Environmental issues are of increasing importance in the modern world, as environmental literacy is now involved in public policy and industry. This increasing importance has caused sustainability courses to evolve into a central part of research universities. The School for Earth, Society, and Environment (SESE) at the University of Illinois, has developed an interdisciplinary course load that connects physical and technical sciences with economics, policy, and social science. The Sustainability Studies Initiative in the Humanities (SSIH), a part of SESE, is meant to enhance this interdisciplinary course load with humanistic perspectives from a variety of fields.

The Student Sustainability granted the project for Sustainable Studies in the Humanities $8,500 in order to develop seven new courses relating to topics of sustainability in the humanities, as part of a broad initiative to support sustainability studies in the humanities. The SSC granted the funding in part because they felt that sustainability studies in the humanities were an underserved part of the Universities curriculum.