ABSTRACT
Serving as an introduction to the book as well as the justification for the presentation of the Sustainable Human and Environmental Systems (SHES) approach to sustainability education, this chapter begins with an argument for the urgency of advancing sustainability in higher education based on several international mandates. While acknowledging the previous efforts that have been devoted to this enterprise, the SHES approach seeks to advance it through the embrace of concepts such as systems thinking, complexity science, holism, social learning, and supradisciplinary pedagogy. The chapter makes clear what is to be sustained and the necessary systems that must be maintained viable in service of that goal. It also serves as a prelude to the remaining chapters in Part I, which lays the theoretical and conceptual groundwork for how the approach can be taught in the classroom (Part II) and administered in institutional settings (Part III).
