Development and Implementation of a Sustainable Engineering Curriculum

A series of curricular innovations has led to the integration of Sustainable Engineering within the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Sustainable Engineering refers to the integration of social, environmental, and economic considerations into product, process and energy systems design methods. Additionally, sustainable engineering encourages the consideration of the complete product and process lifecycle during the design effort. The intent of the curricular innovations described here is to provide students with methods and approaches that would allow them to minimize the total of the environmental impacts across a system’s entire lifecycle while simultaneously maximizing the benefits to social and economic stakeholders. Specific enhancements to RIT’s curriculum include the development and delivery of three new engineering courses that address sustainability themes, the development of a programmatic undergraduate minor in Sustainable Product Development, the expansion of the required senior capstone course to include projects with sustainability themes, the development of two Master’s degree programs in Sustainable Engineering, and, most recently, the development of a service learning course that includes an experiential education component based in a developing country (currently Haiti). Student interest in these courses and programs has been very favorable, particularly from women and minorities. The paper describes the RIT context from which these curricular innovations arose, the approach taken for development and delivery, and assessment data used to evaluate the success of the initiatives. In addition, a framework for growing such programs at other institutions is provided.