Campus og studiemiljø - Bygningsstyrelsen

achieved not only by means of appointing students as green ambassadors
but also by training e.g. technical staff and kitchen staff who
typically have influence on a considerable amount of the energy and
resource consumption on campus.
Rather than teaching students and employees, HGCI uses the peerto-peer
principle, in which they primarily let the participants talk to
each other, exchanging experiences in order to find solutions. HGCI
has had success using this method, as it creates positive competition
between participants. The competition is constructive because all
participants share a common goal and everyone wins. For instance,
the participants compete with each other as to which House can
achieve the largest reduction in water consumption during the coming
period. The winner acquires social status.
The argument for using the peer-to-peer method is based on psychology
and the often unconscious strive for social recognition. The
manager, Leith Sharp, who has studied psychology and human development,
says: “The desire to maintain status in the peer groups to
which we belong, is a powerful human need. It can be used strategically
to break down barriers to effective adult learning. People are busy,
and it is normally difficult to get them to focus on learning. However,
if you make learning essential for their social status, people have a tendency
to give it higher priority. The beauty of the peer-to-peer model
is that it is a process between equals, which involves mutual learning
while the participants at the same time are rewarded socially for their
commitment. When we began using these models, we discovered that
they presented many other advantages. For instance, it all became
more fun and it created good relationships between people.”
HGCI supports the process and mainly serves to create a forum
where these issues are discussed and subsequently followed up.
The students are paid USD 11-17 per hour to participate once every
fortnight. They subsequently have to use games and activities to
highlight a chosen aspect of sustainability at the House during the
coming period.
Campus Case: Harvard
students understand campus better
The students who participate in the training typically find it a very
positive experience. Some call it their best. The students see it as part
of their learning and time at the university. They can personally identify
problems in their local environment at campus or in the House
– and with the assistance of HGCI, it is easier for them to implement
solutions, which can also be of a structural or organisational nature.
As a general rule, the themes are also used in the students’ academic
work, and in this context, HGCI assists with data and information.
Barriers to sustainability in teaching
When students and faculty become involved in the local sustainability
debate, it contributes to a greater understanding of the university
as an organisation. According to HGCI, the students and the academic
staff generally have very little knowledge of how the buildings are
managed. The management of the buildings is intuitively considered
dirty work that should be easy to perform. Students and staff from
the faculties help break down these barriers by using cases from the
building management at Harvard in their teaching.
This creates another problem, however, in that the administrative
staff are seldom able to provide structured information for the
students’ learning projects. It is simply too difficult to get access
to data about the management of buildings and transportation at
Harvard, which is probably equally true of many other universities.
HGCI finds that this happens because the administrative staff do not
have the necessary time to structure the information so that it can
be used. “The faculty often does not have the time to find out how
a campus operates. Students cannot get access to information and
are also dependent on having to submit their projects on time. The
university’s employees already have a huge workload and do not
have the time to drop everything to help students or the faculty. Our
universities therefore need to bridge the gap between staff, faculty
and students so that together they can use the campus creatively as
a learning tool. The result is not directly measureable, and therefore,
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