Integrated traditional and applied education in a public US university: exploring sustainable cities and regions in classrooms and communities Elizabeth Shay & Susan Caplow # AESS 2014 Abstract The most effective and promising models for teach- ing sustainability sciences and studies in a university setting are a topic of vigorous debate. This paper discusses an inte- grated sustainability curriculum at a large public university, which serves students from departments such as city and regional planning, environmental studies and sciences, geog- raphy, and many more—as well as professional schools such as public health, journalism, business, and government. We describe an integrated suite of sustainability offerings that link available academic opportunities laterally across campus to touch more students at once, as well as longitudinally to provide individual students with a progressively more focused academic experience. Finally, we share lessons learned from the development of new curriculum over the last decade. The curriculum described here illumi- nates the larger discussion on emerging models for educating university students in planning for prosperous, stable, efficient, and just cities and regions. Keywords Sustainability . Curriculum development . Integrated curriculum . Applied learning Introduction Sustainability has emerged as a major focus of academic development, with many universities and colleges creating minors and majors, and in some cases departments. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE 2014) reports their database contains “1402 sustainability-focused academic programs at 461 cam- puses in 65 states and provinces.” The most effective and promising models for teaching sustainability sciences and studies in a university setting are a topic of vigorous debate. This paper describes an integrated sustainability curriculum at a large public university, which serves students from depart- ments such as city and regional planning, environmental studies and sciences, geography, and many more—as well as professional schools such as public health, journalism, busi- ness, and government. We discuss the sustainability curriculum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (“Carolina”) against the backdrop of current discussions about sustainability pedagogy and empirical literature relating to experiential learning. This relates to the ongoing discussion about how to educate uni- versity students about planning and policy that promote pros- perous, stable, efficient, and just cities and regions. Sustainability and experiential learning in the literature Once considered most appropriate for younger ages, experi- ential learning has been growing in popularity at higher levels of education, as it has been shown to result in better knowl- edge retention and improved student commitment to applied problem solving (Jacobson et al. 2006). Experiential learning theory conceives of learning as a process, not an exercise of memorizing fixed and immutable concepts. At its core, expe- riential learning relies on four main activities: concrete E. Shay : S. Caplow Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3275, USA Present Address: E. Shay (*) North Carolina Department of Transportation, Human Environment Section, Raleigh, NC 27610, USA e-mail: edshay@ncdot.gov Present Address: S. Caplow Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL 35115, USA J Environ Stud Sci DOI 10.1007/s13412-014-0201-0