To access this work you must either be on the Smith College campus OR have valid Smith login credentials.
On Campus users: To access this work if you are on campus please Select the Download button.
Off Campus users: To access this work from off campus, please select the Off-Campus button and enter your Smith username and password when prompted.
Non-Smith users: You may request this item through Interlibrary Loan at your own library.
Publication Date
2023-12
Document Type
Capstone
Study Type
ENV 312: Sustainable Solutions
Department
Environmental Science and Policy
Advisors
Camille Washington-Ottombre
Keywords
climate justice, higher education institutions, visioning, social justice, sustainability
Abstract
While Higher Education Institutions have sometimes been at the forefront of climate action planning, few have engaged in climate justice planning. This project sought to utilize a bottom-up strategy to begin climate justice action planning at a small liberal arts college. Our group engaged with staff, faculty, and administrators in a workshop to understand their visions for climate justice at their institution. We also collected visions from staff members who were busy on the day of the workshop via semi-structured interviews. We collected four datasets: creative visions of climate justice, individual visions of climate justice, discussion notes, and interview notes. All four datasets were qualitatively coded using a combined inductive and deductive coding method. Our results show that many of our participants desire more transparency from the college on climate justice planning initiatives. Furthermore, our interviews revealed social justice issues which are entangled with climate justice issues at the college. They envisioned the college could become more climate justice through: continued collaborative efforts, increasing access to green space, climate justice curricular initiatives, better working conditions for staff, and many more visions. We recommend three future projects focusing on continued collaboration, connecting students and community to the college’s green space, and climate justice issues among staff.
Rights
© 2023 The Authors
Recommended Citation
Dwyer, Addy; Emerson, Katherine; and Frazer, Kaila, "Climate Justice at Smith: Visions from Administrators, Faculty, and Staff" (2023). Capstone, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/other_projects/241
Smith Only:
Off Campus Download