Rebecca Watts Hull wants to transform what students learn and how faculty across campus connect, innovate, and inspire action for a sustainable future. The assistant director for Faculty Development for Sustainability Education Initiatives in the Center for Teaching and Learning brings a collaborative spirit that’s made her an invaluable partner to Georgia Tech’s Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) and to faculty interested in showing the real-world relevance of sustainability in their classrooms.

Her path to Georgia Tech was shaped by years of hands-on experience in nonprofit environmental advocacy, driving partnerships among medical professionals, scientists, and educators to protect air quality and children’s health. “I kept asking myself why it is,” she says, “that in a city like Atlanta, with all these higher education institutions and one of the largest concentrations of nonprofit organizations in the country, there weren’t more partnerships between nonprofits and academia.” Watts Hull says she was confused since the two groups “often care about and are aiming to advance the same things.”

In 2013, while teaching a continuing education course on sustainability leadership at Emory University, Watts Hull realized that sustainability in higher education was taking off. She pivoted to pursue a Ph.D. at Georgia Tech in history and sociology, and later joined Georgia Tech’s Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS) program, established to build bridges between the university and community partners.

When Georgia Tech’s strategic plan elevated sustainability as a core value, Watts Hull served on the “Amplify Impact” team to help shape the strategy and implementation of the plan. An immediate result was the creation of her role within the Center for Teaching and Learning, specifically around sustainability and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Our aim is to equip students to become true change makers, who can advance the SDGs and fulfill Georgia Tech’s mission of improving not only technology, but also lives and communities,” she explains.

Central to her approach are partnerships with other units, including BBISS, which unites faculty and researchers across the Institute who are focused on sustainability. Watts Hull leads the Community of Practice on Transformative Teaching with the SDGs, an initiative in its third year. “It’s a space where faculty can learn from each other how to teach sustainability in different disciplines,” she says. In addition, participants engage in outreach, sharing cross-disciplinary strategies and creative classroom approaches at Georgia Tech events and conferences.

Watts Hull says incorporating sustainability into courses not only enhances students’ overall learning and motivation but also helps faculty find renewed meaning and enjoyment in their teaching. “Well-designed, real-world projects help students see the importance of what they’re learning, and they stay engaged,” she notes. “But it’s also true that faculty feel more inspired when they know their teaching matters for big, pressing challenges.” One way faculty can engage is by applying for Undergraduate Sustainability Education Innovation grants. To date, 60 awards have been granted to faculty across campus.

Supporting student and faculty success is a family affair. Her husband, Jonathan, serves as associate vice chancellor for Student and Faculty Success for the University System of Georgia. “Our work both relates to teaching and learning, so we enjoy sharing that in common,” says Watts Hull, whose early community work included serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda.

Most recently, the busy administrator has contributed a chapter to a 2025 book, Higher Education’s Leadership in Climate Action and Sustainability, where she highlights five strategies for scaling up faculty engagement in sustainability across the curriculum.

One of her favorite pastimes is hiking in North Georgia, especially on Blood Mountain, the state’s highest summit along the Appalachian Trail. “The view from the top is just spectacular,” she says. It’s a fitting parallel to the ongoing journey toward a more sustainable future at Georgia Tech, one step — and partnership — at a time.

—Anne Wainscott-Sargent