: Dr. Elizabeth Avery Gomez is a faculty member in Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology. For over 25 years she has been an information systems specialist working with fortune 100 companies on multi-platform projects. Dr. Gomez conducts research on ways to adapt communication protocols in support of today's mobile technologies for improved communication response readiness (http://www.ereadiness.org/). Special emphasis is placed on the crisis management domain and assisting communities of need through the use of technology, especially diverse populations with limited economic and technological resources who need training for a sustainable workforce. Dr. Gomez’s research on plain language training adapted for communication with SMS text-messaging has been recognized internationally and also in press at outlets such as MSN top stories, Atlantic City Press and University Business. Description of Workshop: The goal of the workshop is to introduce a selection of sustainability modules that can be included in a course, or combined and expanded for a new interdisciplinary course on Sustainability. We will present a half-day workshop with topics, readings, assignments, and class exercises for sustainability that have been developed over the past two years. The material we will present will involve cases that have already been tested in a college classroom at least twice. We will present the assignments, show samples of student work, and report based on student reflections as to their learning experience and outcomes from these cases. Improvements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use will depend on profound changes in the behavior of millions of people. There are many complexities related to the state of energy use. Understanding these complexities can depend both on quantitative analysis and knowledge of general energy use patterns.