Teach-In on Sustainability Spring 2024

Spring 2024 Teach-In on Sustainability

Welcome to the Spring 2024 Teach-In on Sustainability Virtual Salon! Use the navigation on the left to find books, ebooks, DVDs, and streaming video related to each of this semesters' panels and presentations. Visit the official Teach-In on Sustainability website for links to the sessions. 

Our Work Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow

March 4-6, 2024

In 2015, the United Nations introduced 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a blueprint for a better, more sustainable future for all. 

Here at Emerson, we’re on it. Across the College and around the world, Emersonians are contributing to a better future in many ways, big and small, because we all have a stake in what’s ahead.

The Spring 2024 Teach-In (March 4,5,6) will focus on jobs and careers; what jobs are out there that fit our students, what kind of employment can our students hope to find with the training we offer now, and what might the future look like?

Monday, March 4

• 12:00 - 1:00 pm EST | Keynote: Hollywood’s Hold on Sustainable Views | Filmmaker Lydia Dean Pilcher tackles the intersection of climate change and the entertainment industry in her collaborations with Hollywood studios, unions & guilds. Her focus is clean energy innovation and she co-leads an industry-wide movement promoting the need for diversity in content and voices in climate storytelling on screen. She has taught a graduate film seminar at New York University about the shifting landscape of audience and storytelling: Producing with a Vision: Radical Transformation and Disruption in the Entertainment Industry; and in 2024 she teaches a graduate level course she designed for Columbia University’s Climate School and School of the Arts: Climatic Change: Storytelling Arts, Zeitgeist, and our Future.

  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  Sustainable Development Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

• 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. EST | Open Class: Emerging Media Production | In this session, you will learn about environmental justice and interactive media making, as well as strategies for community engagement.

  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  Sustainable Development Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• 2:00 - 4:30 pm EST | Finding, Getting, and Keeping A Green Job |  In this two-part workshop, you will learn about what jobs are actually out there for folk like you. To start, Kristy Drutman (of EcoTok Collective) and Samantha Silveira (Journalism, class of 2022) will talk about the Green Jobs Board, what jobs are available in ‘green’ industries for people who specialize in communication and the arts, BIPOC students, and other people we don’t normally see in these fields. They will conduct some fun and informative activities to help you focus your job search and identify your own super power. 

  Then Nicole Loher, climate communicator and NYU professor, will lead a workshop on networking, a crucial skill in the field of sustainability.
  Sustainable Development Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

• 4:00 - 5:00 pm EST | Alumni Panel: Navigating Government and Sustainability | Many Emersonians work in or near government agencies, from local to international, but we don’t always get to hear from them. In this panel we’ll hear alumni talk about their broad experiences working with government on issues of sustainability, from the private sector to education to city and state government. 
  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• 5:00 - 7:00 pm EST | Sustainable Soiree | Join students, faculty and alumni as we take a break from Teach-In events for food, refreshments and meaningful (but informal) conversations.

Tuesday, March 5 

• 10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m EST | Open Class: Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability | Companies are facing rapidly shifting expectations of consumers and their customers. No longer can they ignore public sentiment on the company's stated position (or silence) on political and environmental/sustainability issues, as well as their corporate values. The class will highlight cases where companies are successfully navigating controversy.

  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
  Sustainable Development Goal 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

• 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. EST | Story Circles: Transforming Narratives on Environmental Justice | 

  Share your story and make an impact! Join us for a participatory story circle activity centering on narratives of environmental justice, and learn how you can get involved in the Engagement Lab’s Transforming Narratives for Environmental Justice (TNEJ) initiative. No storytelling experience required!

  TNEJ gives Emerson students the opportunity to work directly with community-based environmental justice organizations and activists to achieve concrete impacts through collaborative Social Impact Studio courses. Hear from ELab students and faculty, check out media that students have created with our partners, hear about upcoming classes, and much more! Lunch is provided (first come, first served).

• 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. EST | Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour: Talking Compassionately About Suffering and Life’s End | Sunita Puri is a palliative care physician and an author. She works at the University of Massachusetts hospital system, where 
  She is also the author of the NY Times bestseller That Good Night, a book about her experiences in the field of palliative care. She has written a number of magazine and newspaper articles as well, and teaches a course on medical memoir at Harvard Medical School. She lives in Worcester, MA
  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST | 24 Hour Plays: Sustainability from a Theatrical Voice |

  The 24 Hour Play Festival offers writers, directors and actors an opportunity to explore the 17 Sustainable Development Goals through the lens of theatre. They will write, direct and produce a short play (5-10 mins) that forms a unique narrative around one of the goals within 24 hours. The process begins at 8pm Monday (3/4) night, and will culminate in a final performance of all the pieces at 8pm on Tuesday (3/5) in the Judee. While the pieces will explore sustainability through the SDG's, the production team of the festival will also explore ways in which a 24-hour Play Festival process can be sustainable i.e. encouraging sustainable writing and production habits throughout the process. Co-Produced by QTCboston's Artistic Director Hannah McEachern and Assistant Professor Tushar Mathew, audiences can expect fast-paced, thought-provoking pieces about sustainability in all its forms.
  Sustainable Development Goal 10:  Reduce inequality within and among countries

• 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST | Nejem Raheem’s Behavioral Economics Class: Feldenkrais Workshop | In this session you will learn about the Feldenkrais Method, a type of bodywork which helps to realign not just muscles but neurological organization. We will be lying on the floor, so please dress in comfortable clothes. And don’t worry, the floor will be clean.
  Sustainable Development Goal 11: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Wednesday, March 6

• 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EST | Climate Lens Workshop with Good Energy | The Climate LensTM Workshop allows writers to start seeing any modern story through a Climate LensTM in a supportive, fun, and creative environment. In our core one-hour workshop, writers investigate how climate might impact characters’ emotions and actions, review case studies of existing climate appearances in TV and film, and practice applying the Climate LensTM through interventions ranging from modeling solutions, to brief mentions, to climate-driven characters and plots, exploring the rich array of human emotions (beyond despair!) that climate change can evoke.

  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

• 2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. EST | Open Class: Autism, Inclusion, and the UN Sustainability Goals | This panel discussion with staff from SAS and students from Access: Disability Student Union offers an opportunity to hear stories/experiences with accessibility and inclusion at Emerson and beyond. 
  Sustainable Development Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  Sustainable Development Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries
  Sustainable Development Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. EST | Alumni Panel: Fresh Perspectives on the Business of Sustainability |  Meet a group of Emerson alumni whose jobs all relate to sustainability in one way or another. From news reporting to sustainability marketing for Google, from science writing to podcasting, these Emersonians will share their stories and journeys. 
  Sustainable Development Goal 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all 
  Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
• 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST | Cinema’s Eye On Climate Change | Catered vegan food and a presentation of the work EGC has done in the past year. We will also have a lesson on sustainability and an environmentally-focused community art project for participants to take part in.
  Sustainable Development Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns