EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS

2026 Faculty Sustainabiltiy Workshop

The sixth annual SICJS Faculty Workshop took place on May 21 and 22, 2026. Twenty faculty from across campus participated in this workshop, focused on sustainability scholarship:

• Securing funding for research projects 

• Increasing the impact of scholarly work

• Identifying Villanova research strengths and synergies 

• Advancing interdisciplinary and community-engaged scholarship

Participants chose to provide one of the following deliverables: Community Partnership Plan, Evidence of Foundation Outreach, Interdisciplinary Research Team Development, or to submit an abstract to the October International Sustainability Conference.  

2025 Faculty Sustainability Workshop

The 2025 Faculty Sustainability Workshop took place May 19-20 in the Curley Exchange in Bartley Hall. Workshop themes included: Waste; Villanova University as a Living Laboratory; and Community-Engaged Research and Education. During the two-day workshop, faculty explored trash and other sustainability considerations on campus; heard from community leaders about partnership opportunities; learned how to identify possible funding for these projects; and created resources to integrate these themes into courses. Speakers included Jerome Shabazz from the Overbrook Environmental Education Center, Obed Arango from CCATE, and Shari Hersh from Trash Academy.

2024 Curriculum Workshop

On May 20-21, 2024, eight non-Engineering faculty members joined eight Engineering faculty members for an interdisciplinary workshop focusing on sustainability curriculum development. SICJS partnered with the College of Engineering to plan and implement the two-day workshop. Workshop content focused on understanding the concept of the Anthropocene, learning about the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) sustainability model, and exploring pedagogical applications. The Engineering cohort’s workshop continued May 22-24 with a focus on the Engineering-specific components of the EOP model.

The workshop included content delivery, interactive sessions, collaborative workshopping of course syllabi and student learning outcomes, and individual time working on course revision. Steve Goldsmith, the 2023-24 SICJS Faculty Fellow, helped plan and implement the workshop and delivered a session on his community-based sustainability work. Al Motel set up recycling and composting bins and spoke with participants about what Villanova recycles and composts as part of their sustainable operations. The next Curriculum Workshop will take place in May 2025.
 

SICJS 2022 Research Workshop

As researchers confront the impacts of climate change, we see an increased need to work across disciplines and fields. Yet our disciplines and positions do not often prepare us to establish such projects, nor do they educate us on how to produce interdisciplinary work. During this workshop, we discussed seed-funding opportunities, the needs of neighboring communities, tools and resources for successful projects, the varied research expectations of different disciplines, and current and proposed Villanova research projects.   

Our overall goal was to foster collaboration and explore opportunities to collaborate on future projects in climate, justice, and sustainability. The focus of the workshop was on the needs of Villanova and its surrounding community. Through this workshop, SICJS established interdepartmental and community partnerships, identified individual and research groups in the realm of climate, justice, and/sustainability, and fostered new research and funding prospects.

2021 Curriculum Workshop

The Sustainability Leadership Council hosted a three-day workshop May 17-19, 2021, that focused on incorporating sustainability into a new or existing course. Each faculty participant revised or newly created a syllabus to incorporate sustainability learning. The workshop focused on sustainability and experiential education and featured presentations by faculty and community leaders. The plan for a Villanova Institute for Climate, Justice, and Sustainability was introduced at the workshop.

The following community organizations participated: The Philadelphia Area Environmental Justice Curriculum Hub, National Wildlife Federation, Centro de Cultura Arte Trabajo y Educacion and The Woodlands. Participants developed teaching strategies, learned about experiential education and considered how their disciplinary expertise could contribute to sustainability education.