Change Project Approach for Reorienting University …
267
5 Conclusions
The CPA cases presented in this paper illustrate that small individual actions are
powerful enough to initiate system changes at the university level. The CPA design
allows shifting the way of perceiving sustainability related problems that occur in
universities and come “out-of-box” in solving them. With CPA methodology we
can re-estimate the basic sustainability principles taken for granted from the times of
Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) and
convert the idea of “control” through SDGs to “care” with the help of sustainability
redefining. Here coordinators of change projects act as “agents of change”, creating
new trends and alternative solutions that empower the sustainability vision for the
rest of the university community.
What does CPA provide for ESD in higher education? Firstly, it encourages the
participants to introduce changes—namely that are defined by themselves as the most
relevant and urgent for a given academic community, not top-bottom imposed from
university administration. Secondly, CPA raises effectively the awareness on quality
education both for teaching and administrative staff of a university, by redefining
it under sustainability vision. Furthermore, it provides a smoothly functioning way
of a constant rethinking and reevaluation of CPA participants’ own work and selfevaluation of themselves as reflective practitioners.
Importantly, CPA methodology designs an additional time and common platform
for reflections for participating teachers. Under the conditions of constant routine
working burden, the majority of university teachers as a rule cannot barely afford
involving personal energy and additional efforts in the organization of a reflection
and re-evaluation process related to the quality education. In these circumstances,
CPA framework could serve as a good solution for such process design. It unites the
participants for short working sessions and thus provides a possibility of common codesigning of change project cases. This approach brings out the reflective practitioner
in university teachers, an opportunity to be reflexive in re-thinking and re-evaluation
of our practice to meet the current demands of dealing with complexity.
Acknowledgements Acknowledgements to the Swedish Institute (SI) for the financial support for
the postdoctoral research of Oleksandra Khalaim under the supervision of Dr. Shepherd Urenje at
Uppsala University (Campus Gotland).
267
5 Conclusions
The CPA cases presented in this paper illustrate that small individual actions are
powerful enough to initiate system changes at the university level. The CPA design
allows shifting the way of perceiving sustainability related problems that occur in
universities and come “out-of-box” in solving them. With CPA methodology we
can re-estimate the basic sustainability principles taken for granted from the times of
Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) and
convert the idea of “control” through SDGs to “care” with the help of sustainability
redefining. Here coordinators of change projects act as “agents of change”, creating
new trends and alternative solutions that empower the sustainability vision for the
rest of the university community.
What does CPA provide for ESD in higher education? Firstly, it encourages the
participants to introduce changes—namely that are defined by themselves as the most
relevant and urgent for a given academic community, not top-bottom imposed from
university administration. Secondly, CPA raises effectively the awareness on quality
education both for teaching and administrative staff of a university, by redefining
it under sustainability vision. Furthermore, it provides a smoothly functioning way
of a constant rethinking and reevaluation of CPA participants’ own work and selfevaluation of themselves as reflective practitioners.
Importantly, CPA methodology designs an additional time and common platform
for reflections for participating teachers. Under the conditions of constant routine
working burden, the majority of university teachers as a rule cannot barely afford
involving personal energy and additional efforts in the organization of a reflection
and re-evaluation process related to the quality education. In these circumstances,
CPA framework could serve as a good solution for such process design. It unites the
participants for short working sessions and thus provides a possibility of common codesigning of change project cases. This approach brings out the reflective practitioner
in university teachers, an opportunity to be reflexive in re-thinking and re-evaluation
of our practice to meet the current demands of dealing with complexity.
Acknowledgements Acknowledgements to the Swedish Institute (SI) for the financial support for
the postdoctoral research of Oleksandra Khalaim under the supervision of Dr. Shepherd Urenje at
Uppsala University (Campus Gotland).