Building Sustainability Leadership: Rethinking Curriculum Design and the Role of the Faculty

Abstract

Higher education has begun to attend to the importance of collaboration and self-awareness for educating sustainability leaders. However, there has been limited discussion on how to design a pedagogy that supports the development of these competencies, particularly the development of self-awareness. In this chapter, we introduce an experiential pedagogy in which students and faculty work together to develop self-awareness as the basis for sustainability leadership. We present three pedagogical principles that support the emotional learning that is foundational for sustainability leadership: student self-discovery, faculty as co-learners, and a developmentally focused learning environment. We demonstrate how these three principles work together to enable students and faculty to grow their self-awareness, providing the foundation for sustainable leadership. We conclude with a discussion on how management educators can learn from this case to develop sustainability leaders who have the self-awareness and relational competency to lead positive, inclusive organizations that are committed to sustainable business practices.

Citation

Hunt, J., Turner, L., Taylor, S.N. and Greenberg, D. (2023), "Building Sustainability Leadership: Rethinking Curriculum Design and the Role of the Faculty", Caporarello, L., Kumar, P. and Agrawal, A. (Ed.) Higher Education for the Sustainable Development Goals: Bridging the Global North and South, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 127-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-525-020231007