GUNi hosted the Parallel Plenary Panel “Moving from Understanding to Action: Breaking Barriers for Transforming Higher Education’s Commitment to Sustainability” on Tuesday October 11th, 2011, at the AASHE2011 Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA).
The aim of the panel was to acknowledge how the challenge of sustainability is transforming HEIs by exploring the advances already achieved, by highlighting the barriers or difficulties that prevent HEIs from achieving this transformation, and by proposing solutions on how to overcome challenges. The panel’s purpose was to answer the following questions: What progress has there been and how is it evidenced? (“steps forward”). What still remains to be done? What are the barriers limiting HEIs from transforming themselves? What are the possible actions or solutions to break these barriers?
The session started with the presentation of the upcoming GUNi Report through its structure and contents. Professor Daniella Tilbury, from the University of Gloucestershire (UK), showed global perspectives and Dr. Tarah Wright, from Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia, Canada) focused on the regional perspectives of Canada and USA. Both the global perspective presented by Daniella Tilbury and the American and Canadian regional perspectives presented by Tarah Wright were organized following the areas of curricula and learning processes; research; institutional management; and social and community engagement. For each element there was an explanation of the progress, what remains unchangeable and where we must go from here.
The panel was followed up with the GUNi study that has identified the main barriers that prevent HEIs from contributing to the sustainability paradigm, and highlighted possible solutions in a global framework to advance from understanding to action. After the regional and global analysis, there was a presentation of GUNi’s study on barriers, intended to relate and assess the achieved progress with the barriers that are limiting advancement on this issue. An important aspect of the presentation was not just how to overcome the barriers, but also to help us imagine where we want to go and how we get there.
After the panelists’ presentations there was a discussion with the audience where the concern was turned towards presenting the results and reflections in the report at Rio+20. GUNi pledged to join the partnership initiated by AASHE, EAUC y ACTS and is open to other institutions and NGOs for discussions that will lead to a document that can be submitted for inclusion in the Compilation Document, and can serve as a beginning for further conversations and deliberations before, during and after the Rio+20 meetings. In addition, this said document, or its later permutations, can be circulated among the delegates at Rio+20 to validate the value of the role of higher education in establishing sustainable development.
For further information visit: http://www.aashe.org