Sustainability – developing a whole-of-institution response
Sustainability – developing a whole-of-institution response
Australia’s higher education institutions are in a unique position to address the impacts of sustainability across the community thanks to active links to business, the public sector, non-government agencies and charities.
According to La Trobe University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) Professor Carol Adams (pictured), they also have the power to influence future generations not only to act, but to prepare for a world which may well be significantly altered.
“The role of universities is fundamental. We are producing the next generation of leaders, and of course the next generation of parents and ordinary citizens who will all have an impact on the generation after them. As such we have a very big responsibility to ensure these people are equipped for a changed world,” says Professor Adams.
First mooted in 2009, the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) was established at La Trobe in 2010 and enables the university to take a truly holistic approach to the unique issues for higher education that sustainability poses.
“Sustainability is an issue that needs a whole-of-organisation approach covering university operations, curriculum and research,” Professor Adams says.
In terms of curriculum, Professor Adams hopes to use her role to facilitate the development of cross-disciplinary approaches to the way sustainability is taught at La Trobe.
“As a university we’re working on ways to make cross-faculty course development work. One of the key things with sustainable education, which I think is quite different from other areas, is that it has to be cross-faculty, it has to be multi-disciplinary. A subject like corporate social responsibility or sustainability reporting could be taught by accountants, management academics or even economists, but ideally it would be taught by all three.”
According to Professor Adams, cross-disciplinary cooperation isn’t necessarily a given however. There can be significant barriers at universities that can make collaboration difficult.
“If you talked about a multi-disciplinary Masters degree, for example, the first question of faculties at a lot of universities is going to be where will the revenue go? Who is going to do the work? What faculty are the students going to come from? As institutions we need to address some of these issues,” she says.
There are also important cultural differences between departments that need to be acknowledged.
“Each discipline has its own characteristics … and we really need to learn each other’s language and understand our differing perspectives,” she adds.
La Trobe’s response to these potential difficulties has been to start by promoting collaboration through cross-disciplinary research, not just for the intrinsic value of the research itself but as an important way of building connections between different areas of the university.
“We have developed a multi-disciplinary institute [for research into sustainability issues] where we’ve tried to get people from different disciplines working together on themes. Fresh water biologists, for example, are currently working with economists on the theme of [sustainability and] water. The thinking behind this is that once you start getting people together on research you can then start getting them to work together on curriculum issues.”
For more information on La Trobe University’s sustainability initiatives visit the sustainability section of their website or the La Trobe Generations Facebook page.