SUS3600 Sustainability Synthesis
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis project-based course helps students synthesize learning from the Introduction to Sustainability course and certificate electives by providing them with a chance to apply and integrate the concepts and tools of business, engineering, and the liberal arts (science, social science, and the humanities) to address sustainability. Students will work in multi-campus groups on a project with a client throughout the semester, along with common readings and discussions about taking place in class time. Course meetings will take place at Olin College.

Prerequisites: Declared participation in the certificate program and completion of the Introduction to Sustainability plus at least two out of three elective courses for the program, or substantial equivalent background and instructor permission.

NST2040 Case Studies in Sustainable Food Systems
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat is food - where does it come from, how is it grown, what resources does it use, what's the difference between a GMO and an organic product, what do labels mean, is it sustainable? This course looks to take a scientific and systems based look at the food we eat and deeply examine all of the steps that occur between "farm to table". We need food to survive and food must be grown, cultivated, harvested, processed, and distributed so that we can benefit from it. These steps take place in different ways all across the globe, across the country, and among our neighbors. In this class, we'll look at what it means to be a sustainable food system, look at historical approaches that worked to meet/deviate from this goal, and look at how the future aims to feed a growing world with increasingly diminishing resources.

By the end of this course, you will recognize the importance of sustainable food systems and know the different areas that comprise this system. You will be able to distinguish between sustainable and non-sustainable food systems. Through this design, this course meets the college learning goals of Rhetoric, Quantitative and Information Analysis, Ethics and SEERS, and Critical and Integrative Thinking.

Prerequisites: NST10%%

MKT4525 Sustainable Marketing
4 Advanced Management CreditsThe purpose of this course is to introduce students to the complexities of integrated sustainability from a managerial perspective. Both consumers and businesses are demanding solutions to sustainability issues for products and services throughout the value chain. Today's sustainability issues are all encompassing and include strategies for managing structural injustice challenges, and ecological integrity concerns throughout the entire ideation to go-to-market process. Firms must make thoughtful investment and resource decisions that consider multiple stakeholder perspectives using a systems thinking lens, carefully evaluating all risks and rewards. Furthermore, entrepreneurs and marketers must learn to adapt their marketing strategies to sustainable products and services to redefine the value proposition.

Prerequisites: SME2011

OIM3522 Sustainable Operations and Innovation
(Formerly MOB3522 Leading and Managing Sustainability)
4 Advanced Management Credits

**Students who took this as MOB3522 cannot register for this course**

The purpose of this course is to provide an understanding of the concept of sustainability thinking and the practical process of sustainability-oriented innovations. Sustainability thinking challenges entrepreneurial leaders to enable the transition to a sustainable economic system, by identifying business opportunities and leading transformation of business culture. Students will learn about the systemic view of sustainability on how organizations can create social value while simultaneously delivering realistic economic returns: repurpose, stakeholder involvement, design & implementation of innovations and metrics development. Students will develop practical knowledge and skillset from design thinking and systems thinking as integral disciplines to manage human, financial, and other resources in innovations that transform businesses. Our goal is to provide the basis for a common language and understanding of the intersection between environmental/social issues and sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship, business strategy, and organizational culture. Ultimately, students will develop their understanding of how to lead the transformation of a conventional business into a sustainable business.

The course is composed of four parts. The first part will give students an overview of the sustainability thinking and allied strategy and the tools for designing the process through which it happens: what dimensions and questions might be considered to evaluate and guide sustainability. Having identified both the challenges and tools associated with sustainability, the second part will make the case for making a product or service sustainable. The third part will shift the discussion to making an organization sustainable and characteristics of sustainability leaders. Finally, the fourth part will reflect on making your life sustainable. Students will explore how to apply ideas from the course to a more sustainable way of living.

Prerequisites: (SME2002 or OIM2001) or SUS1201

MBA7504 Systems Dynamics in Business, Society and the Environment
3 Elective Credits

Whether within multifunctional businesses we manage, or across extended global enterprises so critical to our venture's success, or the societies in which we live, or the planet and its environment that sustains us, a common feature is the prevalence of systems of interrelated, interacting, or interdependent actors, choices, actions, flows, and stocks forming a complex whole. Examples of systems range from (1) operations on the manufacturing floor to service operations to global supply chains, (2) the diffusion of technological innovations and contagious diseases, (3) the playing out of network effects and multi-sided platforms, (3) the functioning of markets and commodity and business cycles, (4) living populations and their dependence on each other and resource availability, (5) social media and the functioning of societies; and (6) the VUCAH (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and hyperconnected) nature of the world we live in. In a very basis way, that is just the way the world is: webs within webs of systems.

