Category: "Reflection Pieces"
Faculty and Students (Re)imagine “Impact on Society” in the Core
March 26, 2019

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center director The heart of the Harvey Mudd curriculum is the so-called Common Core Curriculum, aka “the Core”. Filling much of the students’ first three semesters, the Core provides them with broad foundational knowledge in the STEM disciplines, an introduction to the humanities, social sciences and the arts, and important cross-disciplinary […]
The Value of Getting Involved with Student Groups
February 25, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager Are you involved with a student group at Mudd? If not, I hope I can convince you to change that with my story. It took me a long time to join a student group when I was an undergraduate student. At U.C. Berkeley, there were no shortage of student […]
Campus Sustainability: An International Perspective
January 28, 2019

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager Last month, I attended the 2nd Symposium on Sustainability in University Campuses (SSUC) conference in Florence, Italy. With 60 attendees from academic institutions around the world (largely from Europe), the conference offered an opportunity to hear from our international counterparts about how they have managed to advance environmental sustainability […]
Learning Design and Designing Learning
January 28, 2019

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center director Over winter break, I had the opportunity to participate in a week-long design thinking workshop at Stanford’s d.school. The workshop’s 45 domestic and international attendees represented a broad range of educational institutions and functions, from the Air Force University to engineering and the medical professions, while all sharing the […]
The Meeting of the Minds
December 3, 2018

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Hixon Center director Last week I attended the Meeting of the Minds annual summit in Sacramento, CA. I joined more than 400 leaders from clean technology companies, municipal governments and agencies, non-profit organizations, and other sectors, who are all driven by one mission: speeding up the transition to sustainable systems and doing […]
A Tough Road Ahead: Takeaways from Two Conferences
October 16, 2018

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Sustainability Program Manager Over the past several months, the Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design planned and organized its 2nd Biennial Conference for Sustainable Design and Solutions. After months of preparation, we were happy to host the conference at Harvey Mudd College on Friday, October 5th, 2018 – and we are even […]
Reflections on a Sabbatical
September 25, 2018

By: TANJA SREBOTNJAK, Director of the Hixon Center This past spring I took a semester-long sabbatical. One of the perks of an academic career, sabbaticals enable faculty to focus on their research, develop new projects or courses, and enrich their scholarship and pedagogy with stays at other universities and research institutions. Mine took me to […]
ESW/MOSS Goes to Atlanta!
May 7, 2018

By: ESW/MOSS Students As you might know, ESW/MOSS (Engineers for a Sustainable World / Mudders Organizing for Sustainability Solutions) serves as our campus chapter of the larger Engineers for a Sustainable World organization – and each year in April, we send students from our group to attend the national ESW conference. This year, five of […]
What’s at Stake: Reflections from a Few Hikes and a Road Trip
January 17, 2018

By: LOUIS SPANIAS, Acting Director of the Hixon Center I didn’t grow up being a big fan of the outdoors. I never appreciated what the outdoors had to offer, to be honest. As a kid, I spent most of my time in my home, making occasional visits to the neighborhood park. After all, I hated […]
Green Careers Conference 2018: Why You Should Go
January 17, 2018

By: LAUREN D’SOUZA, Student Manager at the Roberts Environmental Center (CMC-’18) The Roberts Environmental Center is very proud to announce the 4th Annual Green Careers Conference on Friday, February 2, 2018. You may have seen my name pop up a few times on the Hixon Center blog. Although the Hixon Center is an institution of […]