This spring, SLS had the opportunity to host an in-person tour at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, led by staff member Jamie White-Jones. As part of the experience, we asked students to share with us what was most impactful to them personally. We are pleased to share those reflections with you!
Iesha Baldwin (Spelman College '19, Environmental Studies)
My favorite part of the tour was when Jamie, our tour guide, told us the story of her great uncle, Mr.Williams. Mr.Williams was one of Martin Luther King's close friends and personal bodyguard. This was the most memorable part of the tour for me because it allowed me to feel more connected to the events of the past. Jamie's shared stories grew my appreciation for history and showed me that history is alive today.
Amy Wood (PhD, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
The most impactful exhibit for me was the lunch counter audio-sensory simulation.…
Last month, in partnership with the School of City and Regional Planning, Serve-Learn-Sustain offered a short course on the basics of Asset-Based Community Development. “ABCD,” as it’s known, was founded by John McKnight and Jody Kretzman, who as local organizers and community researchers in Chicago, came to believe that existing deficit-focused frameworks for development missed what fundamentally animates and defines communities: their assets. Although a focus on assets is core to Serve-Learn-Sustain’s approach to both community- university partnerships and sustainable communities education, SLS had not before offered a course focused solely on ABCD. Collaborating with consultant and ABCD Institute Board Chair Seva Gandhi, SLS Director Jenny Hirsch and I facilitated the course with an eye toward creating a…
Sagdrina Jalal (Center for Civic Innovation), Jennifer Hirsch (SLS), and Dori Pap (Institute for Leadership and Social Innovation) recently collaborated on a guest column for Saporta Report, focused on the idea that Black women are pioneers of social innovation, and their long history of working to create community – even when exhausted, even while being ignored, even as credit goes to others – should be recognized.. For these three organizations, a shared belief in the importance of supporting innovation led by Black women provides a rare example of how large institutions can propel the work of community leaders forward by playing supportive, rather than leading, roles.
We are devastated by the violence being wrought on AAPI communities in Atlanta and around the country. We know that building community is one of the strongest ways to help everyone feel welcome and keep us all safe. We have been holding conversations in our classes and other activities where everyone can share what they’re experiencing, grieve together if they’d like, share resources, and identify new ways to support each other.
Our ongoing focus on equity as a key component of “creating sustainable communities” has never felt more relevant and important, as we also keep dealing with the devastation of the pandemic, and as the Derek Chauvin case for the murder of George Floyd gets underway, bringing to the fore once again all the trauma of the racial injustices from last spring and summer.
Here are some updated resources for learning, support, and action. We hope you will find them useful. Please join us as we wrap our arms around our AAPI and BIPOC students,…
Are you working on a Sustainability Project? Do you need to find information? The Georgia Tech Library is here to help! Georgia Tech Librarians are here to support the research of the GT community. In response to Georgia Tech's new Strategic Plan, with its emphasis on the Sustainable Development Goals, Leslie Sharp, dean of libraries, wanted the Sustainability Research Guide, which was created in 2019 when the Kendenda Building had its opening symposium, updated. Bette Finn updated the guide to include information about the UN SDGs. Isabel Altamirano, the librarian who serves as the primary point of contact for SLS and sustainability resources, announced the updated resource for students and faculty.
In this type of interdisciplinary work, the updated Research Guide serves to provide resources that can jumpstart any search, and now includes an explanation and information about the United…
The following is a 2021 interview with Georgia Tech student, Alex Ip. Alex is an Environmental Engineering major and Editor in Chief of The Xylom, a student-led newsroom exploring the communities influencing and shaped by science. Using skills he learned at Tech, including through SLS-affiliated courses and programs, he focuses on telling personal stories of sciences and humanity. More information on The Xylom’s mission and recent posts can be found on the outlet's website: https://www.thexylom.com/…
SLS is excited to share that we have expanded our work with Georgia Tech faculty to integrate community sustainability and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into courses and course modules. We are leading a collaborative initiative to expand SDG teaching tools and training opportunities throughout the RCE Greater Atlanta area—and beyond!
Going Global: A Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Curriculum Design Workshop
Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan 2020-2030 states that the Institute “is redefining what it means to be a leading public technological research university in this new era, committed to empowering people of all backgrounds and to integrating our resources across disciplines to create a better future for our community — locally, nationally, and globally.” To…
A big THANK YOU to all who participated in the 2021 SLS teaching award selection by reading through the entries and voting!
We invited faculty who have been teaching SLS-affiliated courses during the pandemic to submit short write-ups describing how they successfully pivoted their courses in the context of COVID-19. We received eleven entries across four colleges that described challenges, joys, and victories experienced while incorporating sustainability and/or community engagement into teaching amidst the challenges of the pandemic.
The submissions reflect creative, compassionate, and flexible teaching that enhanced learning and supported student well-being under very trying circumstances. Did you miss the reflection? Read through the SLS faculty teaching award entries here.
We published these faculty stories in an SLS reflection on February 1st and invited…
We’re traveling less and staying at home more. Is it helping or hurting the environment? This past fall, MPR News host Angela Davis spoke with Dr. Kim Cobb, Georgia Tech professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and Paul Huttner, MPR's chief meterologist, on how the pandemic is affecting climate change. Listen to that interview HERE.
The biggest concern I had in 2019 when planning my SLS English 1101 class—"This is fine: Humor, Media, and Climate Change”—was climate change. I hardly expected the focus on humor would also serve to help my students and I weather one of the worst pandemics in recent memory. But the class’s emphasis on humor as a persuasive tool gave us another way to think through the pandemic and its parallels to climate change, especially as we discussed environmental justice.
