The University of Edinburgh
Sustainability and Sustainability Advisory Group
8 March 2006
Promoting the Principles of Sustainability though the University Curriculum
Brief description of the paper
This paper was presented by Tim Cobbett, EUSA Vice-President Academic Affairs, to Student Affairs Forum on 22 February. It requested that a working group of staff and students be set up to look at these issues, the membership of which was to be determined.
At the meeting of the Forum it was decided to establish a working group on this issue and V-P Professor Simon van Heyningen is convening a scoping meeting with Tim Cobbett and Graham Russell to be held on Friday 10th March.
Action Required
SEAG is invited to note the pressure from the Students Association for further work on Sustainability Literacy in the curriculum and the positive steps being taken to address this interest.
Resource Implications
Some staffing resources will be needed to bring this initiative to life.
Risk
The paper does not include ant risk analysis.
Equality and Diversity
This paper does not have equality and diversity implications.
Freedom of information
This paper can be included in open business
Originator of the paper
pp Ruth Cameron
EUSA President
3 March 2006
Promoting the Principles of Sustainability though the University Curriculum
This paper to the Student Affairs Forum 22 February 2006 is all about the current work being done on development and sustainability issues and how we as an institution can play a part in helping to produce sustainability literate graduates that can make informed choices about the future of the planet in their lives beyond University. First it is important to give a rough outline of what these terms mean, although they are open to contestation, I have used the definitions given by ‘Forum for the Future’ – the group working with the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the Funding Councils on this issue.
Background – What is Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development is about progressing our economic, social and environmental goals at the same time. It is based on the belief that only by trying to move these goals forward together can you avoid some of the negative consequences we have seen when they have been pursued separately. Debate can be had about to the extent to which all can move forward at the same rate or whether some trade-offs are needed.
While the concept can be explained we recognise that there is no obvious way of getting all students to address the issue as University’s are by nature set up with different units and departments that have control over their own curriculum and do different things. Just as in society businesses and government departments tend to compartmentalise the three goals described above so often they don’t integrate.
The reasons why there is an imperative which causes us and many others to feel that this must have an impact on the curriculum are the evidence to support there being a problem in society and the consequences of that problem not being addressed. There is almost total agreement now from scientists that some form of climate change, influenced by human activity, is happening now.
To tackle the problems of unsustainable practices that have emerged as unattended consequences of human development, a large number of deliberate steps will need to be taken to redress this balance.
What Does Being Sustainability Literate Mean?
This is a new concept which has been coined to try and describe what knowledge and understanding of these issues you would want graduates to be taking with them at the end of their degrees. It is yet to be fully defined but can be basically summarised as having three main components, and we feel could all relate to individual subject areas and specialisms.
· Enough knowledge about sustainable development to be able to talk to others about it, the ability to make a coherent argument as to why societal change is needed and the ability to draw links between the theory of sustainability and practice in their own life.
· Having the intellectual and practical tools that when faced with a decision that is going to have a sustainability impact you are able to make a decision that will have an effect that is more positive than negative. The ability to look at the environmental, social and economic considerations at the same time in a given area.
· The ability to recognise when behaviour or practice is being undertaken that will help build a sustainable future so it can then be encouraged and rewarded.
The Curriculum
It is recognised that there are two main ways of a Higher Education Institution engaging with this. One of those is through having an optional course in sustainable development. We now have this and both the colleges and EUSA have been involved in trying to encourage students to take it.
However this will only ever hit some students for a certain short period of time and can only look at the general principles rather than specifics. The broader, but also much more complex question, is how some of the principles of sustainability could be embedded within the general discipline based curriculum.
Obviously within a desire to embed these principles within the curriculum there would then be two main ways of doing this. Either by saying that whatever the main subject of the student, a student could take a compulsory option in sustainability. However it is generally acknowledged by those involved at all levels that bolt-on extra options are not the right solution for any innovation into the Scottish HE curriculum.
What may be appropriate, however, is a process of incremental change through research being done and best practice shared by those who are experts in the principles of sustainability but who also have knowledge is specific subject areas to find examples of these principles playing out within a given subject context.
Why Do This?
Although there have been various individuals and groups campaigning on issues of sustainability and the environment for some time, now much more so than ever before there is acceptance of the vast majority of scientific experts in the subject that a real problem exists that needs to be addressed. It is thought the human behaviour is causing potentially very damaging changes in the global climate, equally there is the challenge faced by the dwindling of some of some of the earth’s key recourses and the need to find renewable sources of energy, highlighted currently by the debate over nuclear power and the current instability in oil prices.
