Despite having the technology, knowledge, and resources to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global progress remains slow. Why? Because the challenges we face - climate disruption, social inequality, and economic distress - require more than technical fixes. They demand a fundamental shift in human consciousness, behavior, and mindset. This workshop begins from a powerful theory of change: that outer transformation is only possible through inner development. The session is grounded in the understanding that psychological barriers - such as denial, short-term thinking, burnout, and fear - often block progress toward sustainability. It invites participants to explore how developing inner capacities like self-awareness, emotional resilience, ethical reflection, and relational leadership can catalyze the systemic changes our world so urgently needs. Participants will be introduced to an integrated framework combining Culturally Responsive Leadership (CRL) with the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) - two models that help educators, students, leaders, and policy-makers develop the personal and collective capacities needed to drive sustainable and equitable change from the inside out. Inspired by bottom-up, embodied, and reflective approaches to leadership, the workshop offers practical tools, peer engagement, and time for personal visioning. It’s designed for anyone working toward a more just and sustainable future - whether in classrooms, communities, boardrooms, or beyond. Together, we’ll challenge the dominance of reductionist and external-only solutions, making space for holistic, inclusive, and inner-informed approaches to transformation. This is more than a professional development session - it is an invitation to reimagine leadership as a practice of inner clarity and collective courage in an age of uncertainty. Dr. Stephanie Lovseth is a faculty member in the Sustainability and Educational Studies programs at Principia College, where she also serves as the Director of Study Abroad. Her research focuses on leadership capacity-building within higher education, particularly through the lens of culturally responsive leadership (CRL) and sustainability. With a PhD in Sustainability Education, Dr. Lovseth has developed and implemented professional development series for higher education professionals aimed at fostering transformational leadership and systemic change. She is also an ambassador for the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), integrating this framework into her work to promote individual and organizational transformation for sustainability.

In recent years, rituals—such as funerals for glaciers and gratitude ceremonies for watersheds—have been utilized to enhance environmental education. This two-hour workshop will explore the potential role of rituals in communicating essential values and inspiring meaningful action within environmental contexts. Historically, rituals have helped individuals find order in chaos, honor significant events, and strengthen community ties. In this workshop, we will focus on two key outcomes of rituals: the ability to foster personal meaning and reduce anxiety, as well as the capacity to create and maintain social values. We will discuss these concepts and review relevant research during the workshop's introduction. Following this, participants will learn about three essential ritual skills. Rituals serve as a "third place," a performative space that exists outside of everyday reality. They are structured yet flexible, particularly valuable during transitional moments. The skills we will cover include: First, facilitation skills for creating thresholds that mark the beginning and end of the ritual. Next, we will engage in ritual protocol planning, from defining its purpose—such as fostering a connection to nature—to designing and outlining the choreography. Lastly, we will identify the artistic skills needed for our rituals, incorporating music, movement, wardrobe, and exhibition elements. We will also discuss how participants can integrate these rituals into their educational initiatives, taking into account the emotions they wish to evoke and the community identity they aim to cultivate. In the second part of the workshop, attendees will use a step-by-step organizer to design rituals aligned with their specific goals, focusing on areas like waste reduction, connection to nature, or appreciation for food and energy. By the end of the workshop, participants will have developed a personalized ritual plan. Naama Sadan is a postdoc at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. She is a former high-school teacher and current researcher working on fostering cultural shifts toward sustainability in institutions. Originally from Jerusalem, Israel, she completed her Ph.D. at the Hebrew University, conducting fieldwork in California as a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation focused on integrating eco-literacy into California school districts. At Stanford, her research explores the role of rituals in promoting environmental education and sustainable behaviors in both religious and non-religious contexts. Naama also consults for the California Eco-Literacy Initiative (CALEI) and serves as co-chair of the Applied Collaboratory for Religion and Ecology (ACRE), a Stanford-based initiative.

Invitation: Are you designing a workshop or a course in transdisciplinarity? Or maybe are thinking about it but have not begun because the task just seemed overwhelming? This workshop is for you if you are: • A "boundary spanner", someone who works with academic researchers and societal actors on sustainability projects; or • A faculty member who teaches and does transdisciplinary research Workshop During the workshop you will be introduced to a comprehensive resource, Designing Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide, that will enable you to learn how to facilitate three interactive tools from the guide. The benefits and outcomes for participants will be: • Design skills needed to develop trainings for researchers; • Specific resources and tools that have been tested by experienced trainers; • A cohort of colleagues with whom to exchange ideas after the workshop. You will leave the workshop with the guide and a cohort of colleagues who you can continue to work with as you design new training workshops and courses. Training facilitators Facilitators are part of a cohort of transdisciplinary trainers, an outreach project of the Transdisciplinary Training Collaboratory: Building Common Ground, a project supported by a US National Science Foundation grant from 2020-2025. The project brought together pioneering TD researchers and experienced trainers from regional centers across the globe. Together they 1) Synthesized existing knowledge on the key concepts, competencies, common language, and accepted phases of different types of transdisciplinary research; and 2) Created a design guide for trainers with tools, references, proficiencies, and more! Margaret Krebs, Project Director, Transdisciplinary Training Collaboratory. Margaret's focus for the last ten years centers around defining key leadership skills and approaches for academic researchers who aim to further ""knowledge to action"". She has facilitated workshops for faculty, graduate students and postdocs in a variety of contexts: International Science Council's Transformations to Sustainability Programme, Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council projects, university fellowships, and the Earth Leadership Program of Future Earth.

Driving transformative change for sustainability requires collaboration. Network analysis is a powerful toolkit in the scientific study of collaboration, in particular because it supports clear conceptualization (e.g., what is meant by collaboration?), the mapping and description of networked systems (e.g., how do stakeholders collaborate in the context of a particular issue?), and the identification of strategies to promote sustainability (e.g., which collaborations are most essential to increasing the effectiveness of the network?). The theory and method of networks is applicable to many core questions of sustainability science and is useful for researchers and practitioners alike. This workshop presents an introduction to network analysis, with a specific focus on the mapping of networked governance systems. Participants will walk away with specific skills in how to appropriately conceptualize, measure, and describe the complex collaborations that exist within a particular governance system. Grounded examples are drawn from the context of regional climate change adaptation in Southeast Florida, USA, based on data from a program evaluation performed for a nonprofit organization devoted to enhancing the quantity and quality of regional collaborations around climate change adaptation activities. Time permitting, additional examples will be examined, drawn from the organization of university research on sustainability, and contact networks among professionals engaged in environmental risk analysis. To illustrate the utility of mapping networked systems, this workshop provides a brief overview of three core questions about networks that describe much of the literature on collaboration networks in sustainability science, including: (a) How do collaboration structures influence sustainability outcomes? (b) How do collaborations self-organize and evolve over time? (c) How do contextual factors, including institutions, influence network self-organization and efficacy? Adam Douglas Henry is Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy, Director of the Computational Social Science Program, and Distinguished Scholar at the University of Arizona. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University, completed his PhD at the University of California, Davis, and was a Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at Harvard University. Henry studies the role of political networks in environmental policy, particularly through the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework. He uses computational and mathematical modeling to understand how political networks evolve and influence policy outcomes. His work has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He has published widely in academic journals as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Policy Studies Journal, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to research, Henry regularly consults with organizations in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.