Over the last decade, many universities have sought to encourage innovations in sustainability education by providing educators intensive workshop opportunities to (re)design courses with significant environmental or sustainability components.

It is toward this goal that Vanderbilt’s Program in American Studies and the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching are proud to announce the Cumberland Project.

Modeled on Emory University’s Piedmont Project and Northern Arizona University’s Ponderosa Project, the Cumberland Project is a two-day workshop intended as a launch for a continuing, vibrant teaching and learning community around sustainability themes in 2011-12 and beyond. Emphasis will be placed on a wide array of environmental studies across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities

The Cumberland Project is part of a larger effort at Vanderbilt University entitled the Sustainability Project, an effort to create a campus-wide conversation that will both deepen understandings of and commitments to sustainability.  This involves various programs: the coordination of  courses on sustainability, a conference on sustainability, experiential learning experiences via “road trips” focused on different dimensions of sustainability, as well as a documentary film series and other artistic projects on sustainability with the Departments of Art and Film Studies and the Program in Creative Writing.  The Sustainability Project is funded with generous support from the College of Arts and Science Fant Fund.