However there are some who would worry that doing work on this would be the start of a ‘slippery slope’ whereby the Universities are providing societal ethics by stealth on behalf of government and would then need to teach citizenship and ethics as well. However we feel that this does not necessarily follow, whereas something like ethics is fairly nebulas as to its meaning and application, and might prove to vague to quantify, here we are talking about work on a clearly defined area. Unlike ethics, sustainability has an evidence base behind it which means working on it is not simply reliant upon personal value judgements. It also has the potential, if the proper background work is undertaken, to be properly academically rooted with connections to the core material of different subjects.
There are two additional reasons why we might want to consider developing work in this area
1. Funding Council Policy
The increasing awareness of the importance of these issues is highlighted by the commitment in the Scottish Executive’s partnership agreement to ‘create a Scotland that delivers sustainable development’. This commitment includes a desire for businesses to consider their impact on the local community and for academic institutions to ‘raise awareness of sustainability amongst staff and students and encouraging best practice in matters of procurement, energy efficiency and waste management.’ The Funding Council, in its guidance note from the Executive, is expected to work with institutions in helping students to, among other things, understand the consequences of actions in relation to sustainability and to know how to make the changes that would lead to more sustainable outcomes, as well as to make a contribution to the UN decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
All of these are pretty vague stuff, but it does at least suggest the issue is being taken seriously at various levels and that if we undertake work in this area high level support should be available for us to do so.
The work on sustainability isn’t all focused on curriculum issues, this is just one part of a broader agenda that is looking at estates (sustainable campus developments, performance indicators work with the carbon trust) and the development of research centres, including our own partnership with Heriot Watt that has produced the Centre for Carbon Storage.
2. Student Interest
Edinburgh University Students Association, along with St Andrews University’s Students Association, have developed an interest in these issues over a period of some years now. The interest of our students was noted in the Funding Council’s 2005 survey into what, if any, activity was taking place on sustainability in the curriculum.
The membership amongst the student body of student societies and non governmental organisations that work on related issues is another, albeit unscientific, indication of interest, as is the take up of the new first year courses both here and at St Andrews.
The experience at St Andrews has suggested that most people will not go on to take degrees in sustainable development, even when this is made possible, because they have a subject discipline interest they want to carry on pursuing. This is why having a first year course, while useful, should not be the end of the road, and integration is the key.
Why Now?
This would be an excellent time to become engaged in work in this area. Although there is general feeling in the university that there should not be major changes for the next couple of years after the re-structuring, it is likely that this work for its initial period would involve research from a limited number of interested and knowledgeable academics and some people from the university centrally, with support from EUSA, The Funding Council and groups such as Forum for the Future, and therefore shouldn’t be a problem in this regard.
The 2005 survey found recognition of SD in institutional missions, some examples of it in courses, and strategic plans and prospectuses talking of green campuses, but there did seem to be a big gap between general policy interest and course content and no institutions really had a strategy to embed it.
However this makes it an ideal time to get involved, because it is becoming of interest to an increasing number of people and gaining political significance we have the chance to be at the forefront of the whole agenda, and with the expertise we have here we could be national drivers for sustainability. With the targets we already have for things such as waste management, the academic work could sit alongside the estates management as part of sustainability strategy which could be attractive to external bodies and funders and students, and enhance the university’s reputation, signalling a commitment to use our position as a large and influential institution to serve a wider public good.
Integration into the Curriculum
Acknowledging that it would be good to do something on this, but that compulsory bolt on courses or a full SD degree programme are not necessarily appropriate, we then come to the really complicated question of what exactly we can do. Any work on curriculum issues has to take place within the context of understanding the institutions will be sensitive about SFC interest in course content and this alone should never be the driver, and likewise individual subjects will not want to be told what to teach by the institution centrally.
Ultimately we are never going to be demanding anyone teach anything they don’t want to teach. However we can identify what people could be doing, and encourage the process along. The work should take place in the spirit of acknowledging many academics would actually like to take this forward but have no idea how to apply the principles of sustainability to their own subject area. It is finding answers to that question that would be the primary focus for the working group I would like us to set up.
A Few Examples
A group undertaking work on this will not be needing to start completely from scratch. The Higher Education Academy commissioned research, which was undertaken by Gerald Dawe, Rolf Jucker and Stephen Martin, which identified a few examples where academics had taken their existing courses and made them both more topical and relevant to sustainability, a few of which I document for context and interest.
· Discussion in a theology class of the apocalyptic language used in a story in ‘The Independent’ about the planet being headed for environmental disaster. Analysis of whether the language was appropriate, what the writers were trying to achieve etc
· The story of the Whale stuck in the River Thames in London links across as a potential example for ethics, philosophy, environmental protection and cultural studies.