Beyond the Job Description: Empowering Students for Sustainability Careers

Dr Karen Cripps - Friday 6 November 10:05am – 10:55am GMT (Online, Via Zoom)

Karen is an Associate Professor in Responsible Management and Leadership at Oxford Brookes University, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). She is a Subject Coordinator for the Business and Management undergraduate programme, an Impact Champion, and an advisor for the Senior People Professional Apprenticeship. With a long-established academic and teaching profile in sustainability leadership and management, Karen is committed to supporting purposeful career journeys that contribute to environmental and social goals.

Her research and teaching interests currently focus on green skills, with particular focus on the value of transferable skills. Her practice deeply aligns with the United Nations 'Principles of Responsible Management Education' (PRME). Within the UK and Ireland Chapter, she is the Secretary of the PRME UK and Ireland Chapter Steering Committee and co-leads a working group on 'Careers and Sustainability'. Within PRME Global, she co-chairs the Working Group on 'Responsible Work and Purposeful Careers'. She also serves on the committee of the Working Group on 'Climate Change and the Environment', which, as a Carbon Literacy Project certified facilitator, includes training and leading a global mentoring programme

The Session: Students are increasingly motivated to pursue careers that contribute to a sustainable future, yet many struggle to find and secure relevant opportunities. This "visibility and skills gap" presents a critical challenge for higher education. In this talk, we will present findings from two complementary research projects conducted at Oxford Brookes University Business School. The first, a large-scale mixed-methods study with 201 employers and 10 UK university partners, identifies a significant 'visibility gap'—57% of employers do not mention sustainability in general job adverts, even when it is a core part of their operations. This is compounded by a 'skills gap,' where even passionate graduates lack essential competencies like systems thinking.

The second study delves into the student experience, exploring how students engage with sustainability projects during work placements. Findings reveal that while three-quarters of students are not in explicitly "green" roles, they often proactively seek out and create sustainability-related projects, developing crucial soft skills like communication and negotiation in the process.

This talk will synthesise these insights to provide a roadmap for educators. It will explore practical strategies for curriculum reform to embed critical skills like systems thinking, for innovating career services to help students articulate their values and 'read between the lines' of job descriptions, and for engaging employers to improve the visibility of sustainability in their offerings. The goal is to bridge the gap between student ambition and career reality, empowering graduates to navigate and shape the evolving green economy.

Karen co-leads two working groups on behalf of the UN 'Principles of Responsible Management Education' (PRME) with OBBS colleague Dr Jonathan Louw. They actively invite collaboration and membership across disciplines. The talk will also discuss some of the opportunities available to get involved. 

Title TBA

Prof Lydia Arnold - Friday 11 December 12:05 – 12:55 pm GMT (Online, Via Zoom)

What do students want us to do when we teach? 

Dr Jayne Dennis - Wednesday 13 January 12:05 – 12:55pm GMT (Online, Via Zoom)

Dr Jayne Dennis is a Reader in Biomedical Education at Queen Mary University of London, where she is the Director of Scholarship in the School of Biological & Behavioural Sciences. Her research focuses on the role of metacognition in teaching and learning practices in higher education. Her teaching focuses on human genetics and genomics and she has won multiple education awards at Queen Mary. She is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE and previously completed an MA in educational psychology at UCL’s Institute of Education and a PhD in the molecular classification of cancer at the University of Glasgow.

The Session: Higher education teaching is often framed as a choice between traditional, didactic teaching and more student-centred, active learning approaches. But is this distinction reflected in what students actually value in the teaching they experience? This talk draws on surveys and interviews with undergraduate biological and biomedical sciences students exploring their perceptions of teaching practices used in large group teaching. Rather than asking students whether they prefer particular teaching formats, the research examined what students want academics — and students themselves — to do during teaching. The findings reveal a more nuanced picture than a simple preference for either lectures or active learning. The findings also expose some interesting tensions and conflicts between what they want to experience and activities that have been considered pedagogically valuable. The session will consider what students' preferences tell us about the complex and nuanced role of the university teacher. I will invite participants to consider how we can balance expert explanation, active learning, and student independence in higher education.

Naming, Framing and Flaming HE mentoring

Dr Brian Irvine - Monday 12 Oct 12:05pm – 12:55pm GMT+1 (Online, Via Zoom)

Brian works at UCL at CRAE, the Centre for Research in Autism and Education.  There, he runs CRAE’s Comms and Engagement.  Not long ago he completed his doctoral thesis at ACER, the University of Birmingham’s Autism Centre for Education and Research where he investigated Specialist (Autism) Mentoring in UK Higher Education. Before this, he was himself a specialist autism mentor where – for a decade - he had had the pleasure of regular meetings with many brilliant students as they journeyed through their university life.  Even further back in time, he taught in an autism primary school inclusion provision, was a childminder/pirate, and – last century – was Head of Philosophy and Religious Education at a secondary modern school.  For fun he plays the ukulele, as it causes others to back away slowly.

This session 

With the ever-increasing number of autistic students entering Higher Education, the role of mentoring is more crucial than ever. In the UK, Specialist Mentoring (Autism or ADHD) is a funded reasonable accommodation with impact extending far beyond simple support. Mentoring does not just help students navigate studenthood; it enables them to reframe their experience, critique institutional barriers, and share workarounds for flourishing. 

Brian will talk about how mentoring can become a tool for advocacy and institutional change. He will share his study which started with autistic hypothesisers, sparking mentor diaries, which were analysed with an autistic majority group of master mentors.  From this a Framework for Reframing was constructed.

Mentors need to refine their understanding of autism and know how to grapple with university systems. They need to be able to reflect on their role as mentors, and they need to enact the craft of mentoring.  In the UK, this craft seems to follow a model of social mobilisation in: diagnostic framing (naming and understanding and critiquing the university context), prognostic framing (framing and developing strategies and workarounds), and motivational framing (sharing joy and keeping the flame of persistence lit). Naming, Framing and Flaming

In positioning mentoring as more than just support, but as a transformative practice, Brian invites you to consider how mentoring can not only improve autistic students' experiences but also reshape institutional culture itself.

Aims:

Hopefully, and with a little luck, you will

• have had some time to consider what mentoring is, and how it may fit around teaching and coaching.

• have considered the transformative role mentoring has in supporting neurodivergent students, not just in terms of course completion but also in fostering advocacy, agency, and institutional change.

• have a model of mentoring that might be of some use in many other contexts.