Schusler Teaching Award
SES Faculty Member Recognized for Excellence in Engaged Learning and Teaching
Tania Schusler, PhD, facilitates hands-on learning in her courses in the School of Environmental Sustainability.
This April, Loyola’s Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship (CELTS) honored School of Environmental Sustainability (SES) Assistant Professor Tania Schusler, PhD, with the Adolfo Nicolas SJ Excellence in Engaged Learning and Teaching Award. The award recognizes Schusler’s excellence in using engaged learning to help students prepare for impactful careers in sustainability.
“My educational aim is to create a collaborative learning community in which students actively develop a critical, interdisciplinary understanding of environmental issues within the context of their personal lives, local community, and global society,” says Schusler.
She applies this approach in an experiential course called Solutions to Environmental Problems (STEP). With Schusler’s guidance, students in the STEP class design and lead projects aimed at solving real-world problems. They develop skills in critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, project management, and leadership.
Schusler has taught 14 sections of the STEP class, helping 262 students with 59 projects related to topics such as urban agriculture, food systems, waste reduction, environmental education, and water conservation.
Class projects sometimes develop into longer-term environmental initiatives. For example, STEP students founded the Loyola chapter of the Food Recovery Network, which addresses hunger in the Rogers Park community of Chicago while reducing food waste. The students established the operational infrastructure to safely collect uneaten food from Loyola events and donate it to A Just Harvest, a neighborhood food pantry.
Another STEP project explored connections between racial equity and how organizations and communities responded to COVID-19’s impacts on the Chicago region’s food systems. The effort evolved into a longer-term research initiative with the Chicago Food Policy Action Council. The group published a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. The authors include Schusler, three students, and one community partner. That work led Schusler to connect with additional partners in the Chicago-area food system to pursue further research on food, water, climate, and racial equity.
Many students in Schusler’s STEP course describe the class as a transformative experience.
“STEP has strengthened my perception of my ability to affect change,” one student wrote in an engaged learning reflection. “Being able to work on a problem and find potential solutions helped me realize the impact that small numbers of people can have on creating an environmental solution.”
This meaningful impact on students motivates Schusler to continue the intensive but rewarding process of connecting classroom learning with projects that advance sustainability on campus or in local communities. Her work exemplifies the School of Environmental Sustainability’s commitment to offering engaged learning experiences that equip students to become environmental leaders capable of developing and implementing solutions to the world’s sustainability challenges.
This April, Loyola’s Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship (CELTS) honored School of Environmental Sustainability (SES) Assistant Professor Tania Schusler, PhD, with the Adolfo Nicolas SJ Excellence in Engaged Learning and Teaching Award. The award recognizes Schusler’s excellence in using engaged learning to help students prepare for impactful careers in sustainability.
“My educational aim is to create a collaborative learning community in which students actively develop a critical, interdisciplinary understanding of environmental issues within the context of their personal lives, local community, and global society,” says Schusler.
She applies this approach in an experiential course called Solutions to Environmental Problems (STEP). With Schusler’s guidance, students in the STEP class design and lead projects aimed at solving real-world problems. They develop skills in critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration, problem-solving, project management, and leadership.
Schusler has taught 14 sections of the STEP class, helping 262 students with 59 projects related to topics such as urban agriculture, food systems, waste reduction, environmental education, and water conservation.
Class projects sometimes develop into longer-term environmental initiatives. For example, STEP students founded the Loyola chapter of the Food Recovery Network, which addresses hunger in the Rogers Park community of Chicago while reducing food waste. The students established the operational infrastructure to safely collect uneaten food from Loyola events and donate it to A Just Harvest, a neighborhood food pantry.
Another STEP project explored connections between racial equity and how organizations and communities responded to COVID-19’s impacts on the Chicago region’s food systems. The effort evolved into a longer-term research initiative with the Chicago Food Policy Action Council. The group published a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. The authors include Schusler, three students, and one community partner. That work led Schusler to connect with additional partners in the Chicago-area food system to pursue further research on food, water, climate, and racial equity.
Many students in Schusler’s STEP course describe the class as a transformative experience.
“STEP has strengthened my perception of my ability to affect change,” one student wrote in an engaged learning reflection. “Being able to work on a problem and find potential solutions helped me realize the impact that small numbers of people can have on creating an environmental solution.”
This meaningful impact on students motivates Schusler to continue the intensive but rewarding process of connecting classroom learning with projects that advance sustainability on campus or in local communities. Her work exemplifies the School of Environmental Sustainability’s commitment to offering engaged learning experiences that equip students to become environmental leaders capable of developing and implementing solutions to the world’s sustainability challenges.