How green is our tally? Paul Henshaw hopes to provide an answer to that question by using the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS stars.aashe.org) to quantify the state of the University of Windsor.

To that end, the UWindsor environmental advocate has circulated a questionnaire asking faculty members whether their research or courses are focused on, or related to, sustainability.

Sustainability-focused courses explore a broad range of topics, or select one topic to investigate in depth, provided that economic, social and environmental aspects are considered for each topic. In other words, the majority of the course is spent examining human issues “using sustainability as a lens.”

On the other hand, a course may be considered sustainability-related if it:

• includes at least one class that is sustainability-focused;
• examines one short topic through a sustainability lens; or
• is entirely devoted to an interdisciplinary examination of a topic or topics, considering only two of the three dimensions of sustainability.

Dr. Henshaw is asking his colleagues to list the names and numbers of courses that fall into each category, as well as whether they are required for a UWindsor program. He also is asking them to confirm whether they engage in research on sustainability.

Respondents should reply to sustainability@uwindsor.ca by May 13.