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Introduction
As
the key education provider and trainer of future leaders, decision-makers,
educators and professionals in general, universities are increasingly expected to
produce sustainability oriented and competent graduates to drive and contribute
to society’s endeavours for a sustainable future. Therefore, integrating
sustainability across the curriculum has become a key agenda in higher
education.
However,
as the contemporary literature indicates, for a typical university, integrating
sustainability across its curriculum remains a challenge due to a number of
reasons. For example, universities are organised around discipline-based structures,
so cutting across discipline-boundaries as well as changes to curricula tends
to face resistance. Moreover, discipline-oriented students and particularly
academics tend to be uncomfortable in the context of sustainability, which is
an emerging inter/trans-disciplinary area of study without much agreement on
its parameters or definition.
This
University of Planetshire (UoP) approach aims to address these issues in two
ways. Firstly, it would adopt a range of indirect routes to complement the
formal curriculum in terms of sustainability, turning to two other forms of
curriculum opportunities in universities. Secondly, it would provide students
and staff with a choice of three comfortable and interesting pathways to the
world of sustainability: (1) Disciplines/subjects, (2) Interests (e.g. Energy)
(3) Global regions (i.e. cultural).
The
key stakeholders are of two types:
§ Internal: students
and UoP professionals (i.e. academics, researchers, Sustainability/Estates
team, management, Communications/Marketing team)
§ External: alumni, the
local community, future students and other providers of higher and further
education worldwide
The
proposal is relevant to all universities in general, especially in the UK. For
convenience, a fictitious UK university has been created, namely The University
of Planetshire (UoP).
Vision, Mission and
Aims
Vision: A community of UoP
graduates leading the global endeavour for a sustainable future
Mission: For UoP to be
recognised worldwide as a leading Sustainable University that produces
sustainability-oriented and competent graduates needed for building a
sustainable future
Aims:
§ To help students to
gain the necessary knowledge, skills and values to become
sustainability-oriented and competent graduates in the future
§ To provide students
with an opportunity to experience sustainable ways of living while on campus
§ To provide support in
multiple ways (education, communication, research, networking, motivation) to
the programme of embedding sustainability across the UoP curriculum
§ To provide stakeholders
with networking opportunities to link with sustainability-oriented individuals,
groups and bodies worldwide
§ To use the success of
the UoP sustainability-in-the-curriculum efforts to support other HE agendas
such as student recruitment, internationalisation and e-learning
Strategy
The
strategy adopted by this programme is of two-fold:
§ Core strategy
§ Supplementary
strategy
Core strategy
Perceiving
campus as a living laboratory for sustainability (Beringer and Adomssent, 2008),
synthesise the three curricula opportunities – formal, informal and campus (Hopkinson
et al., 2008) – in the context of an adapted version of the 4-C model
comprising campus, curriculum, culture and community
(e.g. Blake and Sterling 2011), bringing together students, staff and others in
a positive relationship for developing sustainability oriented and competent
graduates and also assisting them in their sustainability efforts after
graduation.
Note: This approach would
not propose any changes to the formal curriculum but would instead innovatively
use informal and campus curricula opportunities to complement the formal
curriculum with respect to sustainability.
Supplementary
strategy
The
principles of the supplementary strategy are as follows:
§ Integrate education,
communication, research, networking and motivation to unlock the synergies of
the three curricula opportunities (as experimented on the UNEP-recognised
Sustainable University One-stop Shop http://www.sustainableuni.kk5.org/)
§ Address curriculum
issues related to both content and pedagogy
§ Use multiple pathways
for stakeholder engagement:
o
Disciplines
(e.g. Sociology, Engineering, History, Business)
o
Interests
(e.g. Energy, Carbon, Water)
o
Global
regions (e.g. Europe, Asia)
§ Create among stakeholders
discipline-based awareness of the dynamics of wider world’s sustainability
issues, debate, developments and perspectives
§ Build on the existing
strengths at UoP (e.g. expertise, centres, policies, practice, networks,
student diversity, partnerships, alumni)
§ Cost-effectiveness,
mainly through the use of free online resources (e.g. free website builders and
social networking) and MS Word/ PDF combination for publications production (a
more environment-friendly option)
§ Create a rewarding
experience for the stakeholders (e.g. a global platform for celebrating
achievements, networking opportunities)
§ For engagement, use
both hard and soft means (e.g. research and poetry, respectively)
§ A host of outputs
with simple, attractive and user-friendly content and structure
§ Open access to the
online outputs to anyone (free of charge), but through UoP branded windows
Outputs
The
outputs of this proposed programme are as follows:
§ Planetshire Curriculum for a Sustainable Future: online one-stop
shop, central platform, education, informal curriculum, disciplines, ESD
o
Social networking (including blog):
networking, informal curriculum, education, communication, engagement
o
PDFs:
§ Flier: communication,
marketing
§ Knowledge sheets:
education, informal curriculum, campus curriculum, disciplines, interests (e.g.
