This Workshop brings together students and faculty at Colorado College on a continuing basis to jointly explore dimensions of sustainable development through class work, research, speakers and symposia.

Sustainable Development as a paradigm appeals to college students today. Human economic activity that sustains life while remaining compatible with the integrity of natural systems is an uplifting possibility amidst the complexities and cynicism that concern young people. Youthful hope and enthusiasm can easily be overwhelmed by the plethora of problems students encounter in their studies, be they exploding population of the globe, social and political strife, economic growth run rampant, or local to national and global environmental disruption.

The study of sustainable development is also interdisciplinary, in the tradition of the liberal arts. It requires that students gain an understanding of the organization and operation of economic systems, with their benefits and costs, along side knowledge of the dynamics of natural systems. Students in liberal arts institutions have the advantage and challenge of spreading their coursework among the disciplines as well as concentrating their learning upon a chosen major.

As Colorado College students pursue their undergraduate studies by fulfilling all-college requirements and working towards a major with its focus and depth, sustainable development studies can provide links between fields of knowledge and encourage student independent work. Working as classes, teams, and individually, students discover that sustainable development as a paradigm makes "natural" connections between pieces of knowledge, courses, departments and disciplines. They discover that there can be cautious hope for a world whose natural beauty and integrity they both value and fear is fast being lost.

There are numerous definitions of sustainable development; several found useful by Colorado College students are:

"meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (UN Commission on Environment and Development - Our Common Future).
"improves the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems." (World Conservation Commission).
"present and future individual, as well as community, activities which promote economic prosperity and are compatible with the carrying capacity of the resource base and environment." (Colorado College Sustainable Development Class, January, 1994).