SUS3600 Sustainability Synthesis
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
This 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.

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Other
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
  • Course Number: SUS3600
  • Number of Credits: 4

NST2040 Case Studies in Sustainable Food Systems
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits
What 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%%

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Mathematics Analytics Science and Technology
  • Level: Intermediate Liberal Arts (UGrad)
  • Course Number: NST2040
  • Number of Credits: 4

MKT4525 Sustainable Marketing
4 Advanced Management Credits
The 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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Marketing
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Management (UGrad)
  • Course Number: MKT4525
  • Number of Credits: 4

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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Management (UGrad)
  • Course Number: OIM3522
  • Number of Credits: 4

MOB3515 Talent Management: What Many Leaders Miss

(Formerly Developing the Employee Experience (With a Human Resources Lens))
4 Advanced Management Credits
This 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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Management
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Management (UGrad)
  • Course Number: MOB3515
  • Number of Credits: 4

LTA2061 Tales of the City: Exploring Urban Literature
Intermediate Liberal Arts
This 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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Arts and Humanities
  • Level: Intermediate Liberal Arts (UGrad)
  • Course Number: LTA2061
  • Number of Credits: 4

LAW3650 Tax Policy
4 Credits
Tax 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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Accounting and Law
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
  • Course Number: TAX3650
  • Number of Credits: 4

TAX3500 Taxes
General Credit
Studies 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

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Accounting and Law
  • Level: Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Management (UGrad)
  • Course Number: TAX3500
  • Number of Credits: 4

OIM2001 Technology Operations Management

4 Credits

**This course is equivalent to SME2002. Students who took SME2002 cannot take this course.**

This course focuses on the processes and management systems required for entrepreneurial leaders and managers to successfully test and actualize business strategy. To be effective, leaders must accurately interpret customer value through new product development & service system design. They must create, manage and make investments to improve the conversion of resources into delivered value. Ultimately a venture's Operating Model must conform to the business's objectives and tightly link all activities tailored to its strategy such that the intent and the actions achieve the desired results in an ethical and sustainable manner.

The structure of this course builds the critical thinking skills and introduces the managerial methods needed to become entrepreneurial leaders and managers in all operating environments, independent of industry or scope. Students will discover how the design of operations impacts measured performance and affects customer satisfaction. The course further instructs how the digital modeling of expected results before action is taken leads to improved operational decisions.

Managing operations is vital to every type of organization, for it is only through effective and efficient utilization of resources that an organization can be successful in the long run. This is especially true in a globally-networked economy, when we see that significant competitive advantages accrue to those firms that manage their operations effectively. We define operations in the broadest sense, not confining the focus within the boundaries of the firm but defining the scope to the intentions and activities considered in the supply of goods and services from their conception to their consumption.

In the classroom, students will have case-based learning and hands-on experience to apply operating theories and managerial tools to make well-informed decisions. Students engage in project & group activity and assessment to help supplement individual learning throughout this course.

Prerequisites: FME 1000

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Operations and Information Management
  • Level: Intermediate Management (UGrad)
  • Course Number: OIM2001
  • Number of Credits: 4

PHL4609 Technology, Nature and Values
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
Investigates the ways in which our increasing technological capabilities have influenced our values and the reciprocal influence of beliefs and conceptual systems upon technological progress.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

  • Program: Undergraduate
  • Division: Arts and Humanities
  • Level: Advanced Liberal Arts 4600 Requirement (UGrad),Advanced Elective (UGrad),Advanced Liberal Arts (UGrad)
  • Course Number: PHL4609
  • Number of Credits: 4