CURRICULUM CHANGE
Curriculum Change aims to transform the University of St. Gallen in a more sustainable environment and to arouse attention and interest for sustainability on the entire campus. Curriculum Change by oikos is responsible for initiatives that increase sustainability at the University of St. Gallen. By engaging in only little effort you will have a real impact on sustainability issues.
The oikos Curriculum Change team works together with the SHSG, the IWÖ (Institute for Economy and the Environment) and HSG’s administration. This work reflects a strong contrast between criticizing and working together with the people in charge. Education is the first and crucial step to combat climate change and we demand the University to take on its institutional responsibility in this crisis.
How it all started
2019 - October
The HSG curriculum change initiatives started in 2019 in Prague. The newly designated project head Louise Scarlette Maunoir was invited to the first international oikos curriculum change conference. The importance of a change in the way lectures were taught at the university of Saint Gallen was outlined. The core question was “ How can the HSG claim that their curriculum is future-proof while it is still teaching an economical model from the past?”
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2019 - November
As the conference ended, the curriculum change project began in Saint Gallen. A strategy and action plan was defined. Since the topic was still very much ignored, the first step was to raise awareness on the topic. Two months after having started the project, a workshop on the donut economical model was organized.
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Spring 2020
Gathering the learnings and insights from the first workshop about the new economic model, a coalition for change rose. Namely, the “Letter for Change” was formulated. The letter for change was aimed to be a research document displaying the rising student demand for alternative education. Additionally, a survey about HSG students' opinion on the curriculum change was attached. Signed by the biggest HSG student associations such as WWF, oikos international, Blab and the UNES, this letter was sent to our president representative.
Unfortunately, our representative stayed silent.
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2020 - May
The fight for curriculum change is not over. The “Letter for Change” still had an impact and a new collaboration partner arose - SDSN. Together with SDSN and the IWO, the initiative promoted the integration of sustainable development in business and economics courses to train responsible individuals for the future. This initiative made the integration between the “Be the Change” lecture and the Student Impact club possible.
After two years of work, the project was handed over to Carina …
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Working on a reform for the assessment year
Autumn 2021
The assessment year needs to be completed by every single HSG student, some do it twice and legends talk about students passing their 3.0.
As we all know, it touches upon a wide variety of subjects and topics in the economic, business and legal fields. In spite this holistic approach, climate change has so far only been mentioned in a single lecture of business ethics in the second semester. Apart from that, the megatrend of sustainability is almost absent in the core courses, although the SGMM is worth nothing without considering the resources our environment is able to supply only to a limited extent.
The oikos Curriculum Change team works together with the SHSG, the IWÖ (Institute for Economy and the Environment) and HSG’s administration. This work reflects a strong contrast between criticizing and working together with the people in charge, attached you can find a Power Point summarizing the data we’ve collected and our ideas to improve the status quo. Education is the first and crucial step to combat climate change and we demand the University to take on its institutional responsibility in this crisis.
Important Documents
