Academics
SUNY Empire State College offers individually designed degree plans that can integrate the theme of “sustainability” into the student's concentration. Sustainability can be woven into any study or degree plan, or can be a topic of study on its own.
In these videos Empire State College faculty members help explain what it means to study sustainability in several different areas of study.
Why study sustainability?
Students studying sustainability gain skills that give them a competitive edge in the workplace, as well as foster citizenship.
Students in the 21st century need a range of skills, knowledge, attitudes and capabilities. Studying sustainability is an excellent way of acquiring these attributes, because students can use a holistic approach to understand a problem and the cultural/societal norms that are part of it. They use critical-thinking and problem-solving skills to develop solutions and exercise communication skills to create a dialogue that leads to action and change. Through their in-depth study of a problem, they come to understand how cultural, economic and environmental systems interact. This systems approach to learning transfers to the workplace for students who have developed the ability to understand how each sector of a company works to support the others.