A Librarian-Led Faculty Learning Community to Build Sustainability-Focused Data Infrastructure
The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers a shared vision for global peace and prosperity, using a framework comprised of 17 Sustainable Development Goals covering topics that intersect with academic disciplines across the curriculum. The University of South Florida (USF) engages in many sustainability-focused research, teaching, and community engagement activities that link to many of these goals. Campus offices from facilities to student groups collect local data on many of the SDGs. As the USF Libraries serves to advance the teaching and research mission of the university, librarians from different campus libraries and functional units came together with a common interest in building a university-wide, sustainability-focused data infrastructure and curriculum that utilizes the campus as a living lab.
To meet this challenge, we are leading a faculty learning community (FLC) engaging faculty from various disciplines in conversation about the local data contexts necessary for building infrastructure that allows for meaningful interpretation and responsible use of the data by students and faculty. Participating faculty emanate from disciplines that encompass different aspects of sustainability (business, education, humanities, natural sciences, access to and organization of data and information), and are interested in advocating for and improving USF sustainability initiatives and education. This FLC is unique in that we have also engaged university facilities management staff, who play a key role in compiling and reporting sustainability-related university data. This session will illustrate the valuable role libraries can play in creating, connecting, and preserving innovative solutions for the climate crisis across campus, and the world.
Chris Sturgeon, University of South Florida, United States
Theresa Burress, University of South Florida, United States
Amanda Boczar, University of South Florida, United States
Kaya van Beynen, University of South Florida, United States