{"id":962,"date":"2011-10-12T15:37:58","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T14:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=962"},"modified":"2011-10-12T15:37:58","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T14:37:58","slug":"a-question-from-kerry-shephard-and-a-response-of-sorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/10\/12\/a-question-from-kerry-shephard-and-a-response-of-sorts\/","title":{"rendered":"A question from Kerry Shephard \u2013 and a response of sorts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Otago University's Kerry Shephard writes to SHED-share<\/a> ...<\/p>\n

I have run an annual academic professional development event (a workshop) on 'Education for Sustainability' at my HE institution for the past five years. It supports what must be identified as a minority academic interest in the institution and it would be difficult to argue for more support of this kind purely on the basis of academic demand. But I am minded to develop something more; something that will engage the interests of more university teachers, but still address higher education\u2019s contribution to \u2018sustainability\u2019.\u00a0 I have had in mind, for some years now, the development of a \u2018special interest group\u2019, with a focus on professional development, sharing and mutual support for our teachers.\u00a0 The theme of this SIG is the topic of this note.<\/p>\n

In parallel to this, I work with a multi-disciplinary research group. We research how undergraduates\u2019 environmental concerns are changing and also how university teachers conceptualise their roles with respect to education for sustainability. We probably did not need to research this latter topic to realise that university teachers\u2019 conceptions of their role dictate what and how they teach, but our research brings this into sharp relief.<\/p>\n

Put bluntly, many university teachers are so profoundly not 'for' anything outside of their disciplinary-focus that 'education for sustainability', or 'for sustainable development', are extraordinarily problematic for our purposes. Irrespective of these same teachers\u2019 personal lifestyles, the terms (implying as they do, advocacy) divide rather than unite. Add to this, inherent problems for many (perhaps particularly our sustainability hard-liners) with any mention of \u2018development\u2019. Put into the mix an almost allergic reaction to the word 'sustainability' (perhaps particularly, but not exclusively, from colleagues in the life sciences who may focus on ecology, environment or conservation) and an equally challenging response to the 'environment' from those whose focus is (perhaps justifiably from their disciplinary or cultural perspective) essentially anthropocentric. My own enthusiasm for \u2018critical and systems thinking\u2019 (as unifying concepts that may help us to bring together our disparate, and subjective, imperatives) are admittedly too esoteric, or even academic, for our purposes.<\/p>\n

The term \u2018special interest group\u2019 implies, and rather depends on, something in particular that we are especially, and collectively, interested in.\u00a0 What is it? Perhaps if SHED-share can solve this one, we will have some hope of uniting higher education around a common mission\u2026but for now some ideas on what our 'special interest' should be would be great.\u00a0 Do colleagues in other institutions have something equivalent that does unite, rather than divide?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is my response:<\/p>\n

Kerry; thanks for posing this question.\u00a0 My experience suggests that your situation and concerns are not unique, but I do not suppose you thought they were.\u00a0 I offer a few observations:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0It is a strength of HE that it contains so many passionate experts focusing on important issues.\u00a0 It is clearly a weakness that they put so little store by others\u2019 expertise in doing so. A long while ago, the American scholar John F Disinger wrote this:<\/p>\n

though EE is ideally interdisciplinary \u2013 an eclectic assemblage of interacting disciplines \u2013 its practitioners typically approach it as if it were multidisciplinary \u2013 an eclectic assemblage of discrete disciplines.\u00a0 Because EE\u2019s practitioners typically are grounded in no more than one of the multiplicity of disciplines involved, logic leads them to approach EE through the intellectual filters of their own disciplines.\u00a0 Thus, practitioners in EE typically continue to talk past one another, rather than with one another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For EE read ESD.\u00a0 For the majority, I do not think that they find what you (and I) are uninterested in un<\/em>important, they just find it less<\/em> important to them than what<\/em> they do, and that it hasn\u2019t much to offer to<\/em> what they do.\u00a0 For them, such a stance will be rational.\u00a0 I suspect you will never win the argument around relative importance, but you might have more chance around getting them more \u2018on board\u2019 by helping them do an even better job than they currently do in relation to their students\u2019 learning.\u00a0 Question is: how?<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0I don\u2019t like the idea of a special interest group.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s the \u201cspecial\u201d that makes it problematic, given that there isn\u2019t anything at all special about it in the high-value \/ exclusive sense of the word.\u00a0 I guess you mean particular interest group<\/em>, but SIGs will always be preferred to PIGs, I guess.\u00a0 But I\u2019d say find a term that will draw others in rather than push them out.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0So, what do<\/em> you all have in common?\u00a0 This might be something to do with graduate attributes (an idea which is in vogue I feel, but none the less important for that), and also with employability which is, of course, related to attributes.\u00a0 My own feeling is that sustainability now has a strengthening purchase in relation to how we work in the wider (greening) economy, and with how we live one with another, and with the earth more widely, such that attributes with their relation to employment and to social interaction offers something that everyone can make a contribution to irrespective of discipline.\u00a0 Personally, I find the Melbourne attribute list [ http:\/\/www.unimelb.edu.au\/about\/attributes.html<\/a> ] to be a fine starting point.<\/p>\n

All this is also something that may even gain institutional approval.\u00a0 Now, that would<\/em> be a turn up \u2026 .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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