Continuity - creatively using change
The nature of a university, with many staff and students coming and going, necessarily means that there will be a higher turnover of people within your group, and it may be difficult to maintain continuity, keep to a long-term plan, and maintain institutional memory (that is, collective knowledge, experience, and know-how held within your group of what you do and
how you do it). Many Transition Universities struggle with this particular aspect. To a certain extent it is unavoidable and something that needs to be embraced. On the one hand you will always have people leaving your group, but on the other you will always have new people and energy coming in!
Employing staff to achieve continuity
As we discussed earlier, many universities employ staff as a way of ensuring continuity in changing community. This issue was discussed in more detail at a workshop hosted by the EAUC in 2013, which brought together people “delivering” Transition at different universities in the UK (check out the related documents and reports under EAUC Topic Support Network: Promoting Positive Behaviour and Transition: 18 November 2013, St Andrews. Many of the participants were employed to engage communities and promote sustainable behaviours within their institutions, and all of them stated they were strongly motivated by their values and had a long-term interest in the projects. Even so, as groups are dependent on external funding, which determines the remit of a project for a set amount of time, it can be hard to achieve continuity when the funding comes to an end. When there is no money left, employees who have been holding the continuity move on, and the project might collapse completely.
Managing continuity as a group
As a way of working with this nature of a university, you may want to spend some time and reflect on how you as a group are going to manage these continuity issues, and perhaps agree on a process where you can balance the new blood coming in with communicating the accumulated learning and experience from the past.
With the academic year being on such a fixed cycle, it is relatively easy to predict when old members will be leaving your group and new members will be joining it. You might consider incorporating a reflection, handover, and celebration stage towards the end of the academic year, enabling communication on how and why we do Transition Universities, harvesting and celebrating the achievements of those leaving, and inspiring and motivating those joining. And it’s always fun to have a big party!
There is probably also a high turnover of people and partners that you are working with - university staff, student union representatives, other volunteer organisations, etc. One year they can be supportive and the next not at all. It may be a useful exercise to reflect on the rhythms of these relationships, and how you can work with them. For example, in St Andrews, the student body elects an Environment and Ethics Officer within the Student Union each year. The working relationship between the E and E Officer and the Transition group has been best when the candidates have been made aware of the Transition group and invited to events especially during the nomination stage.
Another aspect of this issue to be aware of is that a Transition University will be a learning process, where many new members coming in will repeat ideas, projects, and mistakes that have been done before. For anyone being involved over a longer period of time, this can be a very frustrating dynamic. Is there a way it can become a deepening instead of repetitive process?
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