CONCEPT PAPER

The University of Rhode Island's Sustainable Communities Initiative
Concept Paper Spring 2001

Introduction
The Challenge for URI
The Origins for this URI Initiative
 
" The University of Rhode Island is the principal public research and graduate institution in the state of Rhode Island with responsibilities for expanding knowledge, for transmitting it, and for fostering its application. Its status as a land grant, sea grant, and urban grant institution highlights its traditions of natural resource, marine, and urban related research. …With undergraduate and graduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences and focus programs in the areas of marine and environmental studies; health; children, families, and communities; and enterprise and advanced technology, the University strives to meet the rapidly changing needs of the state, the country, and the world."
-- URI Mission Statement

Introduction

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In 1995, the President’s Council on Sustainable Development brought together educators from around the world to discuss the principles of sustainability and determine how best to incorporate them into higher education.  Participants in the Essex Workshop recognized the moral responsibility of institutions of higher education to increase the awareness, knowledge, skills, and values needed to create a just and sustainable future. These findings were built upon the recommendations of the “Talloires Declaration of University Presidents for a Sustainable Future,” a policy statement signed by more than 270 institutions from 42 countries which charges Institutions of Higher Learning to ensure that all students receive a strong foundation in the basic tenets of ecological and social literacy.

As one of the signatories of the Talloires Declaration, the University of Rhode Island recognizes its responsibility to promote the principles of sustainability. To meet this pledge, the University must strive to enhance student awareness of the concept of sustainability---the dynamics of ecological and socioeconomic systems and their interdependence--by prominently featuring component studies within its overall culture for learning.

The concept of sustainability has emerged as a response to the need to reconcile the rapid growth in human societies and their activities with the resources of a living and finite planet. The world’s population is expected to grow to 9 billion by 2050 and level off at 10 to 11 billion by the end of this century, nearly double that of today’s 6 billion (National Research Council, 1999). Yet the scale and intensity of human activities already overburden natural processes, degrade aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric resources, cause significant losses in biological diversity, and increase the uncertainty that current and future generations will be able to meet their basic needs. We are frequently reminded of the impacts of overpopulation, excessive consumption, and pollution. We  see  increasingly clear warning signals, with global climate change, the rapid extinction of other species, increasing suburban sprawl, the abandonment and neglect of urban areas, and quality of life issues in our neighborhoods, and agree: many human behaviors as we currently know them are not sustainable.

Sustainability focuses on the vital questions of how humanity can continue to thrive on Earth.  Higher education systems have a key role to play as they prepare those who will develop and manage the world’s institutions and teach future generations environmental awareness and social responsibility. As noted by the Essex Workshop, “Interactions between populations, human activities, and the environment, and strategies, technologies, and policies for an environmentally just and sustainable future are amongst the most complex issues with which society must deal. These issues cross disciplinary boundaries.” This can make it difficult to convene the  skills necessary for effective teaching and research in “educational institutions that are organized into highly specialized areas of knowledge and traditional disciplines.”

The Challenge for URI

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The URI community must address a critical educational need so that our students and community  have the skills and understanding to promote and ensure the principles of a just and sustainable society.  The foundation for a sustainability initiative is implicitly interdisciplinary. For URI, this  is a challenge we are well poised to meet through the application of current expertise, investment in the development and growth of research and curricular components, and the use of URI’s diversity of teaching/learning methods such as learning communities, experiential learning, and service learning. The sustainable development initiative will engage individuals who represent the arts and literature, the social sciences, the natural sciences, philosophy, economics, community planning and landscape architecture, engineering, and health, among others. The challenges of sustainable development  are imbedded in the URI focus areas as well as the liberal arts core.

The Origins for this URI Initiative

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The URI Sustainable Communities Initiative has evolved as a response to the presence of several academic programs that are already addressing the issues raised by the sustainability of contemporary human activity.,   The activities of the Coastal Institute, the formation of a new academic department, “Community Planning and Landscape Architecture,”  and the presence of award-winning programs associated with Sea Grant, Land Grant, Urban Grant, and the U.S. Agency for International Development are all dedicated to fostering more sustainable forms of development both here in Rhode Island and worldwide.  In the fall of 1999, an informal working group, led by then Vice Provost Margaret Leinen, held several meetings on the topic and one campus-wide workshop.  In September 2000, a Congressional Grant through the U.S. Department of Education was received by the University to help launch a university-wide initiative that includes fostering enhanced curricula in topics of sustainability, planning for a new facility, and the design of a sustainable neighborhood.  

URI has long been a pioneer in interdisciplinary curricula and research on the issues that are central to discovering and promoting sustainable forms of behavior in coastal environments. The University's history, coupled with the particular features of Rhode Island, makes URI uniquely positioned to respond to the challenges of sustainability as they apply to coastal regions - that small proportion of the planet where human populations and human activities are increasingly concentrated. No other university can bring to bear the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience on the social and environmental dynamics in these crucially important environments. We are positioned to serve as a crucible for the formulation of the concepts and the tools that can apply the principles of sustainability to the world's coasts.  

 

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