In celebration of Earth Day tomorrow (Thursday, April 22), we want to update you about our ongoing social responsibility efforts.

Last year, the Tippie College made a commitment to advance our social impact by signing the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME), a UN Global Compact dedicated to helping the world achieve 17 ambitious sustainable development goals. Signing was a major milestone in our journey to recognize ongoing work and commit to do more. We still have a long way to go, but because of the hard work of faculty, staff, and students, we have many successes to share. Here are a few:

• Teaching. Surveys of our faculty reveal that we have 36 courses that connect to the UN Global Compact goals. Most recently, Introduction to Law, a required undergraduate course taught by Andy Hosmanek, is now included in the campus-wide Certificate in Sustainability along with six other courses. And starting this fall, all undergraduate Tippie students will take a Diversity & Inclusion general education course.
• Research. Amy Colbert, Nick Street, Bodi Vasi, Gautam Pant, Ken Brown, Sara Maples, and others are working to launch the Social Responsibility Collaboratory, an interdisciplinary research and engagement community. You may be surprised to learn that 25 faculty from all six of our departments have research connected to the UN sustainable development goals and are affiliated with this Collaboratory, and the initial proposal for funding it includes faculty from five other colleges on campus!
• Student Engagement. From consulting courses within the Institute of International Business and the Marketing Institute, to student organizations making meaningful action towards social impact and DEI (Tippie Senate, Moneythink, Women in Business, Alpha Kappa Psi and Enactus to name a few), our students have countless opportunities to tackle the grand challenges of our time.

Moving forward, we will continue to build partnerships with companies, develop opportunities to “walk the talk” as a college (yes, we are bringing composting back to PBB) and develop aspirational goals for our first PRME report to come out this coming fall. We welcome your engagement! Reach out to any of us if you’d like to find ways to be involved. If you are looking for ways to engage this week, university-wide Earth Day events are listed on the Division of Student Life calendar, including a round table discussion tonight about diversity representation in sustainability! There is also a research-supported, community-oriented litter pick up starting tomorrow running through the weekend: https://events.uiowa.edu/41905.

On this Earth Day, we hope you find time to enjoy beauty in the world and embrace the resilience of the human mind and spirit.