Higher Education Academy Conference
23 June 2010
Engaging Future Leaders
Heather Luna, Simon Smith,
and Stephen Sterling
Higher Education Academy
ESD Project
Aims of the Session
• To consider the skills that will enable graduates to be
sustainability literate
• To examine current thinking and practice in skills
development in ESD
• To look at the gaps between desired positions and
actual practice, and discuss how these can be bridged
Post-It Notes
What skills should sustainability-literate
graduates possess?
Academy ESD Project
• Began 2005 in line with UN Decade of ESD
• ‘Dawe report’ – skills (p31):
– Interdisciplinary skills
– Ethical skills and the skills necessary to put sustainability into
practice
– Critical and reflective thinking
– Knowledge of the practical impacts that their decisions will have
– Awareness of the facts surrounding sustainability challenges, and
the skills necessary to play a part in their solution
Academy ESD work
•
•
•
•
Commissioned reports
Events
Publications
Funded small grants to develop and share good
practice
• Newsletter and bulletin
(sustainability@heacademy.ac.uk)
• Networking: SHED / ESDGC group in Wales
• Website: www.heacademy.ac.uk/esd
Employable Graduates for Responsible
Employers
– undertaken by StudentForce for Sustainability
– surveyed students, employers, careers advisors
The Evidence
The trend to more responsible employers is
affecting the graduate job market and the demand
for more particular competencies from recent
graduate recruits.
The graduate employability agenda is now closely
linked to the employer sustainability agenda.
There is mounting evidence that, and media
coverage about how, students want to work for
ethical employers who are environmentally and
socially responsible.
Many HEIs are responding to the challenges of
ESD through institutional changes in terms of
‘Campus, Curriculum and Community’, but not so
much in terms of competencies or careers.
Small and Mini-Grant Funding
• Experiencing Sustainable Development (Brighton)
• Making Sustainability Real (QUB)
• Are Employers Seeking Sustainability-Literate
Graduates? (Kingston)
• Developing Participative ESD to Enhance Links
between Sustainability Literacy, Sustainability
Competencies, and Employability (UWE)
• Development of Sustainability Skills through
Volunteering (London Met)
Small and Mini-Grant Funding
• Greening Business: Employability and Sustainability
(Keele)
• Improving Student Awareness of SD and Related
Employability Issues through Embedded Course
Content (Hull)
• Soundings in Sustainability Literacy (Glos)
• ESD in the Professional Curriculum (Dundee)
What do we want our students to be?
‘Where should priorities lie?...in a period of
considerable change, it is important for universities to
reflect on questions of purpose and value as well as
solutions to immediate dilemmas...such reflection
constitutes a valuable tool for navigating the
uncertain waters of contemporary higher education
and providing strong orientation for the future.’
- Prof David Greenaway , 2010
Centre for Integrative Studies
‘The future isn’t what it used to be’
peak oil
global warming
unsustainability
uncertainty
insecurities
dense
interdependence
stresses
globalisation
complexity
ecosystem
degradation
inequity
overconsumption
population
pressures
Future Leaders Survey 07/08
25 000 applicants to universities and colleges
surveyed
‘The survey paints a picture of a generation that is
intensely aware of the big challenges facing the
planet and eager to see broader social and political
change…..’
- Forum for the Future/ UCAS 2008
David Holmgren – Future Scenarios 2009
The call to respond
To meet the challenge of climate change, ‘the world
needs minds capable of creating new possibilities’.
HE provides a ‘vital platform’ for the transition to a low
carbon economy, in order to ‘safeguard a secure
future’
- Lord Stern, Foreword to HEFCE’s current strategic statement and action plan
Sustainable Development in Higher Education (2009)
‘Daunting agenda…exciting possibilities’
Nine challenges
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Power civilisation by sunlight
Grow food and fibre sustainably
Dis-invent the concept of waste
Preserve biodiversity
Restore ruined ecologies
Reduce materials, water and land use per head
Rethink the political basis of modern societies
Develop economies that can be sustained within nature’s
limits
• Distribute wealth fairly within and between generations
- David Orr
What would you suggest is important?
A) Attitudes; values;
dispositions
B) Understanding,
knowledge, concepts
C) Skills, practical abilities
Sustainability competence
(Gestaltungscompetenz)
(Germany)
• Competence to work in an interdisciplinary manner
• Competence to achieve open-minded perception
transculturalunderstanding and cooperation
• Participatory competence
• Planning and implementation competence
• Ability to feel empathy, sympathy and solidarity
• Competence to motivate oneself and others
• Competence to reflect in a distanced manner on individual and
cultural concepts
• Competence to think in a forward-looking manner, to deal with
uncertainty, and with predictions, expectations and plans for the
future
Closing the gaps….
Current practice
Barriers?
Possibilities?
Desirable outcomes
(graduate
qualities and
skills)
Small Group Discussions: 20 minutes
Feedback
New book....