Neil Drobny - Crafting Curricula on Sustainability (EEDS Program)

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:21] Adam: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their jobs or community and did something about it.

[00:00:29] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists. This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:38] Adam: Today Dominique and I are joined by Neil Drobny. He's the program director of the Bronco Challenge for a sustainable impact up at the Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. We're gonna dive more into that but previously he had been a big part of the EEDS program here at OSU developing out the sustainability programming.

[00:00:56] Neil: It's a major.

[00:00:57] Adam: It's a major. So let's dive right into this. Welcome back on the podcast.

[00:01:02] Neil: Thank you. Good to be here.

[00:01:03] Dominique: So you help with the sustainability major at Ohio State, which is called EEDS.

[00:01:07] Neil: Right.

[00:01:08] Dominique: So what does EEDS stand for?

[00:01:09] Neil: it stands for Environment, Economy, Development and sustainability.

[00:01:13] Adam: And how did that get started?

[00:01:15] Neil: A couple of insightful professors, Jeff Sharp and Elena Irwin, saw the need for a focused field of study for students that would have a strong emphasis on sustainability. So they packaged up a proposal, and gave it this very long name 'cause at the time, sustainability wasn't yet a widely accepted word. So they tacked it on the end of this major that has these four names to it. Everybody would vote for economy and certainly development and the sustainability's at the end of it. 

That's fine. They had the program ready to launch and it did launch in the fall of 2012, but about three or four months prior to that I had an... just an occasional conversation with Elena Irwin, and she learned a little bit about what I was teaching in the Fisher College of Business in sustainability, both at the MBA and the undergraduate level, and she said, "Maybe we can find a way to integrate what you're teaching into this new major." 

 So it was a kind of a win-win all the way around.

[00:02:13] Dominique: How do you explain to students or anyone really, but I feel like students 'cause you, that's the one choosing their major, like what EEDS is. So EEDS for listeners is EEDS. Yeah. How do you think about the positioning to a student of like, you're not going to be getting a business degree, you're not getting a environmental science degree. How did you talk about why those words were important and what they would learn?

[00:02:34] Neil: Well, they petitioned the major into four sub-segments. And so I led a segment called Sustainability in Business, and students would have to sign up for one segment of those. The segment that attracted the most attention was the one in sustainability. So I think like 50% of the students who signed up for EEDS chose and they would get, their graduation credentials would say they'd got a bachelor's degree in natural resources with a emphasis in Sustainability in Business, and may not have to even communicate or explain what EEDS was. 

The emphasis to the students was on which of those four segments are you interested in? Maybe you're interested in development, maybe you're into economics or environment, or sustainability in business. And so that's where the conversations were held, and nobody paid too much attention to what the overall label was.

[00:03:36] Dominique: And you've said that there was 20 students in the first class,

five, We launched it in the fall of 2012 and it was announced in the football program. There was a little pro, a little picture of me and one of the,students who was one of those five students. 

[00:03:53] Neil: So the five of 'em graduated and then I think the next class had 20 or something like that. And it grew pretty well. For a while it was "the fastest growing major on campus" because it was so small.

[00:04:05] Dominique: How did placement for those students into roles? I mean, I'm sitting here knowing that I was someone who had an EEDS minor and I had friends who graduated with an EEDS major.

But I wanna hear from you, like how did the placement of those students into jobs compared to what you thought? 

[00:04:19] Neil: They had no trouble getting jobs. 

[00:04:21] Dominique: You just rattled off in our little break. Some of the people you know from EEDS program. Any roles that you have been really proud to see, you know, get taken by an EEDS previous EEDS major? 

[00:04:30] Neil: Well, yeah, we talked about Sarah Moore and she left strong sustainable fingerprints at Jeni's Ice Cream and moved over to Victoria's Secret where she's doing the same in spades. But I, I get emails from prior students, you know, every couple of months telling me about a promotion they got because they were in my classes or because of material we covered in class. 

[00:04:55] Adam: How, how do students change as they go through the program? What are some things that you've noticed? 

[00:05:00] Neil: Uh, they become a lot more self-reliant, particularly when they get assigned to do projects. 

They don't get a lot of supervision. They get some guidance about the processes and the milestones they have to achieve. But, if they're working for projects witha corporate client, they have to learn how to connect with the clients and not be afraid to pick up the telephone and ask a question. 

[00:05:22] Dominique: What's an example of a project that a student would be working on in, in those classes?

[00:05:25] Neil: One of the ones that was very popular was what we call the materiality assessment, and a company that supported my classes at the time, it was Hexion, it's a local company and they had their sustainability leader made herself available to come to class multiple times in the semester and they were a supplier of adhesives and related materials to most any industry you could name. 

