{"id":6620,"date":"2016-03-17T06:46:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-17T06:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6620"},"modified":"2016-03-17T06:46:13","modified_gmt":"2016-03-17T06:46:13","slug":"a-place-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/03\/17\/a-place-of-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"A place of mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've long viewed the University of British Columbia as the place to emulate and learn from when it comes to an all-round approach to sustainability, albeit with a critical eye on what they've not managed to do yet.<\/p>\n<p>They have just produced a <a href=\"http:\/\/report.sustain.ubc.ca\/?utm_source=Sustainability%20News&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=ASR2014-2015\">report<\/a> on their activities (UBC100) which is the most comprehensive I've come across. \u00a0The <a href=\"http:\/\/report.sustain.ubc.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/UBC-Sustainability-Fast-Facts.pdf\">fast fact<\/a> part of the website is a good place to start.<\/p>\n<p>I was struck by the 18% growth in students at the Vancouver campus, and the 1% drop in 'staff and faculty'\u00a0employed, since 2007. \u00a0That looks more like cost-efficiency than sustainability, and\u00a0it doesn't say what proportion of this is academic staff (faculty). \u00a0That said, most of the sustainability measurements seem to be\u00a0heading in the right direction which is a necessary but not sufficient condition of progress.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/report.sustain.ubc.ca\/home\/teaching-learning-and-research\/student-engagement\/\">student engagement<\/a> section has detail on what students can get up to within and outwith their courses, 646 of which, amongst the 48 \"sustainability-related programmes\", are \"sustainability-related\".<\/p>\n<p>Under the heading:\u00a0<em>Faculty Engagement<\/em>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/report.sustain.ubc.ca\/home\/teaching-learning-and-research\/faculty-engagement\/\">website<\/a> says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"We are building the capacity of our\u00a0teaching community to develop and deliver outstanding learning opportunities and support a\u00a0diverse community of sustainability researchers.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0<em>In class, in campus plans, in community development, and in partnerships both local and global, UBC strives to ensure that we leave behind a legacy of environmental and human wellbeing for generations to come.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The picture is a glowing one, and I don't wish to seem at all doubtful, but it remains the case that it would take a prolonged period at the campus to see the detail of what is sketched out here, and to come to a measured view of how effective it all is on the ground \u2013 and once a student has left to work and live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've long viewed the University of British Columbia as the place to emulate and learn from when it comes to an all-round approach to sustainability, albeit with a critical eye on what they've not managed to do yet. They have...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}