Miami University's initiative to bring the worlds of business and science together to work on environmental challenges has undergone an evolution of its own.
Originally an interdisciplinary course for business and science students, the Miami University Sustainability Project was seen as a way to teach these divergent majors how to talk to one another.
Its inspiration? The corporate world.
Since the late 1980s, companies have become more concerned about the impact their operations have on the environment and are seeking innovative ways not only to meet existing government regulations but to anticipate future ones. To accomplish this, many businesses team employees of various backgrounds and ask them to work together to solve problems. In order to achieve their goals, however, the chemist, engineer and accountant must first learn to understand each other's perspectives.
The goal of Miami's professors is to ensure that this communication begins long before professionals find themselves seated at a conference table.
The Sustainability Project has grown into the recently approved Center for Sustainable Systems Studies. And the book created by professors to teach their new kind of class is at the publishers and due out next fall. It covers both the principles of sustainable development and 10 business case studies.
The class that started it all is still being taught. Currently, it remains the only undergraduate course in the country that brings together business and science faculty, as well as business and science students, to reflect, study and act upon tough environmental questions and issues. Many colleges and universities have ecology courses and a few offer environmental management courses taught by business school faculty. Miami, however, is helping create an interdisciplinary curriculum that corresponds more closely with reality. Thus, it could shape courses and ways of thinking across the country.
Another unique aspect is the program's effort to involve corporate leaders in developing this curriculum. The case studies of cutting edge corporate responses focus on companies such as Procter & Gamble, Dow Chemical of Canada, GE Aircraft Engines and The David J. Joseph Co. These real-life examples could not have existed without the business and science integration at Miami and the cooperation of these businesses.
With the founding of the Center for Sustainable Systems Studies, Miami's faculty and students are making a commitment to this program and these ideals. The program, however, is also gaining attention on a larger scale. The national Decision Sciences Institute awarded Miami's project the instructional innovation award for 1996.
For more information, contact Ray Gorman, director of the Center, at (513) 529-1569 or Miami's News Bureau at (513) 529-7592.
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