AUS students partner with students from Haverford College and Dickinson College in the US to explore and lead in sustainability with the Transformative Sustainability Project.

Students at American University of Sharjah (AUS) collaborated with their peers from Haverford College and Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, USA, in a virtual exchange project aimed towards transforming their local and global contexts into more sustainable communities in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

The collaboration comes as part of AUS’ Transformative Sustainability Project (TSP) that was made possible through a grant from the Stevens Initiative, administered by the Aspen Institute. The grant was awarded to Kristina Katsos, Instructor in the Department of International Studies at AUS and TSP Principal Investigator and Program Manager. The project began in April 2022 and will end in June 2023.

“Participating undergraduate students place their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills to effective use by collaborating with students locally and abroad to provide sustainable solutions to their respective communities, transforming them in the process. With the aid of virtual exchange methods, participants collaborate across national borders, tackling issues that they otherwise would not engage with in their day-to-day lives,” said Katsos.

She added: “We are currently celebrating the end of the first part of the project in the fall semester, and the successful implementation of the TSP with amazing examples of cross-institutional collaborative student work. The participants worked hard and delivered projects with innovative analysis on global problems that apply the SDGs as their backbone.”

Sameera Khan, an international studies student at AUS, addressed the impact of climate change on communities as part of her group work with students from Dickinson College.

“This is a concept I only learned about through the discussions we had in class. Our group worked on a podcast on the topic. We talked about the differences between MENA and the USA. Also, the floods in Pakistan were quite an important part of the discussions,” said Khan. 

She added: “Every week we were assigned a different question and through the help of our ambassador of the week in the group, we would research it in detail. One week we would be talking about the SDGs and on another we’d be talking about climate change in developing countries. Our discussions were really thorough and covered a lot of ground in terms of both environment and sociology.”

Maryam Kilani, an international studies student in her final year who shared Khan’s class, also addressed these issues.

“We looked at the floods in Pakistan as well as evidence of climate change in the United States. We chose our topic at a time when the floods in Pakistan were quite prominent in the media, so it was fresh in our minds. It was also one of the topics that were discussed at COP27, which really piqued our interest,” she said.

Kilani found that the integration of the TSP into her course enriched class discussions. 

“Even though we found ourselves reading American texts, we were still able to contextualize them in ways that related to us. At the same time, we had the opportunity to look at the impact of climate change  from another perspective, one that was different from ours. This collaboration really helped me challenge myself. I think if we hadn't had these important conversations with people from different experiences, we wouldn't have been able to learn what we did,” said Kilani. 

Salma Hamdy, an AUS economics major in her third year, collaborated with students from Haverford College as part of her course on Global Problems. 

“I’ve never really worked on a virtual exchange project before, but it was really exciting especially when we met for the first time. We had a virtual meeting where Haverford students were beginning their day with breakfast and we (AUS students) were ending ours. Because technology made everything almost accessible and we used Zoom throughout the pandemic, it was easy to connect with the students in the US. I found it really fun to virtually meet people from all backgrounds. It was like having pen pals! Getting to know my team, who were in an entirely different country, over the course of the semester was such a fun experience. Also, working on the project really helped me improve my teamwork skills,” she said.

Hamdy addressed SDG 5 on Gender Equality with her team. 

“We focused on Rwanda and Pennsylvania in the US. The project allowed us to expand our knowledge on the subject and showed us how much more research needs to be done. I would love to continue researching the topic because there are still many aspects to it that I want to explore!,” she said. 

Addressing SDG 10 on Reduced Equality and SDG 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions,  Vighnesh Prasad, an English major, said discussing SDG texts and their different interpretations was an “incredible experience.”

“I really got the chance to work on my interpersonal skills. Through the synchronous meetings, I was able to work through my communication skills and even grow my voice as a writer. My abilities to be technologically adept improved as our meetings grew in number. Also, I got the opportunity to experiment with different databases outside of AUS,” he explained. 

By the end of this academic year, this project is hoping to engage more than 500 students across three institutions to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously in this virtual exchange program while applying their interdisciplinary knowledge and background to tackle sustainability challenges. 

Six AUS faculty members took part in the initiative, including Dr. Kristen Highland from the Department of English; Dr. Jeniece Lusk, Kristina Katsos, Dr. Bethany Shockley and Dr. Salma Thani from the Department of International Studies; and Dr. Fatin Samara from the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences. They collaborated with six faculty members from the two US partner institutions.

The TSP is supported by the Stevens Initiative, which is sponsored by the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government, and is administered by the Aspen Institute. The Stevens Initiative is also supported by the Bezos Family Foundation and the governments of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.