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PALS - Partnership for Academic Leadership in Sustainability

In September 2010, thirty-three academic leaders from 33 independent colleges of Art and Design came together to create a new vision for design education that responds to the complex nature of our world. Each PALS "Fellow" has been appointed by the president of their institution to participate in a collaborative effort to link the resources of independent art and design colleges around the critical environmental, social and human centered design issues that face us. Together we are responding the the question, "How do we ensure that our students are prepared to engage in the creation of a healthy, just and sustainable future?" This September 2012 the schools will gather at the School of the Art Insitute of Chicago to begin the implementation of their collaborative vision. 

“It is our responsibility to create new educational models that prepare and our graduates to envision the future”  - Dr. Thomas Schutte

The purpose of the PALS  group and summit is to work collectively to build a strategic plan for sharing and leveraging our resources to better integrate sustainability into art and design programs. Each “Fellow” has been key to defining our strategic action plan. The PALS Cohort meets monthly online and comes back together annually in September to continue to develop and implement tools for collaboration. For more information contact Debera Johnson; Academic Director of Sustainability at debjohnson@pratt.edu

Participating schools