Center for the Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability

Smith faculty are deeply committed to student learning. To increase the environmental literacy of all Smith students, CEEDS supports the faculty in bringing environmental concepts and context to a wide variety of courses.

Now, as ever, CEEDS staff are available to offer traditional and non-traditional support and partnership for teaching and learning at Smith.

In addition to our Curricular Enhancement Grants we can work with you in a number of ways to help reduce your prep and teaching load.

CEEDS staff are excited to brainstorm with faculty about ways we can help deliver great learning opportunities to your students.

We have helped faculty by:

• Co-producing amateur videos (with closed captions) of topically relevant videos to support asynchronous learning. See an example here.
• Filming virtual tours that are content specific on campus or in the greater Connecticut River Valley such as local farms, energy systems, and businesses (e.g. Mill River, Barstow Farm, Northampton wastewater treatment plant, Holyoke Dam, and hydroelectric facilities). We can film you or others at one or multiple locations and provide video editing 
• Identify and secure guest speakers on content-specific topics at the intersection of your expertise and sustainability, including data science, psychology, government and policy, economics, film, indigenous studies, and much more.
• Identifying or recommending data sets and text or media materials to support your assignments.
• Supplying real campus or community challenges or opportunities to be used as case studies or problem prompts for course work.
• Providing in-course student support for individual or group work. For years CEEDS has supported courses such as Interpreting and Communicating Environmental Information, Psychology of Climate Change, and Critical Design Thinking by supplying project prompts, advising, professional support, and more.
• Guest speaking in your course/event or event series about topics such as carbon neutrality policy and engineering strategies, impacts of pricing models for waste disposal and water consumption, sustainable purchasing and construction practices, other campus sustainability topics.

Curricular Enhancement Program

Every spring CEEDS invites proposals from faculty and teams of faculty who want to develop a new course or modify, revise or enhance an existing course. The program supports activities like new course development, new lectures or discussion topics, design of new assignments and projects, and incorporation of field trips and experiences. CEEDS can provide expertise, infrastructure, supplemental course funds and course development funding in support of these efforts.

We are particularly interested in proposals that explore aspects of sustainable communities in policy and practice, support our environmental concentration, that make use of the MacLeish Field Station or connect to the college’s current strategic initiatives.

How to Apply

Please contact Joanne Benkley to discuss your ideas and questions. All proposals should include an articulation of anticipated educational outcomes, and recipients of funded proposals will be asked to report back on results. Submit applications by April 16, 2021.

APPLY FOR A CURRICULAR ENHANCEMENT GRANT

Faculty Research Fellowships

The CEEDS Faculty Research Fellowship program invests in faculty and connects their research to our campus and community challenges. The premise of this investment is that research can bridge theory and practice, and enhance student learning for many years to come.

Each year, CEEDS appoints 1-2 Smith faculty as CEEDS Faculty Research Fellows. These fellows join a community of engaged faculty who use Smith’s distinctive campus resources and the “campus as classroom” model to advance our understanding of climate change and climate impacts. In the summer of their appointment, faculty are provided with summer support, student summer undergraduate research fellows and research funds to support the dissemination of their research findings on and off campus. Please contact Denise McKahn to discuss your ideas and questions.