Imagining Sustainable Environments: Place and Culture in the Global Community

FAIN: AB-226799-15

Virginia State University (Petersburg, VA 23803-2520)
Maxine J. Sample (Project Director: June 2014 to July 2019)

A summer faculty development institute, curricular enhancement activities, and a series of campus and community dialogues on environmental history and literature at Virginia State University.

Imagining Sustainable Environments: Exploring Culture and Place in a Global Community proposes ways that faculty can promote students' global learning through humanistic approaches that explore the intersection of history, culture, gender, class, ethnicity and nationality and environmental issues. This approach helps redefine narrow concepts of environment and unravel the complexities of humankind's engagement with the natural and built spaces we occupy. Through integrating environmental thought and representation into humanities courses, students gain cross-cultural perspectives of global environmental challenges that communities encounter daily. Thinking and writing critically about these connections enable students to understand complex debates about ethics and the cultural parameters of the environment. The program includes a Summer Faculty Development Institute on Environmental Humanities; Curriculum Enhancement in the Humanities; and Campus Awareness/Community Dialogue.