Chicago Climate and Sustainable Growth Curriculum
The University of Chicago revolutionized the world of general education by developing the Core Curriculum that is now a staple of liberal arts education. Modelled around this pioneering approach, the Institute is introducing the world’s first cross-cutting education program in climate and energy studies. The Chicago Climate and Sustainable Growth Curriculum provides a comprehensive education through a set of common classes that span the technical, policy, and social elements of climate change. Building on this foundation, students have the opportunity to specialize in areas of particular interest, drawing from expertise and coursework throughout the University. The program will begin with an undergraduate degree program that will expand to masters programs to provide mid-career professionals with advanced training.
Students are also given world-opening experiences beyond campus, such as through internships or international research projects with partners through our global centers, to create learning pathways beyond the classroom. In this way, the Curriculum not only provides students with a comprehensive grounding in energy and climate issues broadly, but also provides tangible and “usable” skills desperately needed in the marketplace. Through this comprehensive base of knowledge, the Institute will produce graduates with bachelor’s and master’s degrees who see the climate and energy challenge from its many angles and have an understanding of what is required economically, technically, and politically to confront it.
What begins with University of Chicago students is set to go global. The Chicago Climate and Sustainable Growth Curriculum is designed to become a flagship University of Chicago brand and a globally ubiquitous benchmark in climate education. A carefully developed modular design allows the academic program to be adopted and adapted by other universities and used in multiple contexts of graduate, online, hybrid and flexible time formats, as well as in executive education and global contexts. In this way, the Curriculum not only fundamentally alters students’ understanding of the world’s climate and energy challenge and the solutions needed to address it, but also profoundly and globally alters climate and energy education and ultimately the workforce through an engaged network of domestic and foreign universities.
Experiential Learning and Mentoring
Fostering learning beyond the classroom is an essential component of what makes the Chicago Climate and Energy Curriculum truly unique. To gain this understanding, all students in the program participate in an Experiential Learning Course. The course focuses on highlighting the climate and energy issues from a global perspective, providing opportunities for students to conduct site visits both domestically and abroad. This allows students to see the climate and energy challenge not just from a University of Chicago campus perspective, but also from the perspectives of families living in rural India and sub-Saharan Africa, policymakers in Europe and China, and energy producing communities.
“The idea is that you as a student, if you are to understand not just the world but yourself, there is only a limited understanding that you can get on campus. But should you go abroad and learn in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, then those environments and those academic settings almost act as a mirror in which you begin to recognize yourself, the limitations of your point of view, and how other people think in a way that’s very hard to do when you’re sitting in a classroom in Hyde Park.”
Bala Srinivasan, Senior Advisor, Asia
Any preparation of the next generation of climate leaders and workers would be incomplete without real-world experiences and comprehensive mentoring. The Institute hosts several programs to help students understand the climate change landscape and career trajectories within it, as well as advance peer-to-peer learning. Further, as the Institute graduates alumni classes into the workforce, it facilitates their periodic return to campus for continuous upgrading of knowledge and skills needed in this fast-changing area. This also brings real-world experiences back to our student body through classroom interactions and mentorship programs with our alumni. This connectivity has a strong influence on our student’s ability to make smoother and more informed choices for internships and careers.