Wofford faculty teach and research sustainability from many angles and perspectives. Environmental Studies offers a course on sustainability science, with students examining Wofford’s infrastructure and food systems. The course has a summer extension where students and faculty visit Copenhagen, Denmark, to see alternate visions of urban life. Many departments offer courses that engage with the Spartanburg community, benefitting students and community members alike. Art/Art History courses support local youth and people with mental health issues, and Psychology students interact with older adults as part of their Adult Development and Aging course. Since 2019, Modern Languages has run the “Engaged Scholarship for the 21st Century: Diversity, Equity, Sustainability.” Environmental Studies and Sociology/Anthropology contribute to a Living Learning Community where students live in Spartanburg’s Northside neighborhood, working on ecological and community sustainability.
Faculty pursue sustainability research in nine different departments. To offer three examples, our anthropologists study sustainability issues in communities from Sumba, Indonesia, to western Virginia; our biologists work with issues from pollination phenology (annual timing) to coral bleaching; and our computer scientists model buildings’ energy uses to see where they can avoid waste.
Community-based learning courses with practical educational programming for organizations that support local youth and people dealing with mental health issues.
Community-based learning courses with practical educational programming related to exhibitions help students develop critical thinking skills by integrating academic content into community experiences.
Faculty-student collaborative research to develop and implement educational programs to increase literacy and comprehension of K-12 students through museum education or non-formal education. Interacting and working with diverse populations in the community from different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds helps the students better understand the civic responsibilities of the museum as a center of learning in the community.
Dr. Geoffrey Mitchell, associate professor of biology, teaches a course on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of coral bleaching.
All Environmental Studies courses connect to sustainability – it is a cornerstone of our course of study.
Our department is committed to the holistic study of culture and society, and through our courses, we discuss sustainability in relation to people, the environment, community organizing, local histories, justice and more. While Dr. Rhiannon Leebrick, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, offers courses focused on environmental sociology and processes of gentrification in rural U.S. communities, in particular, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Dr. Cynthia Fowler’s courses explore the interplay between the wellbeing of Earth’s people and the planet’s changing nature. Students in Fowler’s classes conduct cross-cultural comparisons in search of patterns in people’s interactions with a multitude of biological organisms while also diving deeply into specific local communities’ experiences with the universal elements of earth, fire, water, and air. Through community-based research courses and through courses where students design and implement community-based programming, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Dr. Alysa Handelsman's students actively engage in learning about local beliefs and lived realities of sustainability while working collaboratively with Spartanburg residents to address challenges, often in relation to education, housing, health and wellness.
“Engaged Scholarship for the 21st Century: Diversity, Equity, Sustainability,” organized by Dr. Laura Barbas-Rhoden, professor of Spanish and funded by Cultural Affairs from 2019 – 2024, has hosted a diverse group scholars and practitioners to share expertise with our campus. Below follows a selection of talks in the series:
Student initiatives have included “Painting a Greener Future: Wofford Climate Action” participatory art and activism event (2021); the creation of a petition asking for the Wofford endowment to be divested from fossil fuels; and the public launch and climate action event “Climate Stories from South Carolina” (2023).
Student-faculty collaborative undergraduate research includes all reports at the following link: digitalcommons.wofford.edu/community
MLLC faculty member Dr. Laura Barbas-Rhoden served as co-diversity officer (2017, 2018, 2019); co-president (2020, 2021); and immediate past co-president (2022) for the international Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.
The Sandor Teszler Library considers sustainability as an academic concentration in identifying and acquiring the best resources. It subscribes to over 20 e-journals devoted to sustainability, and a variety of databases that support sustainability studies. Its collection contains over 5,000 books and 180 films devoted to sustainability. The library’s liaison for Environmental Studies and Sociology/Anthropology assembles and constantly updates online library guides to assist students and faculty in sustainability research, and actively assists student capstone projects in sustainability. Three examples of such projects include “Spartanburg Opportunity Center – PhotVoice, Community Gardening, and Re-Shaping the Narrative Surrounding Homelessness” and “An Assessment of a Wofford-Funded Off Campus Solar Farm.”
The Milliken Sustainability Initiative supports faculty research based on connections with local community partners, with a focus on community sustainability. It supported two new faculty lines. It funds research equipment for environmental field work focused on the nearby community of Glendale, South Carolina, a former mill village with a recovering river and forest. Faculty perform ecological, hydrological, archaeological and anthropological research there, producing, for example, the Oral History and Sustainability Project, collecting oral histories of the community and assessing current knowledge, perceptions, and expectations of present and future community sustainability. Beyond Glendale, Milliken-supported faculty have performed assessments of the local food system and studies of the sociology and biodiversity of local apples.
The Milliken Sustainability Initiative connects Wofford with local community partners through collaborative exploration of community and environmental sustainability. It also fuels student social entrepreneurs and their business ideas as well as community-based coursework and research in the Northside and Glendale communities. The initiative includes energy monitoring dashboard to provide data that may lead to more sustainable resource use. Savings from this program help support the student innovation fund. About ten original research projects have emerged from the program each year. Student entrepreneurial standouts have included a sustainable cosmetic company and an exchange program to facilitate reuse of belongings that are often thrown away as students enter and leave campus.