Silos, students and centralising forces: The institutional and social environments affecting academic innovations for sustainability in the tertiary sector

As Australian universities have embraced the instrumental view of higher education, ‘public good’ ideas, such as sustainable development, struggle in the resulting tertiary culture and structure. The sector in Canada is also succumbing to managerialism and commercialism and reliance on student tuition fees, although it retains a more differentiated market with a stronger tradition of liberal studies. Concepts essential to a liberal sustainability education include rich context, interdisciplinarity, cosmopolitanism and civics, and meet barriers in both systems. Innovative programs at seven Canadian universities were analysed in terms of issues debated during their development, such as; core structure and content, equity and selectivity, organisational design, and operational implementation. This paper draws on this work and earlier analyses of Australian environmental and sustainability education by the author to explore major themes around university management, collegiality, pedagogy and the student market. Findings show that university structure and administration have a large impact on educational design and collaboration, and that tight budgets are a major challenge to curricular or organisational innovations for sustainability.

Keywords: education for sustainability, core curriculum, organisational structures.