Dorit Kerret

Open, Seminar—Spring

PSYC 3112

How do we stay motivated, resilient, and effective in a world shaped by environmental crisis, uncertainty, stress, and rapid change? This seminar will introduce "positive sustainability," an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of human flourishing and ecological responsibility. The field is distinguished by three defining characteristics: a positive orientation toward a positive orientation toward creating conditions for people and nature to thrive, a both-and logic linking ecological responsibility with human flourishing, and a focus on sustaining engagement over time. The course will take a practical approach that connects personal well-being, leadership, and environmental action. We will examine how individuals, communities, organizations, and public institutions respond to social and environmental challenges. The goal will be to cultivate skills students can use in any area of their lives: hope, optimism, self-regulation, meaning, strengths-based leadership, teamwork, emotional resilience, critical thinking, and the ability to turn concern into action. The course is designed to be experiential, student-centered, and fun. Students will participate in field trips, outdoor learning, group exercises, debates, mindfulness and strengths activities, and a personal "eco-impact thriving" project based on their own interests. Readings will draw on positive psychology, environmental psychology, public policy, and sustainability scholarship, including work by Albert Bandura; Edward Deci and Richard Ryan; C. R. Snyder and Maria Ojala; Martin Seligman; Kirk Brown and Tim Kasser; and Dorit Kerret and colleagues. Students will consider when positive approaches support agency and cooperation and when they risk obscuring inequality, power, structural constraints, or ecological limits. Seminar meetings will combine discussion, concise lectures, reflective writing, small-group inquiry, field observation, and structured practice. Students will map their spheres of influence, compare ecological footprint tools, identify cognitive biases, practice strengths spotting and hope-pathway planning, examine sustainability trade-offs, and complete short applied assignments that connect course concepts to their lives, institutions, and communities. For conference work, each student will develop a semester-long "eco-impact thriving" (EIT) project through individual, one-on-one biweekly meetings with the instructor. Students will identify a both-and opportunity that could advance ecological responsibility and human well-being within a setting they can genuinely influence; translate concern into specific behaviors or leverage points; test small steps and multiple pathways; and revise their approach as they learn. Conference projects may take the form of a campus or workplace initiative, policy brief, educational resource, community program, organizational prototype, digital tool, small empirical study, or reflective field-based inquiry. By the end of the course, students will be able to analyze sustainability challenges critically; design evidence-informed, psychologically sustainable pathways for action; and use practical tools to lead change, collaborate with others, prevent burnout, and identify opportunities for positive impact in their future workplaces, communities, and lives. This introductory, open-level seminar requires no prerequisites or prior knowledge.

Faculty

Dorit Kerret