The participatory common intellectual experience (P-CIE): a case study for integrating sustainability across the curriculum

Purpose The United Nations has urged higher education institutions to develop new models for integrating sustainability education. To address this mandate, this case study aims to explore the authors’ experiences with the challenges and affordances of implementing a distinctive, cocurricular sustainability program: the participatory common intellectual experience (P-CIE). Design/methodology/approach In this narrative case study, the authors reflect on their experience in implementing an underutilized high impact practice: the common intellectual experience across their campus. The essay discusses the origins of the campus’s sustainability initiative, the challenges of introducing sustainability through curriculum revision within complex structures, and how the authors adapted the program, culminating in the development of a distinctive P-CIE model. Findings The essay reflects on strategies in which leadership, internal structures, organizational culture and systems can lend themselves to the success of implementing models that are practical and sustainable. As our experience attests, navigating complex logistical, pedagogical and epistemological challenges across students, faculty, local businesses and campus leadership is difficult. However, when implemented thoughtfully and collaboratively, the P-CIE can also provide key benefits for constituents and campuses. Originality/value The common intellectual experience (CIE) has long been identified as a high impact practice (HIP), but its implementation has not risen to the same level as other HIPs. The P-CIE represents a new and distinctive form of CIE, which was developed both to address previous limitations of curriculum integration in both HIPs and sustainability education. Outside of the campus that serves as the focus of the case study, the P-CIE has not been implemented extensively as an approach to sustainability education in institutions of higher education.