Aiming to spread and develop
a social awareness on Sustainable Development at the
University, this activity intends to design, to propose
to University authorities and, if passed, to implement
an Environmental and Sustainable Development Plan at
Comillas University. Actually, the main incidence of
the University in society takes place through its graduates.
In the long run, this plan seeks to train and make the
future professionals who are studying at our University
aware of all that concerns Sustainable Development.
Although the Plan claims promoting Sustainable Development
as its main objective, environmental elements will have
priority since they are more clearly understood by the
public and easier to be implemented.
This Plan will be designed taking into account similar
experiences in other Universities, particularly the
results achieved by the Universidad Politécnica
de Cataluña, which stands out as a clear example.
The Plan will include the following elements:
1. Undergraduate courses
The goal is to include suitable Environmental &
Sustainable Development issues (E&SD) in our students'
training, specifically in the program of the existing
subjects of undergraduate courses. The steps to be
followed are:
· To establish
the required profile of E & SD knowledge for each
degree;
· To design the curriculum which meets this requirement;
· To design an action plan in the short term to prepare,
if necessary, the faculty members to teach the needed
topics.
In addition, Departments can design their own plan
where their priority lines, targets and actions
are developed according with the previous points.
The Chair's website will be a useful tool for both
the students and professors. It will provide specific
links for each subject to bibliography, support
material, websites with relevant issues about E&SD
and some other useful resources for sustainability
education, such as specific problem collections.
Other possibilities are to offer free configuration
subjects about E&SD, as well as formation courses
about E&SD for professors or seminars aimed at students.
2. Graduation Theses
An interesting issue, particularly suitable to addressing
Environment & Sustainable Development topics, is
the graduation theses that engineering students
have to prepare to obtain their degree. Although
it formally belongs to undergraduate courses, already
mentioned in the previous section, it deserves a
specific treatment. The objective is that every
thesis, as far as it is reasonable, includes explicitly
suitable considerations of E&SD. A guide for professors
and students to facilitate the inclusion of these
issues to the theses will be developed. A group
of professors concerned with this activity, who
may provide support to both thesis directors and
students will also be coordinated from the Chair.
Furthermore, the Chair have instituted an annual
award for the thesis with a deeper approach to the
E&SD topic. It is the "BP
Chair award to the Sustainability of Graduation
Theses". Although in the first edition it will
be limited to the Comillas University Engineering
School, in successive years it might be open to
the participation of students from engineering schools
of other Universities or to dissertations, graduation
theses or even doctoral theses from other Faculties
or Schools.
3. Doctorate
and graduate courses
The aim is either offering doctorate and graduate
courses which specifically deal with Environment &
Sustainable Development, or include the E&SD issues
in the most suitable manner in the existing subjects,
as it has been detailed for undergraduate courses.
The University may study the possibility of offering
in the future a master o even intensify existing doctorate
programs in this way. We will set out from the current
situation in the Comillas University, in which there
are significant activities running in this field,
specially the Sustainable Development Cooperation
and Humanitarian Help Master's degree.
4. Research
A primary task would involve listing an inventory
of significantily linked to E&SD research carried
out in the Univerisity. On this basis, common actions
and directions might be planned in future lines of
research. Furthermore, special research projects may
be proposed according to this Plan.
The Chair will try to be informed of financing opportunities
for research on E&SD, which might exist at local,
national or international level, with the aim of stimulating
the launch of proposals on these topics.
5. University life and awareness
It is quite hard to teach values if the student do
not feel that the behaviour of the University agreed
with that which professors intend to teach. Thus,
including the principles and teachings concerning
E&SD to the real life of Comillas University is essential.
The approach has different aspects as, for instance:
i) Waste management (in cooperation with the ongoing
program, which has recently finished the diagnosis
stage);
ii) Implementation of environmental criteria in
the design, construction and use of buildings;
iii) Monitoring University energy consumption and
proposing improvement plans;
iv) Implementation of environmental criteria in
the list of clauses of cleaning and other supplying
University contracts as well as in the job profiles.
The Chair will also try to spread the interest and
knowledge in E&SD through the members of the University
and outside it. Thus, the Plan should consider activities
such as technical conferences on concrete issues,
competitions of ideas about E&SD or campaigns in cooperation
with other groups or organizations existing inside
Comillas and concerned about these issues.
As it has been said before, the real relevant effect
that this Plan might cause on Environment and Sustainable
Development will not be on either the energy or water
saving or the waste management but on the attitude
that students of Comillas University will adopt about
these problems when they face their duties in their
professions.
6. Indicators
Finally, an idea which is potentially interesting
and might be applied in all the activities included
in the Plan would be to design an assessment system
to monitor the level of implementation of the plan
at the University. It would set a group of indicators
that may include, for instance, the number of subjects
which have incorporated E&SD issues, the opinion
of graduates declared in opinion polls, the number
of students enrolled either in free configuration
courses or in graduate courses, the volume of waste
collected by means of the corresponding program,
the energy and water consumption, and so on.