How do we make sense of such interconnected systems? How do we learn to express this sense-making in the form of clear narratives and maps and schematics that tell the complete, interconnected story? And, having done so, how do we model and analyze the systems' dynamics - how the systems might play out over time? This, so we are better prepared for intended and unintended consequences, system resilience or fragility, and far-far-away butterfly effects and we are more effective in terms of decision-making, problem-solving, and policy-making and implementation.

Learning in the course is very hands-on: as with any "studio" course, we will work on exercises in class; there will be an individual exercise where learners will take a real problem, "build" a system model, and simulate the dynamics of the same using a dedicated simulation software package or Excel; and students will be working in teams on a complex real-world problem (for example, "global warming") and learn how to map the "system" and explore its dynamics.

Prerequisites: Completed 12 credits of core requirements

MOB3515 Talent Management: What Many Leaders Miss

(Formerly Developing the Employee Experience (With a Human Resources Lens))
4 Advanced Management CreditsThis course is designed to make you think about managing people - or Human Resources - in new ways. The purpose of the course is to help you learn how organizational systems and processes impact how jobs are designed, who gets hired, and how individuals are developed (or not) within an organization. In addition to these topics, we'll discuss performance management, employee engagement, and employee separation. Overall, the course is designed to create comfort with the language of human resources management and understand how individuals, managers, and entrepreneurs ideally respond to human resource-related concerns.

For More Information: www.kaltura.com/tiny/p1nk5

Prerequisites: FME1000 and FME1001 or MOB1010

MOB7515 Talent Management: What Many Leaders Miss

(Formerly Human Resources for High Performance)
3 CreditsThe ability to manage people effectively provides a distinct competitive advantage for organizations. This course is for managers and current or future entrepreneurs who hope to capitalize on the connection between managing people and superior organizational performance, competitive advantage, profitability, and growth. This course will help you develop a conceptual understanding of organizational practices, strategies and tools that enable the most effective management of an organization's human resources. The course is designed to answer the following fundamental question: What do managers and entrepreneurs need to know about human resources for organizational success?

For more information: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/inlmu

Prerequisites: None

LTA2061 Tales of the City: Exploring Urban Literature
Intermediate Liberal ArtsThis course will focus on the changing and diverse portrayals of cities and urban life in western literature from the earliest days of industrialization to the present. Inspired by Plato's observation, _this City is what it is because our citizens are what they are. We will explore the mutually-constructed relationship between a city and its citizens, asking such questions as: What does it mean to be an urban dweller? How does a city shape its residents' identity, and how do its residents influence a city's development? What are the delights and dangers of urban life? Where does one's sense of community/neighborhood overlap with - and diverge from - living in a particular city? We will read novels, short stories, poems, and essays, focusing primarily on London, but also likely including Dublin and New York City. To what extent can the concerns of a community within a city diverge from the concerns of the city as a whole?

Prerequisites: RHT & Foundation A&H and H&S

LAW3650 Tax Policy
4 CreditsTax policy is a government's choice regarding what taxes to levy, on whom and in what amounts in order to raise the funds it needs and to influence taxpayer behavior.

Students will learn the timeless design principles of good tax policy, evaluate taxation in America over time through the lens of these design principles, examine the roles of influential individuals, discuss social, environmental, economic responsibility, and sustainability (seers) aspects as well as global and ethical considerations in the tax policy debate, assess alternative approaches to the current federal income tax system in the U.S., and develop policy as well as implementation recommendations.

Prerequisites: LAW1000; prior completion of TAX3500 is beneficial

TAX3500 Taxes
General CreditStudies tax administration; income, deductions, and credits; treatment of gains and losses;
income taxation of individuals, businesses, estates, and trusts, with an emphasis on income
taxation of individuals; and estate and gift taxation fundamentals.

Prerequisites: LAW 1000