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Debuting in Spring 2025, Shannon Parker’s new Sustainable Operations and Supply Chain course offered Master of Environmental Management (MEM) students the opportunity to tackle real sustainability challenges on Duke’s campus. The course bridged classroom theory to real-world decision-making.
Parker returned to the Nicholas School of the Environment in August 2024 as an Executive in Residence, after earning her MEM/MBA ('21) at Duke. Her teaching is influenced by her startup experience, where creativity and stakeholder collaboration are core to solving complex problems. An expert in waste, circularity, supply chain, and impact strategy, she designs simulations and projects that reflect the kinds of high-stakes, ambiguous problems students will face in their sustainability careers. Parker's energetic approach empowers students to take ownership of their learning.
From M&Ms to Meaning: Simulating Circular Operations
Drawing from her startup background, Shannon transformed her ENVIRON 790: Special Topics classroom into a bustling ‘factory’ during one of the course’s most memorable sessions. Students worked in operations management teams and M&M candies flew across the room. Wearing safety goggles and a neon vest reminiscent of her time working at Circ, Parker challenged teams to sort the M&Ms to meet certain objectives within time limits; each student assumed a different operations role including line operator, quality control specialist and production manager. Teams raced to achieve quality operations and collaborated to design a process that would eliminate defective M&M's, reduce cycle time and deliver value to their end ‘customer’ all while prioritizing sustainability.
While playful on the surface, the exercise was intentionally designed to give students firsthand experience in process design, performance optimization, and systems thinking—all necessary skills in sustainable supply chain management. By simulating the pressures and trade-offs of production environments, Parker offered a tangible, low-risk platform for students to wrestle with the tensions between efficiency, quality and sustainability.
Learning by Doing: Real Projects, Real Impact
In addition to dynamic in-class demonstrations, Parker developed five semester-long projects that connected students with real sustainability challenges on Duke’s campus. Each project was carefully curated to apply theory to practice. Rather than hypothetical case studies, Parker collaborated with campus partners to outline challenges grounded in real sustainability dilemmas, turning Duke into a hands-on learning lab and giving students experience with real team projects that mirror the workplace. The projects are detailed below.
Assessing Duke Athletics Field Irrigation Efficiency
Students collaborated with Duke Athletics and Landscape Services to evaluate and enhance irrigation practices at Brooks Field in Wallace Wade Stadium. They cataloged current irrigation practices, interviewed turf managers, and researched sustainable methods used at other athletic facilities. Their analysis confirmed that Duke already employs many best practices, but they identified opportunities for further improvement, such as piloting an automated rain sensor to optimize irrigation settings.
Streamlining Recycling at Duke West Campus Dorms
This team partnered with Duke Housing and Residence Life to assess and improve recycling practices in West Campus dorms. They conducted student interviews and site visits, administered a student survey, and analyzed waste audit data to identify key barriers to proper recycling. The team's focus included reducing recycling contamination, increasing waste diversion, and promoting better waste sorting habits among residents.
Optimization of Duke Stores Apparel Collection and Recycling Program
Students on this team worked with Duke Stores to examine and increase participation in the Recrafted Boxercraft textile recycling program. The team identified limited program awareness and low visibility of donation boxes as key participation barriers. They recommended relocating boxes to higher-trafficked areas, boosting social media outreach, and partnering with campus groups for promotion. Their goal was to create a scalable, low-maintenance strategy to increase student engagement and promote clothing circularity on campus.
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Assessing Sustainable Procurement Alternatives for Duke Student Affairs
Another student group partnered with Housing and Residence Life to explore more sustainable procurement strategies for Duke Student Affairs. They conducted stakeholder interviews and a site walkthrough to understand current purchasing practices and identified opportunities to reduce purchasing-related environmental impacts. The students analyzed supplier product offerings and procurement processes, gaining insights into challenges like budget constraints and supplier limitations. Some of their recommendations included defining sustainable procurement for the department, setting performance baselines, increasing purchases of "Certified Environmentally Preferred Products," and updating supplier contracts with sustainability language.
Improving Material Circularity through Nicholas School Building Operations
In collaboration with the Nicholas School Facilities team, this group of students investigated how unused office materials are managed, reused, or disposed of. The students interviewed faculty and staff, conducted site walks, and analyzed current processes to identify inefficiencies in handling abandoned or unclaimed material items left behind by building constituents. Their work led to several recommendations, including organizing semesterly recycling events to promote material recovery and implementing onboarding and offboarding checklists for employees regarding changeover of office spaces and office materials. They also proposed updating employee orientation materials to clarify procedures, and creating intranet content to better communicate Facilities’ services. These efforts aimed to reduce waste, improve communication and foster a culture of material circularity within the school.
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Making a difference: Skills That Stick
The course concluded with team presentations tailored to the campus stakeholders, outlining recommendations and next steps. Students reported gaining valuable skills through Parker’s course including understanding stakeholders’ challenges and motivations, designing a process map, and developing client deliverables.
As MEM student Nicole Yaw reflected, “Taking Sustainable Operations and Supply Chain was one of my favorite classes at Duke. Working on the sustainable procurement alternatives project for Duke Student Affairs helped me realize that sustainability is deeply process-driven—but also human. I learned to navigate technical supply chain concepts while empathizing with stakeholders and their priorities. As someone passionate about food sustainability, this course gave me the tools to think cross-functionally and engage meaningfully across teams.”
Parker's dynamic, experiential teaching approach positioned her students with sharpened technical skills and the confidence to lead, collaborate, and drive sustainable impact in whatever systems they enter next.
I learned to navigate technical supply chain concepts while empathizing with stakeholders and their priorities. As someone passionate about food sustainability, this course gave me the tools to think cross-functionally and engage meaningfully across teams.
Nicole Yaw, MEM Student
This article is part of the SCALe Spotlight series hosted by the Office of Climate and Sustainability. The Sustainability and Climate Applied Learning (SCALe) Spotlight stories celebrate Duke students, staff, faculty and community partners who demonstrate a commitment to sustainability and climate education through applied teaching, learning and action.
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