Sagdrina Jalal (Center for Civic Innovation), Jennifer Hirsch (SLS), and Dori Pap (Institute for Leadership and Social Innovation) recently collaborated on a guest column for Saporta Report, focused on the idea that Black women are pioneers of social innovation, and their long history of working to create community – even when exhausted, even while being ignored, even as credit goes to others – should be recognized..  For these three organizations, a shared belief in the importance of supporting innovation led by Black women provides a rare example of how large institutions can propel the work of community leaders forward by playing supportive, rather than leading, roles.  

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We are devastated by the violence being wrought on AAPI communities in Atlanta and around the country. We know that building community is one of the strongest ways to help everyone feel welcome and keep us all safe. We have been holding conversations in our classes and other activities where everyone can share what they’re experiencing, grieve together if they’d like, share resources, and identify new ways to support each other.

Our ongoing focus on equity as a key component of “creating sustainable communities” has never felt more relevant and important, as we also keep dealing with the devastation of the pandemic, and as the Derek Chauvin case for the murder of George Floyd gets underway, bringing to the fore once again all the trauma of the racial injustices from last spring and summer.

Here are some updated resources for learning, support, and action. We hope you will find them useful.  Please join us as we wrap our arms around our AAPI and BIPOC students,…


Are you working on a Sustainability Project? Do you need to find information? The Georgia Tech Library is here to help! Georgia Tech Librarians are here to support the research of the GT community. In response to Georgia Tech's new Strategic Plan, with its emphasis on the Sustainable Development Goals, Leslie Sharp, dean of libraries, wanted the Sustainability Research Guide, which was created in 2019 when the Kendenda Building had its opening symposium, updated.  Bette Finn updated the guide to include information about the UN SDGs. Isabel Altamirano, the librarian who serves as the primary point of contact for SLS and sustainability resources, announced the updated resource for students and faculty.

In this type of interdisciplinary work, the updated Research Guide serves to provide resources that can jumpstart any search, and now includes an explanation and information about the United…


The following is a 2021 interview with Georgia Tech student, Alex Ip. Alex is an Environmental Engineering major and Editor in Chief of The Xylom, a student-led newsroom exploring the communities influencing and shaped by science. Using skills he learned at Tech, including through SLS-affiliated courses and programs, he focuses on telling personal stories of sciences and humanity. More information on The Xylom’s mission and recent posts can be found on the outlet's website: https://www.thexylom.com/


SLS is excited to share that we have expanded our work with Georgia Tech faculty to integrate community sustainability and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into courses and course modules. We are leading a collaborative initiative to expand SDG teaching tools and training opportunities throughout the RCE Greater Atlanta area—and beyond!


Going Global: A Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Curriculum Design Workshop

Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan 2020-2030 states that the Institute “is redefining what it means to be a leading public technological research university in this new era, committed to empowering people of all backgrounds and to integrating our resources across disciplines to create a better future for our community — locally, nationally, and globally.” To…


A big THANK YOU to all who participated in the 2021 SLS teaching award selection by reading through the entries and voting!

We invited faculty who have been teaching SLS-affiliated courses during the pandemic to submit short write-ups describing how they successfully pivoted their courses in the context of COVID-19.  We received eleven entries across four colleges that described challenges, joys, and victories experienced while incorporating sustainability and/or community engagement into teaching amidst the challenges of the pandemic.  

The submissions reflect creative, compassionate, and flexible teaching that enhanced learning and supported student well-being under very trying circumstances. Did you miss the reflection? Read through the SLS faculty teaching award entries here.

We published these faculty stories in an SLS reflection on February 1st and invited…


We’re traveling less and staying at home more. Is it helping or hurting the environment? This past fall, MPR News host Angela Davis spoke with Dr. Kim Cobb, Georgia Tech professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and Paul Huttner, MPR's chief meterologist, on how the pandemic is affecting climate change.  Listen to that interview HERE.

LISTEN HERE


The biggest concern I had in 2019 when planning my SLS English 1101 class—"This is fine: Humor, Media, and Climate Change”—was climate change. I hardly expected the focus on humor would also serve to help my students and I weather one of the worst pandemics in recent memory. But the class’s emphasis on humor as a persuasive tool gave us another way to think through the pandemic and its parallels to climate change, especially as we discussed environmental justice.     

The class used Nicole Seymour’s concept of “Bad Environmentalism”  to analyze climate change memes and think about environmental justice. Switching the class to a hybrid—where most of the learning would take place asynchronously online with a handful of in-person meetings—was a challenge. I recorded my lectures with PowerPoint. We used…


Teaching over the past several semesters has looked very different than in years past. Faculty at Georgia Tech and around the world have invested enormous energy and endless hours in reshaping courses, pedagogy, and community engagement to support student learning safely during the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, at SLS we felt it appropriate to do some re-designing ourselves with respect to this year’s teaching awards. We invited faculty teaching SLS-affiliated courses over the past year to submit short write-ups described how they successfully pivoted their courses in the context of COVID-19.  We received eleven entries across four colleges that describe challenges, joys, and victories experienced while incorporating sustainability and/or community engagement into teaching amidst the challenges of the pandemic.  

All entries appear below, and we invite readers to review them and reflect upon ideas and lessons learned that may be transferable. We also invite you to help…


History and Sociology Assistant Professor Todd Michney reflects on his SLS affiliated Fall 2020 Semester in the City course, focused on helping students understand the experiences of residents in the Westside Atlanta communities that border the Georgia Tech campus.  Although students in the course, which has been taught for over 10 years, would normally do in-person field work with residents in these communities, Dr. Michney was able to pivot the course and have students interview residents virtually and learn more about the English Avenue community firsthand.  Read the full article HERE and listen to the podcast created by the students.

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