“Sustainability means change,” says Steven Kreft, who teaches the undergraduate G316 course called Sustainable Enterprise. It follows the book Getting Green Done by Auden Schendler, which was written in 2009 and focuses on the barriers that block the business case for sustainability.
“The status quo of business is not sustainable in its present form so change of objectives, change of operations, and changes in the business model are needed,” says Kreft. “To change, barriers have to be overcome.”
The unique aspect of the Sustainable Enterprise class is that the students drive one-half of the content. The class meets twice a week. Kreft teaches one day, developing the themes that are present in the book, which offers a 2009 perspective. During the second class meeting, the content is controlled by the students who motivate the book themes through current business news events, providing a present-day perspective. This back-and-forth between the 2009 and present-day perspectives enables the students to examine what has and has not changed. They then analyze what barriers have been overcome to create change or what barriers are still in place to prevent change.
To generate the current business news topics, students submit a weekly article analysis where they are directed to find points of similarity or points of contrast with the relevant book chapter that is spotlighted that week. The five students with the most thought-provoking analysis are then chosen to lead the student-controlled class meeting of the week. Each of the student debate leaders’ analysis is posted to the class ahead of time, and the student leader is given 15 minutes to run their part of the class debate. The debate topics and leaders change every 15 minutes throughout the class period.
Students love that aspect of the class and as a result, the engagement level is always amazingly high, even during a pandemic.
“Last year when we went online, I was worried that I would lose some of them, but I regularly had all 40 students engaged in Zoom,” says Kreft. “They were all wired in.”
This individual content creation is an advantage for the students as they can tailor their article analysis to their personal interests and to developing their professional perspective within their core major. G316 is a required course in the Sustainable Business co-major attracting students from all different core majors in and outside of Kelley. Through the article analysis, students can customize their examination of sustainable business and channel their desires for unique experiences and perspectives.
“This format allows students to explore their passions in the area of sustainable business,” says Kreft, noting that there is no cookie cutter way to do sustainable business. “It’s got to be tailored. It’s got to be customized. It’s got to be applied in the situation.”
The class project is always geared to making arguments for change towards sustainable business. The current class project is positioned around the students writing an Op Ed that is targeted at publication in The Conversation. The students are given a baseline of research results that were generated by the previous semester’s G316 students that worked with the IU Environmental Resilience Institute to study Indiana business sustainability practices.
“The current task is to supplement the existing student research with their own perspective and framing in order to generate a thought-provoking, timely, and influential Op Ed,” says Kreft. In order to improve the student’s written communication skills, journalism expert Elaine Monaghan, from the IU Media School, collaborates with the class. At the end of the semester, the team with the strongest Op Ed, as voted by the class, works with Kreft to submit for publication consideration in The Conversation.
“This effort to publish will attempt to take student-led content creation beyond the class and into the public discourse on sustainable business,” says Kreft.
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