Otago Polytechnic internal marketing for sustainability
Samuel Mann keeps flying the flag for Otago Polytechnic and its efforts for Sustainability. This poster captures some interesting pointers and inspires me to do more.
We have Living Campus – an effort to turn the campus into a living, breathing, producing, educational model of sustainability, particularly in the gardens
We have SHaC – Sustainable Habitat Challenge where several institutions (Otago being the lead) are working on projects to improve the over all design of housing
We have the Education for Sustainability initiative – Where every graduate will be able to think and act sustainably, and go out into the workforce with the necessary skill sets to affect change for sustainability. This is more a goal statement project slowly building itself into curriculum, and probably an area I could do more on in our Educational Development work.
We have the Permaculture Design course – A not for profit course running on a trial basis. The last trial comes to an end soon and we might have to look for new home for it as the hosting school has not indicated a desire to continue with the course 😦 just when it was growing roots too! I plan to try and get the course formally established and propose it be hosted by the School of Design instead.
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December 5, 2008 at 9:22 am
Mark
I went through the Communication Design course recently, and saw absolutely no evidence in that programme of trying to help us become “sustainable practitioners” at all.
One example is that I found it virtually impossible in the last two years of my degree to hand in assignments in a digital format.
I prefer to work in a digital way, and not being able hand in on a USB meant I had to spend hundreds of dollars on unnecessary printing (almost $400 dollars on printing for assignments in the last 3 weeks alone).
There were plenty of times where a physical hand in was not needed, even inappropriate considering the nature of the course and the assignment. I still can’t believe I was once asked to print out a blog I kept for one assignment!
I know this is only a small piece of the big picture, but if they can’t even do that, then I don’t have high hopes for the remaining students there being encouraged to be sustainable beyond a superficial level.
The poster says it all for me “By 2009, every graduate MAY think and act as a sustainable practitioner”. Of course, they may not.
I’m glad you are inspired to do more, hope it rubs off.
December 5, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Leigh
Hi Mark, and thanks for the reality check 🙂 I agree completely, there are many highly concerning practices going on around teh Polytech that we can see on a daily basis, not least of all your experience with the Design Communication course. I can only hope the Educational Development services can be of some use to the programme manager of that course at some stage.
I think its important to recognise that the Polytechnic itself is undergoing this process itself, and in many ways relies on student feedback (those same students studying sustainability). In many regards we might look at the Polytechn as a place where students first practice their skills at being a change agent.
Glad to see you offering this feedback Mark. I hope you will continue to offer ideas and considerations now that you’ve finished and have more time to reflect on the experience. I can assure you that I will do my best to see that your feedback is considered.
December 5, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Samuel Mann
Thanks for the comment Mark. The EfS Policy statement recognises the importance of modelling best practice – it is not just the teaching we are transforming!
The basis for our efforts is the identification of what it means to be a sustainable practitioner in each discipline. For some areas, this is requiring a significant transformation in both what we teach and how we teach.
We are well aware that there many related streams: curriculum, delivery and operations (among others). The term in education is “hidden curriculum” – not hidden in a devious way, but a recognition that how we teach, the experience of learning, the interactions around teaching, our own practices etc can have as much impact as the formal curriculum. Much as we couldn’t expect empowered, professional graduates if we were to treat adult students like 3rd formers – we can’t expect sustainable practitioners if practices are clearly unsustainable.
That said, we need to recognise that sustainability is a journey rather than a destination – none of us are perfect and the best we hope for is continual improvement (I’m making this up – but perhaps last year they spent $800 on printing?). We’ve worked hard this year on curriculum and institutional operations – a focus of next year will be on aligning operational practices within departments. So thank you for raising this.
Incidentally, the “may think and act” was the subject of much deliberation. The “think and act” is based on action competence – understanding/values *and* skills/desire to act. The “may” is because we can’t actually require anything of graduates. We can model good practice, work on values, maybe even assess sustainability competence – but once you’re in the workforce the choice is yours. Clearly you’re OK so I’m putting a tick beside one graduate.
December 8, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Steve Henry
Thanks for the comment Mark -its a reminder for me that one piece of poor practice can undermine the best intention
I dont understand the communication design industry very well- is hard copy the industry std? If so then its more difficult for staff to say no to hard copy. If its not the industry std then staff have a bigger case to answer in my mind.
Reagrding sustaianble practioner- “May” act as a sustainable practioner is radical enough and even this is poorly understood by the industry groups I am working with. Id give it five years before we see “act as a sustainable practioner” as the target- sooner would be better.
I hope there will be more graduates such as yourself who think this way and can articulate also.