– Empowering students to work towards a greener future
“The University has allowed me to take my passion for sustainability and environmental education and activism and empowered me to tailor my university experience around this.”
Hello! I’m Becky and I’m a Masters student studying Psychology at Streatham Campus. Throughout my time as a student at the University of Exeter, I have got involved in many of the opportunities surrounding sustainability, from societies, to internships, to projects, to community work. This blog will (hopefully!) provide an insight into my experiences with sustainability at the University!
Society involvement – Be the Change
I first started accessing sustainability opportunities in Be the Change, the environmental and sustainability awareness campaigning society for Exeter. I joined in my first year and got the opportunity to work on projects alongside other like-minded students as well as attend meetings with the University’s central Sustainability Team to ensure that the student perspective in any sustainability decisions was acknowledged and taken into consideration.
From this society I also had lots of other amazing opportunities for involvement. We have run a speaker event series relating to marine conservation, done frequent charity shop crawls and coffee mornings, organised litter picks and created and run sustainability training sessions for the Students’ Guild. We also created ‘Sustainable Sundays’ – a fortnightly coffee morning where we discuss an environmental or social justice issue, create resources for the community and learn (and, in some cases, unlearn and relearn) about the issues ourselves!
Through Be the Change, I went as a delegate to the Students Organising for Sustainability (SOSUK) Sustainability Summit 2024, held at Lancaster University. At the summit we attended talks and workshops on different areas of sustainability with student delegates from all over the country. This was an incredible networking opportunity, and it was incredibly motivating to see all of the amazing work that is going on in student communities across the country.
Internship work – Responsible Futures
There are also many different opportunities for sustainability-related paid work at the University. From Changemaker projects at the Students’ Guild to Green Consultants projects to Student Campus Partnership (SCP) internships with different departments and the Sustainability team, there is so much to access! I was a Communications and Engagement intern for ‘Responsible Futures’ – a change-making programme and accreditation framework, co-led by students, staff, academics and students’ unions to embed sustainability across all aspects of education. Responsible Futures is a cross-campus programme, which means it runs at Streatham, St Luke’s and Penryn campuses.
I was responsible for creating resources for our audit based on research, conversations with stakeholders and personal experiences of sustainability activity at the University. During my time as intern, we were audited and received Responsible Futures accreditation! Whoop! We then explored next steps of how we can further improve our sustainability work at the University and passed the project on to a new cohort of student interns!
Facilitator opportunities – Penryn’s Ecological Citizenship module
Following my intern work with Responsible Futures, I was invited down to Penryn campus to run a workshop as part of their Ecological Citizenship module, or ‘EcoCit’ as it is fondly known. Co-created by students, staff and the community, it is a course in response to the ecological crisis. We created and facilitated a session called ‘Archiving Ecological Emotions:, an opportunity to voice and archive our personal experiences, process our ecological emotions and to learn from others and from nature. The experience here was so valuable – it was brilliant to work with individuals from all walks of life, to create a space to explore these emotions, and to reflect on the environmentally-conscious community that Penryn has created. It left me feeling invigorated, inspired and excited for all the amazing things we can be doing in Exeter to create a similar community!
Academic work
My interest in sustainability has also been a huge part of my academic experience at the University. While studying my undergraduate degree in psychology, I was able to carry out my dissertation on the psychological consequences of climate change in students and how they use nature as a coping strategy. In my Masters, I have continued to be able to tailor modules and assessments to focus on climate activism, environmental psychology and wellbeing. My Masters dissertation is following on from my undergraduate one, and in it I am exploring ecological emotions in employees who work in ‘climate-facing’ jobs, i.e. environmental education.
For this academic work, I have worked with my lecturers and supervisor to secure funding from education incubator schemes at the University to create informed resources for our students about climate change, ecological emotions and coping strategies. I got a paid research assistant role with the University and have been working alongside Natural England and Exeter Science Centre to create engaging short video clips.
What’s next?
This really is only the tip of the iceberg in regards to sustainability opportunities at the University. When you are engaged in the space, the opportunities are endless and the connections you make are unexpected but brilliant. There are Green Futures projects, Grand Challenges, research assistant roles, sustainability consultation groups, department sustainability boards and so much more that I have not touched on that you can get involved in!
Every step of the way, I have had the support of incredible academics, researchers, educators and professional services staff. The passion and dedication from staff members for sustainability has really kept the flame in me burning brightly. Their guidance and knowledge caused me to ‘level up’ in ways I really didn’t expect.
The University has allowed me to take my passion for sustainability and environmental education and activism, and tailor my university experience around this. By being engaged and present and proactive, the opportunities I have had from the University have been nothing short of incredible!
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, I hope it has left you feeling empowered and ready to get stuck in!