ABSTRACT
The chapter describes the development of PSU’s sustainability programs between 2000 and 2015, distilling the key methodological and organizational principles that underpin the development of these programs. The chapter describes the trajectory of development over a 15-year period; the initial efforts focused on engaging faculty, administrators, and students with community partners in an early planning process, developing principles, credibility, and commitment by all parties, building internal capacity with multidisciplinary institutions and activities, and launching some early projects that demonstrated our capacity to deliver quality research and instruction. Later developments involved the significant transformation of the sustainability program after PSU’s receipt of the $25 million challenge gift from the
James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation in 2008. We also relate the steps taken at Portland State University to address each of the challenges noted in the introduction: how to “learn by doing” and take an adaptive management approach, given the nascent state of the scientific theory and methodology for conducting sustainability scholarship in teaching and research; the importance of developing new institutions and organizational approaches to foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary scholarship; and the need to address the barriers to interdisciplinary, problem-based scholarship and teaching. The story is essentially one of adaptive management because uncertainty pervades the field of sustainability, meaning that both targets and methods require periodic revision based on emerging information and learning.
