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Just Sustainability: Curious Conversations About Equity and Sustainability is a podcast that was created with the support of the Institute on the Environment’s Educators program at the University of Minnesota to serve as a resource for faculty and professionals within higher-education interested in better integrating equity and sustainability within their work. In the process of recording the podcast, the presenters have had the opportunity to speak to and learn from a wide variety of folks who are at the vanguard of the movement towards a more socially-just approach to sustainability. We will share some of the insights that have been offered by the guests featured on Just Sustainability and consider how members of the audience might approach growing discourse about equitable sustainability at their home institutions.

Some of the topics that will be covered in this workshop include but are not limited to:

1. How the guests featured on Just Sustainability conceptualize the intersection of equity and sustainability and the sort of objectives that inform their work.
2. The importance of community-specific factors, how those factors contribute to disparate outcomes related to sustainability, and how guests have worked to better attend to those factors (particularly when they are working outside of their home communities).
3. Strategies for building empowering relationships with communities and to learn from marginalized folks in non-exploitative ways.
4. The cultural biases embedded within the conventions of higher education (and other institutions), how such conventions are exclusive and contribute to the marginalization of folks belonging to various identities, and how to challenge those conventions.
5. How the guests approach self-care and find joy in their work.

We will include audio clips of notable figures involved in promoting equity and sustainability discussing the topics covered in this workshop. Participants of the workshop will also be offered an opportunity to participate in a recording of an episode of Just Sustainability.

This workshop will include content drawn from interviews with a number of professionals and educators at the forefront of the move to better integrate equity and social justice into sustainability. Additionally, there will be discussion of concrete practical strategies that often are absent from workshops concerned with the relationship between equity and sustainability. Audience members, if they so choose, will be involved in the creation of new content that will be made public and intended to further advance efforts towards more just and equitable sustainability.

Benefits for attendees:

• Improved communication across cultures and communities
• Improved understanding of how to integrate equity and social justice into sustainability work
• Knowledge about the factors that reinforce exclusionary practices and environment in higher education
• Knowledge about practical strategies to transition to more inclusive and welcoming practices

Facilitators

Clement Loo, Lecturer/Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies; Student Success Coordinator in Equity, Diversity, and Intercultural Programs, University of Minnesota Morris

Clement Loo is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and the Student Success Coordinator for Equity, Diversity, and Intercultural Programs at the University of Minnesota Morris. He also serves on the Advisory Council and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and is a fellow of the Institute on the Environment’s Educator program. His research and teaching focuses on food justice and equitable/inclusive stakeholder partnerships as a tool to improve the robustness of scholarship and practice within higher-education. In his free time, Clement rides his scooter or uses fishing as an excuse to explore the shores of the lakes and streams of Minnesota.

Peter Levin, Institute on the Environment Educators Graduate Research Assistant, University of Minnesota

Peter Levin is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities with a focus on science and environmental education. He is also a 7th grade life science teacher where he is trying to foster students’ understandings and personal relationships with nature. His research focuses on the social and emotional aspects of teaching and learning, and how nature is positioned in science education. He also worked as a program coordinator at the Institute on the Environment, and was an early childhood teacher and researcher. Everyday, you can find Peter enjoying the sunshine in the mountains, by a river or at home.

Any questions about the workshop?
Please contact Daita Serghi, education@aashe.org          

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