“Sustainability is a way of thinking”: Dr. Joe Lanning talks about SIT’s new PhD
December 17th, 2024 | Faculty, SIT, SIT Graduate Institute
By Joanna Tanger
Dr. Joe Lanning is an educator, practitioner, and researcher active in sustainable development and food systems with a regional focus on southern Africa. He serves as the chair of SIT’s new PhD in Sustainability and the Global MA in Sustainable Development Practice. He has worked at SIT since 2016, but is also an SIT alumnus, having participated in a study abroad program in Kenya in the 1990s.
We asked Dr. Lanning to share why the new PhD in Sustainability is unique and how he would describe experiential learning, a key aspect of SIT’s programs.
How would you describe the new PhD in Sustainability program?
The new PhD in Sustainability is for students who are ready to accept the challenges of the future with very thoughtful leadership. Sustainability is an issue we all need to think about, and we're looking for students who are ready to pursue this through rigorous research and applied work. The program focuses on students who are at a point in their careers where they're looking to level up to take their own research and work to the next level, applying sustainability solutions to critical global issues.
What makes the PhD in Sustainability program unique?
The PhD in Sustainability isn’t just about sustainability; rather, it’s about a way of thinking. It's about a way of communicating. Our students come from many different disciplinary backgrounds. Many of them have years of experience working in sustainability or allied fields, and they are ready to go to the next level with their learning. Communication plays a key role in this PhD program. It's about bringing our research not only to a journal that other experts read, but to the wider global community, and to make sure that we are sharing these interactions between science and society.
When thinking about a PhD program, many people think of research and field work. The SIT Graduate Institute’s PhD in Sustainability is certainly about field work, but there is an SIT advantage to how we do it considering our global network. The SIT network is massive, and it touches all corners of the earth and all ways that we as humans are dealing with climate change, dealing with issues of sustainability, as well as the culturally nuanced ways we're mitigating those problems. There are numerous avenues for our students to tap into the amazing resources that SIT offers, including the opportunity to travel to Zanzibar, Tanzania and Lisbon, Portugal to be face-to-face with our faculty.
How would you describe the Global Master's in Sustainable Development Practice program?
SIT’s MA in Sustainable Development Practice is a unique opportunity for our students. The goal here is for students to be the interpreter at the table, the one who can integrate different fields and disciplines when looking at development issues, as well as bringing in the perspectives of the people in the communities that we're working in most directly impacted.
This program provides an opportunity for our students to be in the field while doing this learning and practice. SIT is experiential learning, immersive place-based learning. Our students are in the field learning from experts, and our program runs in Ecuador, South Africa, and Malawi in the first couple semesters. In the third semester, students visit the location of their choice. By being immersed through much of the program with our experiential learning model, they aren’t just reading case studies in a book, they're talking to the authors and the people the case study is about. Students are fully immersed in the experience.
How does SIT define experiential learning?
Many people think that experiential learning is just about having experiences and learning from them, going out and talking to people; many folks think it happens out of the classroom only. The reality at SIT is that we are looking at a whole cycle of experiential learning. Students may come into that cycle at different places. They may start with that experience and may go to a rural community and learn about agroecology, climate change, and sustainable harvesting with farmers. Students also need to go to the literature. They need to learn about what other people have learned. They need to talk to those farmers. They need to then separate themselves from the situation and go through the reflective practice — that moment where they synthesize what they've read, what they've seen, what they've been thinking about, what their colleagues are thinking about, and try to integrate all of that so that when they go back into another experience, they're prepared for that shift in thinking.
It's a cycle. There can be an experiential learning cycle in one day. It may go on through a whole week, it may go through the whole semester or their entire program. Overall, it is about getting beyond the classroom but not leaving the classroom behind. The classroom is everywhere, whether we're in a building, under a baobab tree, or out on someone's irrigation project.
What are the changes you see in a student who starts with SIT and then when they finish their program?
I see many differences in our students as they progress through a program. The most significant change is a real increase in self-confidence. Our students, through their immersive learning, by having to culturally and socially adjust across different spaces — in multiple countries in one year — learn how to be flexible. They learn how to adapt, how to really recognize what is most valuable to them, and to hold onto that tightly. In the process, their confidence develops. This flexibility is key, and it prepares them for the future. Whether at home or abroad, they've developed a lifelong skill set to keep their values while also adapting to the place they're in.