The class used Nicole Seymour’s concept of “Bad Environmentalism” to analyze climate change memes and think about environmental justice. Switching the class to a hybrid—where most of the learning would take place asynchronously online with a handful of in-person meetings—was a challenge. I recorded my lectures with PowerPoint. We used…
Teaching over the past several semesters has looked very different than in years past. Faculty at Georgia Tech and around the world have invested enormous energy and endless hours in reshaping courses, pedagogy, and community engagement to support student learning safely during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, at SLS we felt it appropriate to do some re-designing ourselves with respect to this year’s teaching awards. We invited faculty teaching SLS-affiliated courses over the past year to submit short write-ups described how they successfully pivoted their courses in the context of COVID-19. We received eleven entries across four colleges that describe challenges, joys, and victories experienced while incorporating sustainability and/or community engagement into teaching amidst the challenges of the pandemic.
All entries appear below, and we invite readers to review them and reflect upon ideas and lessons learned that may be transferable. We also invite you to help…
History and Sociology Assistant Professor Todd Michney reflects on his SLS affiliated Fall 2020 Semester in the City course, focused on helping students understand the experiences of residents in the Westside Atlanta communities that border the Georgia Tech campus. Although students in the course, which has been taught for over 10 years, would normally do in-person field work with residents in these communities, Dr. Michney was able to pivot the course and have students interview residents virtually and learn more about the English Avenue community firsthand. Read the full article HERE and listen to the podcast created by the students.
SLS Launches Public Interest Technology Student Fellows Program
We are so excited to introduce our inaugural cohort of SLS Public Interest Technology Student Fellows! Funded by a grant through the Public Interest Technology University Network and the New America Foundation, this program seeks to support undergraduates, especially underrepresented students, in learning to work with community partners on public interest technology projects, and through that experience, identify and embark upon public interest technology…
In the wake of racial justice protests this past summer, countless organizations, institutions, and important figures in our society have responded and made commitments, Georgia Tech included. Different units of the Institute responded to this peak in social unrest with action. Why is it important that we identify and recognize these efforts? The answer is twofold.
- We must recognize where work is being done to ensure sufficient support is being given internally to those doing it. This support can come from any Georgia Tech affiliate: students, faculty, staff, even fans!
- Georgia Tech’s motto is “Progress and Service.” The initiatives that will be recognized are this motto exemplified. Additionally, our motto complements the overall mission of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In seeking institutional transformation, Tech can find a useful framework in the UN Sustainable Development Goals; the…
Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education (Oct. 20-22) - STARTS TOMORROW!
Join SLS at NO COST - Georgia Tech has unlimited FREE registration for anyone with a GT email IP or email address
About the conference:
This week, October 20-22, is this year’s virtual AASHE conference - the Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education. GCSHE offers 3 full days of live content and networking, plus thirty days of on demand access (through November 22). You can attend as many or as few sessions as you’d like (even just one!). AASHE is our professional association – the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
The conference theme focuses on justice and equity and features a number of wonderful keynote speakers, including Ibram X. Kendi,…
Bill Winders is Professor of Sociology in the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Tech. One of the courses he teaches regularly is HTS 3068: Social Movements.
Over the years, some of my research has examined different aspects of social movements, including how social movements influence political policies. I am pleased to have this opportunity to reflect on the current and historic protests about racial injustice and inequality that have enveloped the country.
The scale and persistence of these protests are remarkable. We have not seen such widespread and ongoing protests like this for several decades, that have struck scores of cities throughout the United States – and even across the globe. This is clearly an historic moment, and there is a palpable sense of change in the country.
Many people have raised questions about protests and their efficacy, and I would like to respond to a couple of questions that I have heard in recent weeks:…
SLS Global Student Ambassador Mynah Holloway, shares her experiences with the Serve-Learn-Sustain in Spain study abroad program through her own blog. Read more HERE.
The Serve-Learn-Sustain in Spain program is offered in spring semester by the School of Modern Languages. Take 12 to 15 credits of upper-division Spanish and earn a Spanish certificate (12 credits) or a Spanish minor (15 credits) in just four months abroad. The Serve-Learn-Sustain in Spain program is based in Granada, Spain and combines intensive conversation practice with service-learning projects and sustainability studies. This study abroad is part of the SLS Sustainable Cities Minor.
Tag: XCPERSP
“Creating sustainable communities” requires understanding issues from multiple perspectives and within broad contexts. To that end, each semester, SLS links together classes from multiple GT colleges and schools with some key community partners, under broad sustainable communities themes. Through a series of joint workshops and activities, students, faculty, and partners jointly explore problems and solutions from different academic and practitioner perspectives. This semester, faculty Manu Platt (Biomedical Engineering) and Jennifer Singh (Sociology) bring together the components of cell biology and social reality, challenging students from their classes to think more critically about the historical, social and economic challenges and considerations and disparities within the nation's healthcare system.
Read the …
We are pleased to provide you with a blog post from one of our 2019 SLS Global Student Ambassadors. This week, we highlight the Language for Business and Technology (LBAT): Germany program, which takes students throughout Germany and explores regional perspectives in lifestyles, history, and traditions, as well as from an industrial point of view. Our Global Student Ambassador in this program, Emma Axelson, writes about her observations regarding approaches to building climate control and a unique approach to preschool.
Windows in Germany
In my time in Germany, I have discovered that the German culture has a very different approach to climate control and to opening windows. In my experiences in the Southern US, we are often averse to opening windows except when the conditions are just right. However, in Germany, opening windows to let in fresh air is a daily activity at minimum. Many…
Doug Joiner, a lifelong child and adolescent activist and RCE Greater Atlanta partner, recently wrote a column for the Saporta report, about the importance of embracing children as commuting stakeholders in the development of child friendly transportation initiatives in cities.