Environmental sustainability

The project was a scoping study for the business sustainability and development of the Researchers in Residences scheme within the context of a larger Faculty-wide Projects Office.

A scoping exercise was undertaken by Project Officer of Researchers in Residence, Dr Jenna C. Ashton, to identify and outline business and enterprise opportunities to enable the long-term sustainability.

Researchers in Residence is a scheme of funded placements for Humanities postgraduate students.

Climate Change and Theology Dialogue

• Lincoln Theological Institute (LTI)
• Religions and Theology / ARC

The LTI has a sustained record of theological inquiry into anthropogenic climate change.

The aim of the Climate Change and Theology Dialogue held on 16 July 2015 was to deploy this expertise to extend and consolidate partnerships with selected Religious Non-Governmental Organisations. That is, to bring together practitioners with academic interests or backgrounds in religions and theology working in RNGOs with academy-based theologians/academics who have a specific interest in the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change in the context of environmental sustainability.

The dialogue was attended by invited representatives of CAFOD, the Church of Scotland, the Religious Society of Friends, and Christian Aid, and academics from Manchester and Leeds who all had specific interests in the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change.

This dialogue has succeeded in establishing relationships and networks which will allow LTI to develop its potential for significant social impact and make a contribution to environmental sustainability by enhancing knowledge exchange and research outreach in regard to theological perspectives on climate change.

A briefing paper has been published on LTI’s website which presents a fuller account of the dialogue’s discussions.

Environmental Sustainability Teaching in American Studies

• Eithne Quinn, English and American Studies

The School sustainability award supported teaching and learning activities on two course units, Aspects of Contemporary America (Level 1) and American Film Studies (Level 2), as well as helped me to begin developing a new Level 3 course unit on Popular Culture and Social Change.

New content on climate change was added to Aspects of Contemporary America, and students benefited from an excellent talk from guest speaker Laura Bannister, an alumnus of our Faculty of Humanities who is now an international development spokesperson for the Green Party.

She spoke on different modes of political change in the struggle against human-induced climate change.

Students of American Film studies, who already devote two weeks to environmental sustainability themes in cinema, enjoyed a guest lecture from Kieran Turner-Dave, an alumnus of our School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures, who is a freelance film reviewer for The Independent and Huffington Post (UK), as well as environmental campaigner.

This talk fed into the sustainability-themed assessment task whereby students conduct audience surveys and write up reports on the role of film in changing attitudes and behaviours towards climate change.

The new and enhanced content on these units supported by the award are ongoing features, and the guest lectures were commended in student feedback and feature in the American Studies newsletter.

Lively discussions around employability and social responsibility in career paths were also a feature of the Q&A between speakers and students.

2013-14 winners

• Dr Caroline Bithell - Arts Management
• Dr Stuart Campbell - Conflict Zones and Reconstruction
• Jo Deakin - Youth Justice and Juvenile Delinquency
• Dr Polly Low and Dr Peter Liddel, Literacy through Latin

Find out more about the winning projects of 2013-14.

Find out more about the winning projects of 2012-13.