Thought into action through art!

Let's be creative together day from Day 2 of the 17th EAUC Annual Conference 2013.

We asked delegates to capture the moments during the Conference when they have a lightbulb moment or what we’re calling our ‘aha’ moments. It could be an idea, a suggestion, planting a seed, the start of a discussion - anything that triggers a thought process of something you can do back in your own institution.

 Day 2 was our “let’s be creative together day” so during the scheduled exhibition breaks we encouraged delegates to come and share their thoughts with our team of artists from Creative Connection to create sustainable action boards to help you achieve your “aha” goals. The aim of this is for the EAUC to understand what you need from us to help you on your sustainability journey and to do it in an inspiring way that you might replicate in your own institution. We’ll update you on how we’re addressing these in the coming months.

Below are some of the artists drawings of the four key frameworks:

The EAUC staff are reviewing these boards over the next few weeks to capture where we can put this into action. We'll add our actions and thoughts on this page so watch this space!

Learning, Teaching and Research board (pictured above):

1. The EAUC is good at building networking opportunities for colleagues to meet and learn from each other and this needs to continue and now embrace students too. Our approach has to be to connect hearts, minds and bodies and ultimately our purpose.
2. We must strive to ensure the public benefit of a university or college is not lost in what is measured and recognised. Education is not (just) a means to personal wealth but an opportunity to contribute towards a better society be it our students helping local school children understand carbon footprinting or our graduates engineering better access to clear drinking water for children in developing countries. Surely this should be measured too?

Estates and Operations board (pictured above):

The role of the EAUC is as a bridge builder. To link together not only like-minded people but to bridge the gap between Estates & Operations with the learning that is what our institutions are all about and how they must add value to each other. We have a key opportunity to ensure sustainability is defined widely and the LiFE Framework is at the heart of this. In terms of delivery the Sustainability Exchange, it is to be used to engage and link a wider range of people and help them understand that sustainability is more than estates and operations. More than that, estates and operations have a critical contribution to make to not only improve the environmental performance of an institution but the learning that goes on within it.