Training Leaders to Facilitate an Energy Transition: Retrospective Evaluation of Course Design

Jonathan Newman (), Sarah Mills and Sara Soderstrom
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Jonathan Newman: Erb Institute, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Sarah Mills: Graham Sustainability Institute, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Sara Soderstrom: Organizational Studies and Program in the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 13, 1-12

Abstract: While there is a widely shared sense that policy action is required for the electricity system in the United States to decarbonize, most climate policy courses focus only on a handful of federal and state policies. In reality, however, there is a web of state- and local-government-level policy choices that can serve to facilitate or hinder an energy transition, which is less discussed and researched in higher education. A new graduate course, first taught in Winter 2019 at the University of Michigan in the Ford School of Public Policy, employs a range of unique course design elements to introduce the idea of a complex web of policies and actors in the energy transition, and to provide students with practical skills to prepare them to be leaders in the transition. By interviewing students 18 months after finishing the Winter 2019 iteration of the course, in addition to surveying students enrolled in the second interaction of the course in the Fall 2020 semester, this study finds that student experiential learning and applied projects, in tandem with the instructor’s focus on local, real-world implications, was found to be effective in preparing students to be climate leaders.

Keywords: clean energy; state and local policy; student leadership; higher education; applied learning; real world classroom experience; clean energy pedagogy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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