As part of the Office of Sustainability’s ongoing effort to understand UT student perspectives on various sustainability issues and improve our STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) performance, we worked with the Institutional Reporting, Research and Information Systems (IRRIS) office in the Provost’s Office to create and implement an annual student sustainability survey in 2021.
The 2022 survey received IRB Approval and was offered to 8,600 randomly selected students. Here are a few key takeaways from our perspective:
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Over 70% of students express interest that sustainability is part of their future career paths, even when filtering out students who have actively sought sustainability courses. This is a strong indicator of student demand that can be responded to with both academic and co-curricular opportunities. These data will inform the several Office of Sustainability student facing programs and also the partnership between Office of Sustainability and Texas Career Engagement.
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The most common engagement activities were individual in nature, with students focused on changing their own behaviors or someone close to them, or seeking information for personal interest or to support a class assignment. These activities were more common than students seeking out group activities. This indicates that students are centering change in their own behavior and knowledge, they are internalizing their interest in sustainability.
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Student’s sense of how UT emphasizes sustainability in learning is generally favorable and offers room for improvement. These responses provide a growth opportunity for sustainability in curriculum efforts being pursued by the Office of Sustainability in partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning.
To learn more and see each question and the responses please use the dashboard below. If the dashboard below does not load, please visit this site in private/incognito mode OR clear your browser cache and disable browser add-ons.