Building the Platform: Supporting a Sustainability Agenda and University-Community Relationships

Abstract

Portland State University’s (PSU) faculty and students routinely put into practice the University’s motto, “Let knowledge serve the city”. This chapter presents the early efforts and the role PSU faculty, students, and administrators have played in local, state, national and international sustainability movements. Importantly, it reviews the pathway and reasoning behind the critical decisions to create a campus wide, cross cutting initiative integrating sustainability across the campus in academic programs, centers of community service, and PSU’s own footprint. Emphasis is placed on the diverse and innovative sustainability projects and processes across a variety of educational programs in order to document and disseminate best practices in multi-disciplinary community-engaged teaching and research with a focus on sustainability (cultural, social, economic and/or ecological).