Students and staff from all faculties and units of VU Amsterdam gathered in the main building Foyer for a unique event. The Sustainability University Assembly is very probably the first of its kind in The Netherlands: a deliberative dialogue process within a major university. More than 130 people joined to explore the key question: ‘How do we become a sustainable university?’.
What’s important to you?
After a quick welcome from the independent moderators from G1000.nu, participants got going with their conversations. Sitting at small tables in groups of four, they spoke about what mattered to them. There were three rounds like this, and participants changed tables at each time, so that everyone got to speak to nine others. At the end of each round, participants expressed what had resonated with them by sending one word to the screen.
The harvest of the three dialogue rounds was a word cloud based on nearly 400 words submitted by participants. Words that were mentioned more often, appeared larger on the screen. With the help of the word cloud, the participants agreed 12 broad themes they wanted to use as the starting point for their further conversations. The following themes were chosen:
- Awareness
- Transparency
- Education
- Collaboration and Community
- Responsibility
- Communication
- Vision, Priorities and Values
- Systemic and Postgrowth
- Democratise and Policy
- Action and Encouragement
- Facilitate and Implementation
- Accountability and Footprint
Exploring ideas
After dinner, each participant chose a theme that was meaningful to them and joined the conversation around that theme. This way, they formed Working Groups of approximately eight people each. For the top three themes, there were two Working Groups, as many participants were keen to speak about awareness, transparency and education.
In the Working Groups, participants explored what they shared in relation to their chosen theme and started to develop ideas broadly addressing the Sustainability University Assembly’s main question: ‘how do we become a sustainable university?’. They also identified what information they would like to receive in the next meeting, as input to the Working Group’s proposal.
The Assembly continues
Participants will meet with a variety of Inspirators (all sorts of experts) at their next meeting on Tuesday 6 May. Once they’ve spoken to three Inspirators, all participants will flock back to their Working Groups to further shape their ideas and proposals. There are three further Assembly meetings after that. At the end, participants will decide on a Sustainability Agreement which they will hand to VU Amsterdam’s Executive Board.