So if I had say 40 students, gonna be 10 teams, four people each, she would pick 10 market segments. And then we framed a project for each team with the same scope, but different industry focus, which was, " How does that industry's expectations for suppliers of their products, specifically adhesives using the sustainable development goals or other criteria match up?". And where should the company Hexion place some effort to improve their performance in trying to sell Hexion products to say the furniture industry? And then this gal left town, Tanis Marquette was her name. She now is with a consulting company in the Philadelphia area and just doing great things.

[00:06:38] Dominique: I hooked up with Ashlyn here, Nicole Vos, and she had a very similar need. And so we broke up the classes into four person teams and say we had 10 teams. Her question was taking the UN sustainability development goals, where did Ashlyn need to improve itself? And so the students would have to learn what the goals are and then look at Ashlyn, "Well, this goal doesn't apply." Well, this one applies and then break it down. And then deliver a report and a presentation. Sounds very empowering as opposed to just a lecture style course where you go and learn and do a test. Speaks to the nature and the urgency of sustainability that you had them out doing things versus sitting and learning about it. I think that just speaks a 

[00:07:21] Neil: They had to have a conclusion by the end of the semester to get a grade, you know?

[00:07:25] Dominique: 

What do you find most fulfilling when you look back at that chapter of your career?

[00:07:30] Adam: Oh, it's when I hear from students that have moved ahead and are doing good things and you can tell by their titles on LinkedIn they like to let the world know when they've gotten a promotion probably a month doesn't go by where I don't read about some student talking about something that they're proud of. Dominique, what was it like for you as a student going through the EEDS program? ? 

[00:07:52] Dominique: I think what's interesting about it is I kind of think everyone's EEDS experience is a little bit unique, which I think speaks to the like, and I wasn't a major, so also I can't speak to it fully. I was primarily getting education from engineering and then just dabbling in what it meant to talk about environment and economy, development and then where sustainability fits into that.

But I thought it was always really cool to hear my friends talk about kind of how they, it was kind of customizable. In comparison to like an engineering where it felt very fixed. And that was the appealing part to me was seeing like the cascade of class choices ahead and imagining like kind of, it was kind of multiple choice style with how it felt in my head where like you kind of could circle how you're going to check that section box and maybe you wanna learn about, about waste management, maybe you wanna learn about efficiency or whatever the class titles were at the time, but I just think that was, that was cool was kind of it let you pick your roadmap.

[00:08:45] Neil: There's also a recent change at Ohio State I know about, but no details where there are some fields of expertise that every freshman has to pick one of four maybe it is, and I think sustainability is one to gain some knowledge independent of EEDS and then that how that drives their choices if they pick EEDS. I don't know. But it's an indication that the university feels it's important for all students to have something in sustainability and there's a parallel at Western. One of the things that I liked when I read about, when I learned about it, they have a requirement that every student getting a Bachelor's of business administration must have a course in sustainability.

[00:09:25] Dominique: Oh, cool. What's their motivator for that? Like how, how has that been a ccomplished? Because that's really cool.

[00:09:30] Neil: The board I guess just decide... this was the business school, decided, you know, they have a forward looking dean and faculty, and they decided. A couple of years ago to have this requirement. In fact, they packaged ethics with sustainability. So there's a course in ethics and sustainability that everyone at a minimum needs to take to get a bachelor's degree in business.

[00:09:53] Adam: Oh, cool.

[00:09:54] Neil: And so that's the only, they're the only college at the university that has that kind of really strong requirement.

[00:10:01] Adam: Now you moved out to Michigan and you started this Bronco challenge for sustainable impact. Tell us a little bit about what that's trying to accomplish and how you got started.

[00:10:09] Neil: I got started 'cause we, my wife and I moved to Michigan. It's in 2020. It was part of a plan we'd had for a couple of years, not to move to Michigan, but moved someplace where there would be a lake that we could live on and there'd be a university that I might be able to do something with. So we moved during COVID and there was nothing I could get involved with at the university.

And after COVID they said, "We love to have you do something with us, but we don't have any positions to hire you into. But if you have any ideas, let us know."

So I thought about the Bronco challenge and presented that to a group of people that include leadership from the business college, sustainability leadership, a fundraising person. And laid out this program that would be co-curricular, which means no academic credit, but students would get financial rewards. 

 I said, I would raise all the money for the prizes and for my own compensation. And so they didn't really have a lot of pushback. One meeting they said, "Go ahead and do it." And that was in early March of 2022. 

So. I put together the first year of the program and it worked. Though we only had three teams, and then we did it again last year, which was the second year and we had four teams, and we're now doing it. The students are forming teams and developing projects, and they'll be turning in their project descriptions in November.

And my goal is 8 to 10 teams participating. But I think we'll get maybe as many as 15 of I think 10 to 12 maybe is a pretty reasonable stretch goal. 

[00:11:41] Adam: How do you pitch this to students?

