'STAUNCH®' ('Sustainability Tool for Assessing UNiversities' Curricula Holistically')
Project leaders: Rodrigo Lozano and Professor Ken Peattie
'STAUNCH®' ('Sustainability Tool for Assessing UNiversities' Curricula Holistically') is an assessment tool which was developed to allow higher education institutions to measure their contributions to teaching from a sustainable development perspective.In many higher education institutions there has been strong progress in incorporating sustainability into research, buildings and operations; however, many are struggling to apply this to the curricula.
The STAUNCH© system was developed by Rodrigo Lozano at BRASS to help undertake a systematic audit of curricula across all Cardiff’s undergraduate teaching. As part of the auditing process it was found that there was no existing tool that could provide sufficiently robust and holistic information to complete the task, subsequently the STAUNCH tool was developed to fill this gap.
STAUNCH® provides a two tiered balance of Sustainable Development; the first one through the cross-cutting themes; the second by calculating the numerical balance and strength across the four aspects. STAUNCH® evaluates course descriptions by grading them against 40 criteria divided into economic, environmental and social aspects as well as the cross-cutting themes that link these, such as long-term thinking, humans as part of nature and sustainable development ethics and the underlying philosophy. The tool analyses the balance and strength of the courses against these themes, and how they build on the university’s degrees and its schools to the teaching of sustainable development. The results are shown in graphical and numerical formats, which enable comparisons to be made within an institution and between institutions, and highlight areas for improvement.
STAUNCH®’s results provide a snapshot of how SD is currently being addressed by the different courses, schools and within the university, which can serve to question current programmes and discuss how they could better contribute to SD, and help the institution to better align with the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
STAUNCH® can help universities to systematically assess their curricula’s contribution to sustainability, and how the university is preparing its students to understand SD and hopefully incorporate SD principles into their future professional lives and personal lifestyles. STAUNCH® can also ‘kick-start’ discussions on SD within the different schools, departments, and faculties. Another advantage of STAUNCH® is that it could help compare different universities
The first version of the tool (2007) was successfully used in 2008 in all twelve universities in Wales with the sponsorship of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) (for example in Cardiff University 5,800 modules where
analysed), two universities in England, and one of the most prestigious universities in Mexico. STAUNCH® 2007 was shortlisted for the Times Higher Education 2008 awards. STAUNCH® 2010 (which incorporates number of credits and number of students, also provides information for each of the criterion) has been used in the University of Leeds, where over 2,800 modules in two faculties (Business and Environment) were analysed. Other universities are in the pipeline.
The future development of this tool is being handled by Dr Rodrigo Lozano. For further information, please contact:
Dr. Rodrigo Lozano
Managing director
40 Machen Place, Aden Villa, Cardiff, UK, CF11 6EQ
Tel. +44 2921 25 2955
Webpage: www.org-sustainability.com
email: rodlozano@org-sustainability.com
