Transition Towns Forum

Transition Towns Forum » TransitionGroup: Education and Universities

1. stephb
   Member

   Write Up by Julie Richardson

   TRANSTION NETWORK CONFERENCE MAY 2009: TRANSITION UNIVERSITIES OPEN SPACE

   VISION FOR TRANSITION UNIVERSITIES

   • Pilgrimages & slow travel to different centres
   • Journey man model (eg. Germany apprenticeships)
   • Re-orientate existing courses
   • What modules are already out there
   • Elective modules not restricted to any program
   • Develop web portal for teachers, courses, learners (eg. School for Everything link)
   • Universities as living laboratories
   • Head, hands & heart of transition
   • Needs to be embedded at every level
   • Whats the transition curriculum – whats our USP and how is it different
   • Support for existing change makers – intellectual exchange

   WHO

   • Who are we trying to educate (eg. vice chancellors)
   • Need to get stakeholders on board (university managers, students; NUS)

   OTHER INITIATIVES

   • Carbon academy
   • People & planet
   • Green LEAD
   • UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development 2005 – 2014
   • Green Gown Awards
   • ‘wrap up not turn up’

   FUNDING

   • Show how building resilience to peak oil/climate change shops is a way of business risk management
   • Show how links with the ‘cutting costs’ agenda of universities
   • HEFCE funding linked to sustainability targets

   CHALLENGES

   • University business model needs to change
   • Research assessment exercise (linked to funding) is too narrow – RAE moving to Reesearch Excellence Framework (REF)

   IMPORTANT CONTACTS

   • Ian Leggett – People & Planet
   • David Lamy (Minister of Ed)
   • Steve Edgon – Funding Council
   • Iain Patten – EAUC (Environmental Association for Universities & Colleges)

   Posted 8 months ago #

2. Ruth Thomas-Pellicer
   Member

   Relatedly, I had in mind to set up an organic farm in any willing UK university –with a priority in the South West. This in turn would be the base for an educational and research centre for the other kind of science necessary for a transition world, which could further modify curricula across the faculties. All in all, it would be a kind of Transition Faculty. It would also be the starting basis for other higher-educational centres to start up their own organic farms and attendant Transition faculties, as some US colleges already have (the organic farms).

   As Julie Richardson notes this needs to be an embedded transition: hence the proposal to alter higher education curricula along an organic farm. (For one thing, you close up the ecocyle)

   I have a few ideas about syllabuses and some other issues that Julie raises. My queries at this point are:

   (a) Do you know of a UK University that might be willing to be a pioneer?

   (b) Are there more Transition members willing to discuss this project? What is more, are there more Transition members who believe in it and wish to take part in it?

   As I said, I have a few ideas but am not less willing to feed from your ideas, and eventually form an operative team.

   Posted 8 months ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.