Business Sustainability - Jason Aamodt, J.D. Oklahoma State University

What is your name? My name is Jason Aamodt. What year did you start at Spears School of Business? I started as an assistant professor of practice here in Spears in 2017. Okay and before Spears where did you work? What were your undergrad degrees?

I started my educational journey at the state university of New York, in Plattsburgh, New York, along Lake Champlain, where I took a degree in chemistry and also in environmental science. Then I went to the University of Tulsa for law school where I pursued a law degree with a focus on environmental and ecological issues. After that was completed, Oklahoma State asked me if I could help them grow the sustainability program.

Okay, I'm assuming you teach sustainability for Spears then? Go through a list of the classes you teach. I do teach sustainability for Spears. I teach sustainability in business at both the graduate and undergraduate level. The specific courses are of course, sustainability but, corporate and social responsibility, ethics, and then some natural resources management classes, through the graduate program that is at Oklahoma State in Tulsa.

So when it comes to the business sustainability, do you mind touching on like three basics for the students? Yeah so there are traditionally is what folks call "Triple bottom line" or the "three pillars of sustainability." They talk about the person, or the community, right? Business, and the environment. Some folks have shortened that to People Planet and Profits, but in general the idea isn't just, that there are these three things. Rather that there's a relationship between community, and business, and the environment.

We have a number of different sustainability offerings at OSU. First there is a graduate certificate with the MBA program. So if you get all the way through your undergraduate program, and you haven't yet really had a chance to do sustainability, you can still do an MBA and have this graduate certificate. Or, the graduate certificate is available as a standalone but if you've got a little time in your undergraduate program, and I hope you do, and I hope to see you in class, then I I think you should really take the undergraduate certificate. There are four required classes, and then overall I think it's 24 credit hours. You kind of get to build most of the program based on what interests you. We have a great club at OSU that's focused on sustainability, it's called Net-impact. Some things to know about it, One it's not just a Spears School of Business Club. We're here at Spears School of Business, any student, anywhere in the university, is invited and welcome to participate, even if you're not a club member! You can come in and participate in any of our events. Of course we'd love for you to join. What do we do? Well we're a little bit about networking, and we're a little bit about professionalism, and we're a little bit about having fun.

There are a number of great career opportunities in sustainability right now I would say first an important thing to note is that the whole area of sustainability is growing and there are a number of new job opportunities now that didn't exist when I started teaching in the program just back in 2017. What can you do? Well you could come in and be a sustainability analyst. You could be a program coordinator at the very beginning with an undergraduate degree . Really great jobs and good money. On the other hand you know if you were to take more of an advanced degree and advance certificate, there are also advanced options, in directing and managing and running these programs, that lead all the way up to really the upper levels of management and the executive functions inside large companies.