NSF Awards $1.4 Million

Ask Dave Szymanski to describe sustainability, and he’ll tell you it’s a “super wicked problem” facing our global economy. But the associate professor of geology isn’t just using geographically appropriate slang. In the realm of applied science and public policy, “wicked” describes an issue so complex, there is no simple solution — or even a single way of defining the problem. 

Szymanski, together with Dean of Arts and Sciences Rick Oches and Associate Dean of Business Otgo Erhemjants, is undaunted by the challenge. In fact, the three think that Bentley has found an ideal framework to study and teach sustainability: a new curriculum that combines STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with business education. 

The National Science Foundation seems to agree. It has awarded Bentley a five-year, $1.4 million grant to develop, implement and evaluate curricula for college students that combine STEM and business, with an eye toward unraveling the wicked web of sustainability wrought by poverty, hunger, gender inequality, climate change, energy use and other complex global issues. As lead principal investigator, Szymanski will coordinate the efforts of 30 faculty members from Bentley; Wittenberg University, in Springfield, Ohio; and Northern Illinois University. 

At each institution, faculty from various departments will collaborate on a two-course curriculum that shows students how sustainability issues are interwoven. The first course will be one that all students take, for example, reviewing statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on corn ethanol use; the second will focus on a specific field of study. For example, environmental chemistry students might produce corn ethanol in lab experiments, while economics students do a cost-benefit analysis of growing corn for food vs. fuel.

As Szymanski sees it, Bentley is uniquely positioned to equip a 21st-century workforce to untangle the wicked web of sustainability issues created by the competing demands of people, profit and the planet. 

“At Bentley, we educate business leaders who are at the front of the pack in terms of their ability to recognize and address complex global problems. The combination of business and STEM is central both to our students and a sustainable future.”