The Essential Guide to Doing Transition. How to do Transition in your University/College. | Page 44

Staff

It is important to have academic and non-academic staff on board because they can provide a bit more continuity and a different form of input. Getting staff involved can be tricky, but the division between staff and students can sometimes be rather artificial. Recognise that there is a spectrum of different kinds of people who can be classed as staff. Some of them are likely to be staying for a very long time, teaching, doing research or working in Estates/Facilities Management, whereas PhD students and post-docs are more short-term. They may be new to the community, have no social connections but lots of energy.

One important thing that you may want to address if you are engaging with academic staff volunteers is the tendency for there to be strong external influences for academic departments and research communities which mean they may be hesitant to get engaged. Some fear that they may be accused of losing academic objectivity; and activity spent in practice may be seen to be to the detriment of an academic career. This is a wider debate in academic circles, but if you are aware of it and can provide space for it to be discussed you may find that academic staff are more comfortable.

The following outline some of the strategies that can be used specifically for engaging staff:

• Make sure the timings and locations of meetings and events are accessible to staff.

That often means holding them during working hours in or close to university buildings. Staff members are much less likely to be able to come to a late night meeting in somebody’s student flat

• Academic staff often have too much to do. Can you link in with what they have to do anyway? That could be strengthening teaching opportunities or providing research possibilities. For example, at the University of St Andrews there is a sub Honours theme on Institutional Sustainability Strategies, using the institution as a case study and inviting lectures and talks from people engaged in sustainability practice, including Transition

• Host lectures for academic groups and departments, investigating and inviting a debate around how Transition can relate to that area of study

• Encourage or support an environmental staff network

• Make sure that at least some of your projects and activities can cater to families and children, e.g. offer childcare during workshops, or have children’s area during evening events

• Link in with the latest debates on university impact and community engagement and show how Transition can be a vehicle to support these.

Local Residents

Depending on your context you may also wish to try to engage with local residents. There are lots of benefits from being able to vision a whole community approach to Transition, as most issues cut across both town and university anyway, such as food, energy, transport, economy and waste. Also you can find that solutions to some of these issues can be addressed through the local community and its infrastructure.

It is important to note that the local residents are not a monolithic bloc, but most probably represent a wide diversity of people.

44