[00:11:43] Neil: That it's a chance to build their resume. I'm actually working on this right now. I'm looking for a tagline something like, build your resume and make the world better, or something like that and then sent it out to some other faculty and they have their own stuff and they put it through the AI generator. some of 'em wanna play up the experiential learning piece. I don't think that's a strong of appeal to students. 

[00:12:09] Dominique: I think that's to me, an outcome. .

[00:12:11] Adam: And what's the experience like for a student? They come in, they, they join the program... 

[00:12:15] Neil: Oh yeah, they, they, and those who are coming back, because they were juniors last year, they're all gonna participate. So it's a very good experience. And we have some videos of one guy who spoke very strongly you know, he, he was the leader of the team in both the first and second year, so he was very, very excited.

[00:12:34] Adam: What was his project?

[00:12:35] Neil: His first project had to do and it's his team. The first one was the use of underutilized urban land to grow fruits and vegetables what the issues might be. And then last year had to do with labor abuses in a growing or manufacturer of products, and they came up with the idea of something like a barcode that a consumer could access and get some information on labor practices that went into that product. 

 Again, it's just an idea. They didn't have to pull it off, but they, they walk through what barriers would be and

[00:13:12] Dominique: So do you apply to be kind of in a cohort or what's the, what's step one?

[00:13:17] Neil: Step one is you get a team together and four people including yourself.

[00:13:22] Dominique: It must be four or it's maximum? 

[00:13:24] Neil: Four. it must be four. and I can talk about why that is. And you submit a written description of it along with the backgrounds of your students that have to be interdisciplinary. And we evaluate that and we hardly reject anybody at that stage unless they just haven't followed the instructions.

But then there's a progress report midway in February, and that's where some will get bumped out. They'll turn in written report late March. And, those five reports will go to the judges and those five teams will present to the judges on April 3rd. The judges have a criteria.

We have about seven judges that go through process all in one morning and come up with the winners for a second and third, and we hand out this big cardboard check, $12, $10,000. 

And then we have a lunch to which the judges and the students who competed have informal discussion on what you could have done better, what you did great. 

[00:14:18] Adam: And the students can pick any topic as long as it relates to the UN sustainable development goals?

[00:14:23] Neil: Yes. Yes. 

[00:14:24] Adam: Okay.

[00:14:24] Dominique: What made you so excited about pitching this idea? 

Well, first, I, I wanted to find a way to get into Western and play and get involved. 

But they didn't have any programming like this to get students getting ideas off the ground in this space?

Right, right. Right. So it was new and novel and I think they liked it.When you think about like change you still wanna create or the change you hope the Bronco challenge creates, what is that gap? 

[00:14:50] Neil: I'd like to see the some of the Bronco challenge ideas, get to our Starting Gate, which is what we call your incubator.

The engineering college is primarily the source of things that goes through the starting gate now,

I'd also like to see some projects use ai, 

[00:15:06] Dominique: I mean, this is so similar to what you do, Adam, with GiveBackHack of trying to get trying to be a supporting arm for the idea phase of a program, or sorry, for a of a project to eventually hopefully see it pivot with your support to be something bigger.

[00:15:20] Neil: Yeah. 

[00:15:20] Dominique: Thanks. Thanks for walking us through all this today. It's, it's fun kind of hearing about the EEDS program and what you're doing with empowering students to learn things on their own and kind of set their own direction.

 And I know you mentioned a little in that last episode, but remind us how they can support the challenge.

[00:15:36] Neil: Well, they, they can be a judge in the final route, or they can be mentors along the way. You can't be both a mentor and a judge. 

[00:15:43] Dominique: Are those both in person in Kalamazoo being a judge and being a mentor?

[00:15:46] Neil: Some are in Kalamazoo and some are outside. I've had 'em travel not far from Ohio or from Chicago, but the mentoring can be done by phone. 

[00:15:53] Dominique: Well, 

[00:15:53] Neil: what's the website where people can go to learn more?

The Bronco challenge for sustainable impact. 

[00:15:59] Dominique: Is there any resources about past project winners?

[00:16:02] Neil: On our website there are, yeah. Videos and descriptions and the reports. 

[00:16:07] Dominique: Well thank you so much for sharing how you've built two really amazing program to support students.

One, figuring out like how do you begin to see yourself working in sustainability and giving you the real toolkit to start being impactful with projects, but then also if you have an idea for a project, giving them a big kickstart. 

I think it's really cool how you've engaged students and how you see the value in doing that. And I think that speaks following is because of your industry experience, you valuing that I think means a lot to the students that they have a important role to play in your, invested in them doing that. Well, thank you. Thanks for chatting with us and coming all the way out here. Neil lives in Michigan and he's sitting across from us in Ohio, so it's great. 

[00:16:50] Adam: 

Thanks for joining us today. As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the flight against climate 

[00:17:02] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you got questions about sustainability or climate change, you can reach us on our website thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions.

We'll be digging into our another sustainability success story in our next episode.