Water), global regions
§ Newsletter:
communication, networking, marketing
§ Annual review:
communication, networking, marketing
§ Research for a Sustainable Future website: research,
‘hard’ approach, informal curriculum, community (local to global)
§ Sustainable Campus website: operations, campus curriculum,
interests pathway, good practice at campus, marketing
o
Green Ideas bank website (students to
submit ideas on making the university more sustainable): operations, campus
curriculum, motivation, engagement, participation
§ Sustainability in the Wider World website: community
(local to global), informal curriculum, disciplines, ESD
§ Light Sustainability website: ‘soft’ approach, education, ESD,
informal curriculum, quotes, stories, arts (e.g., poetry), motivation,
engagement, cultural knowledge
§ Publications:
o
Academic papers: Research, ESD,
campus curriculum
o
Press articles (with UoP
professionals as resource persons): (mainly public) education, disciplines, UoP
professionals’ expertise
o
Book: research, ESD
§ Help desk: One-to-one help for UoP stakeholders,
guidance, information, networking, motivation
§ Notice boards network:
o
Subjects boards: disciplines,
education, ESD, informal curriculum, discipline-based knowledge
o
Interests boards: interests (e.g.
Energy), education, campus curriculum, scientific knowledge
o
Global regions boards: global regions, ESD,
education, informal curriculum, cultural knowledge
§ Exhibitions:
o
World days (e.g. Water):
education, informal curriculum, networking, motivation, engagement
o
Annual exhibition: education,
communication, networking, motivation, marketing
§ A UoP-led Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on ESD (as part of UN University’s
global RCE network, e.g. The RCE London http://www.londonrce.kk5.org): education,
informal curriculum, community (local to global), networking, motivation
Concluding remarks
Benefits:
§ Support for
integrating sustainability across the curriculum of UoP without an interference
on its formal curriculum (education)
§ Support for the UoP
Sustainable Campus programme (operations)
§ Enhancement of
reputation of UoP (communications/marketing):
o
as
a producer of sustainability oriented and competent graduates (education)
o
as
an innovative researcher on university sustainability (research)
o
as
a provider of sustainability services to wider community free of charge, in
terms of (public) education, communication, networking and motivation
(outreach)
§ A cost-effective
approach, comprising innovative use of free resources (free website builders,
social networking and MS Word-PDF combination), implemented as an research (and
development) project
Feasibility:
This
project proposal has been developed around a successful live model, branded as
The Sustainable University One-stop Shop http://www.sustainableuni.kk5.org/, which has been recognised
in the recently published UNEP Greening
Universities Toolkit http://www.unep.org/Training/docs/Greening_University_Toolkit.pdf (page 61). This
approach has taken a relatively less complicated route as a research project
under a supervisor with an interest in sustainability in general (or with a
wide scope). Firstly, internal stakeholders are more likely to engage favourably
with a research study. Secondly, a research project of limited period would
lower the financial and administration burden on the university.
NOTE:
The
next post will consider the tools and resources of the Planetshire approach in
more detail.
You
might be interested in the two previous blog posts on the EDUCATION pathway to
a Sustainable University, which establish the landscape for the Planetshire
approach to integrating sustainability across the curriculum:
EDUCATIONpathway to a Sustainable University (Part 1): curriculum content and delivery (published on 6 Oct
2013)
Opportunitiesfor integrating sustainability across curricula (Part 2 of EDUCATION pathway toa Sustainable University) (21 Oct 2013)
References
Beringer,
A. and Adomssent, M. (2008) Sustainable university research and development:
inspecting sustainability in higher education research. Environmental
Education Research, 14(6),
pp.607-623.
Blake,
J. and Sterling, S. (2011) Tensions and transitions: effecting change towards
sustainability at a mainstream university through staff living and learning at
an alternative, civil society college. Environmental Education Research,
17(1), pp.125-144.
Hopkinson,
P., Hughes, P. and Layer, G. (2008) Sustainable graduates: linking formal,
informal and campus curricula to embed education for sustainable development in
the student learning experience. Environmental Education Research, 14(4), pp.435-454.
The Sustainable University One-stop Shop:
Satellite websites: News and Information | Research | Good Practice | Quotes | Blog | Diary | Micro-blog (Twitter)
