If the talk John Robinson gave at Edinburgh recently about the Living Lab approach at the University of British Columbia is anything to go by, some progress has been made there on the educational front. Robinson was, until recently, UBC's vice provost for sustainability and so should know what he's talking about. It must be instructive, therefore, that in his living lab musings, he devoted a mere 8 minutes (out of 48) to teaching 'n' learning.
However derisory this actually was, I still say this this was progress because, when I heard him speak two years ago in Cambridge, he devoted only 6 minutes (out of 50) to these issues. Clearly, UBC moves slowly in these matters.
When I commented on my Cambridge experience, I noted:
"... what [Robinson] did say did not present a picture of an academic community eager to focus on sustainability, nor of an academic leadership all that keen on suggesting they do that. It all looked rather neglected: a B movie alongside that Hollywood blockbuster of a campus. Whilst there are now some 480 sustainability-related courses (I'm not sure what this means), and voluntary pathways on sustainability learning (or that), none of it looked exceptional. Of course, Robinson hasn't an academic role, so someone else might have painted a more positive picture of teaching and learning than his sketch of the academic as a bit of a problem having to be pushed by students, and nudged (pulled would be going too far) ever so very gingerly by the institution."
What has changed in all this, I wonder. As the Edinburgh event is on YouTube, you can judge for yourself.
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