A new course called ‘Sustainability and Society’ is being offered this upcoming spring at Milligan.
“This course will be an introductory class for students in social sciences and political sciences,” said Professor Hongyou Lu, creator of the course and professor of Mandarin Chinese.
The course will be a total of three credit hours, and will be offered in Derthick room 110, from 2:10-3:30 p.m.. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“I’m developing this course to have two main components; the first one will be more of a tool kit section, where the basics and fundamentals will be covered,” said Professor Lu. “The second component will be more topic driven so we will cover topics like energy security, energy poverty, environmental damages, how to make the community more sustainable, energy efficiency and compare our sustainability to other countries.”
Lu said that the goal of this class is to help students understand sustainability and think more about it. “The problem (of sustainability) is complicated and we need everyone’s help.”
The class is cross-listed under both political science and sociology, and is abbreviated as SOCL 365 on the spring course schedule.
Julie Deakins, a sophomore political science major, said that this subject “definitely pertains to what society is facing.”
“Anything that talks about the environment I think is probably beneficial, especially within a society where an extreme amount of waste is collected everyday,” she said.
Before coming to Milligan, Lu worked and is still working at the Berkley National Lab in Berkley, CA, where she has been employed for about nine years.
Even before her field work in energy Lu received two degrees from Berkeley, including a Master of Science in Energy and Resources and a Master of Public Policy.
“I’ve always wanted to teach a class on this since I came to Milligan,” said Lu, who came here in August 2015. “I will be teaching the class this spring 2017 and the spring 2018, but will be taking a gap year and then have the course once again in spring 2020.”
Though Lu has built this course on her own, she has asked other Milligan faculty members for their insight.
“I think it’s great that Milligan is offering this course, because it’s relevant to a lot of different majors,” said Dr. Amy Edmonds, professor of political science at Milligan.
Lu said that this class is not restricted only to political science majors, but is open to everyone.
For more information about ‘Sustainability and Society’ contact Professor Lu via email at lu@milligan.edu.