Embedding Sustainability in Cultural Heritage Conservation Education: Tier II

FAIN: PR-290125-23

UCLA; Regents of the University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA 90024-4201)
Ellen Pearlstein (Project Director: May 2022 to present)
Glenn Wharton (Co Project Director: February 2023 to present)

A project to research and compile data on methods for integrating sustainability into conservation programs as part of a multi-year project to build theoretical frameworks into pedagogical models.

The Embedding Sustainability in Cultural Heritage Conservation Education initiative includes research, analysis, and dissemination of data on barriers against integrating sustainability in conservation and its educational institutions. From our Phase I research we learned that regardless of whether respondents want to incorporate sustainability into their work, many face opposition or institutional resistance. We also found systematic exclusion of sustainability in our own teaching. The research is informed by intellectual and scientific research underway at UCLA, the Getty Conservation Institute, and global institutions across the humanities. It is also informed by multiple ways of caring for cultural heritage from our interdisciplinary team of Indigenous leaders, ethnographers, cultural resource managers, and community stakeholders. Our ultimate goal is to develop methods for mitigating sustainability barriers that will have impact across the humanities.