13 May 2024
Vice-Chancellor's innovative cross-curricular programme celebrated
The first ‘Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium’ brought together 200 undergraduates and Oxford’s world-leading academics from across the humanities, social sciences and STEM subjects to tackle the global climate crisis.
The winning team with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, centre. Photo by John Cairns.
A special event was held at the Maths Institute on Earth Day (22 April) to celebrate the end of the eight-week programme, attended by the Vice-Chancellor and many of the students who had taken part.
Created by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, the Colloquium aims to bridge a potential gap between different academic disciplines, upskilling Oxford’s undergraduate students outside of their core subjects. It emphasises the importance of cross-curricular skills such as numeracy and data analysis, critical thinking, and effective communication to tackle the big global challenges of the 21st century.
Featuring keynote lectures, the programme brought together senior Oxford academics from different disciplines to respond to big questions about the causes, impacts and solutions to the climate crisis, as well as college-based skills sessions led by postgraduate students, and interdisciplinary student projects that tackled a local problem related to climate.
Three teams, made of up to five undergraduate students from different disciplines and colleges, were shortlisted for their proposals. The winning project is a proposal to create communal mini allotments at colleges using Oxford’s green spaces. Engineering Science 1st year undergraduate Edward Smith is part of the team who developed the winning ‘Mini Allotment Initiative’, which aims to connect students at Oxford with nature and provide a platform for community and wellbeing.
Other shortlisted student projects included a proposal to review college travel grants and incentivise students to take low emission travel routes, and ‘Oxford Student’s Green Plate’ - a cookbook of plant- recipes based on low carbon emission ingredients, to engage fellow students on the topic of climate and encourage eating more sustainably.
Professor Irene Tracey, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, said, "I have been delighted by the level of interest and engagement of students in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor's Colloquium. Over the past eight weeks a fantastic programme of keynote lectures and discussion groups has brought together students and academics from across all academic disciplines to think broadly and creatively about climate change. By working collaboratively, our students have developed some brilliantly creative and innovative projects that show the value of fostering strong cross-curricular skills to tackle global issues. I am deeply grateful to the Department for Continuing Education who hosted the program and to all the graduate student facilitators and academic staff members who worked so hard to make this happen. Congratulations to one and all!"
