Can we transmit London more beautiful to the generations to come?
Professor Dilys Williams FRSA is Chair of UAL’s Social Purpose Advisory Group, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, and Professor of Fashion Design for Sustainability at London College of Fashion.
Plans are something that universities make in great abundance. But over the past twenty years of working in academia, one reference that I come back to is the oath of the Athenians in 500 BCE.
“We will strive for the ideals and sacred things of the city, both alone and with many, we will transmit this city not less but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”
A seemingly simple, potentially unifying commitment. Yet in just over two centuries, humans have not left the world more beautiful than it was transmitted to us, but rather devastated elements of beauty and degraded the earth irrevocably. We have depleted the ‘the city’ for ourselves and dramatically more so, for those we currently teach and those who come after them, through extractive and exploitative practices.
Universities offer unparalleled opportunities for questioning, developing and contributing to knowledge in disciplines and subject areas. They are places for developing curiosity and capabilities for livelihoods, the furthering of sectors and communities. However, simply by educating and researching, universities do not guarantee allegiance to the Athenian oath, or anything like it.
What universities do commit to are the conditions for imagining beyond current conditions. They are places for unfettered borderless exploration. They are places where students are introduced to modes of inquiry, not simply to create mastery of a body of knowledge, but to critically consider it, to extend it, to go beyond what is deemed recognisable.
Now is the time to use our creativity and ingenuity to change not just how, but why we research, teach and create; to change the context, as well as the content of our work. This is outlined in our 10-year strategy, The World Needs Creativity, and demonstrated through a commitment to orient the University around our social purpose, extending and amplifying our identities as ecologically and socially embedded practitioners.
We know that this is difficult work. We must grapple with conflicting pressures and explore what holds our community together towards leaving the earth and society better than we find it. Through months of inquiry, under the leadership of our Chief Social Purpose Officer Polly Mackenzie, followed by a process of synthesising and analysing contributions from across our communities, there has been a great uncovering of connections between our values, capabilities and practises.
We now have a bold and exciting Social Purpose Implementation Plan for supporting what holds us together, doing more of it and more consistently. Through this approach, we can contextualise income generation, REF assessment, world rankings (etc)to foster creativity, build inclusivity, nourish the earth and champion equitable prosperity, rather than to see them as end goals.
I am incredibly excited about UAL’s commitment to becoming a social purpose university. It is a means to coalesce around shared intentions, to conceptualise and operationalise a deep commitment to creativity than we have previously considered. The University has invested in the necessary infrastructure which will support the delivery of this work, including setting up the Social Purpose Lab, headed up by Nigel Ball.
As chair of the Social Purpose Advisory Group, along with its members, I am committed a truly participatory process and deep rigor in terms of why, how and with whom our purpose is brought to life. The Social Purpose Advisory Group has a membership that represents perspectives, expertise, locations, and interests across the university’s community. We have clear Terms of Reference and a remit to advise and propose, review and socialise policies and practices. The methodology is simple: co-inquiry, conversation, engagement, articulation. It is intentional, with expertise and perspectives that span the four areas of the Social Purpose Implementation Plan.
By taking a systemic approach, we must attend to the needs and circumstances of our learners, made up primarily of undergraduate students, but with a burgeoning cohort of master’s and doctoral students. They have hopes and expectations of studying in the 21st century, while preparing for lives that may now span into the 22nd century. This is the longevity of our duty of care.
We must attend to aspects of life for tutors, researchers, technicians, librarians, project managers, department leaders, college Pro Vice Chancellors, research administrators, knowledge exchange practitioners, for the President and Vice Chancellor. We must consider our roles as members of local communities, the arts and creative sector communities, and the HE community. We must attend to the aspects of being contributors in societies, all nested systems within our membership of the biosphere systems of which we are a part.
It’s important to recognise the challenges inherent to this work. In the words of Bayo Akomolafe — who is soon to join us in Centre for Sustainable Fashion’s Imagining Possibilities Festival, the future isn’t forward, it’s awkward. Letting go of methodologies based on ideas that no longer hold currency, but on which much of society still count, isn’t easy. As a university, we have an incredible opportunity to lead change, we have a long-term lens like no business or government.
The need for a reoriented university is more vital than ever. A university where research, education and knowledge exchange is grounded in ecological understanding; in paideia, the mastery of application of subject knowledge, not just knowledge acquisition. A university that is propositional and responsive, one that considers intersectionality and interdependencies. One that changes itself, as part of making change in the world, fostering reciprocity and conviviality. A university that can demonstrate the value of creativity in awe-inspiring, life-giving ways.
In becoming a social purpose university, we want to learn with and from others, so please share with us your wisdom. We welcome support, critique and encouragement. We will do this work in the spirit of open experiment, with shared respect, endeavour and joy.
