Sustainability as a Catalyst for Change in Universities: New Roles to Meet New Challenges

Abstract

Universities are generally structured and staffed to meet the two traditional functions of research and teaching, which are supported by the university’s operational staff. In many universities this is expressed through two categories of staff—academic staff and professional staff (sometimes referred to as ‘general staff’). It is proposed that the complexities of responding to contemporary sustainability issues means that within universities these traditional staffing categories are becoming increasingly blurred, which is challenging traditional management models of universities, and a new category of staff is emerging. Staff need to cross, and sometimes to straddle, the traditional boundary between academic and nonacademic roles to address the complex inter- and multidisciplinary challenges of almost every sustainability issue that a university responds to. This chapter presents case studies where this new territory, termed the ‘third space’ by Whitchurch (High Educ Q 62:377–396, 2008), has emerged in the context of sustainability. It is proposed that sustainability is a catalyst for this change of roles for many university staff who are involved with sustainability and that this challenges university management to not only acknowledge this shift, but also to determine the best path forward to support their staff in succeeding in meeting the sustainability challenges ahead.