ArtCenter has championed art and design as a positive force for change in the world for many years, but we officially embarked on a journey to bring a comprehensive design and sustainability curriculum to the College when our Sustainability Initiatives program was launched in 2008.

The mission of our Sustainability Initiatives program is to prepare creative professionals with the ability and will to contribute to sustainable development. Some students will create for social impact, some will become communicators and champions of biodiversity, some will innovate new and better ways to use resources. Others will provide solutions for safety, mobility, aging, housing. Still others will invent things we can’t even imagine-with sustainability as a priority.

Given the impact of our graduates and their influence on life on this planet, our unique, pedagogical approach is clear: provide learning and an environment that is fully integrated with sustainability principles, in what we teach, how we teach, and the example we set.

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Parallel to our focus on education, efforts were made to conform operations with this new social, environmental and economic model. Not surprisingly, this accomplished some things, and left others ‘to be determined.’ There is a realization that progress towards the resilience model must move more quickly and be made more explicit. Of note, this past decade has revealed the significant role of creative professionals in proposing systems of service capable of meeting future challenges. Together with educational and industry partners, ArtCenter can look to this next decade of achievement as one in which artists and designers participate fully in making sustainable development possible. More skillfully, more courageously, more successfully.