Educating sustainable change experts 9.11.2023 Lapland UAS Blog Publisher Keywords Kestävä kehitys Kiertotalous Koulutus Vastuullisuus Authors: Sanna Tyni, Ph.D., Principal lecturer, New Industry Expertise Group, Lapland University of Applied Sciences and Marika Tuomela-Pyykkönen, M.Sc., Head of Degree Programme in Managing Sustainability and Systems Change (MaSS), Masters’s School, Lapland University of Applied Sciences In September 2023, there were many excited UAS Lapland teachers lookingforward to meeting the first-ever Master of Managing Sustainability andSystems Change (MaSS)–students in Rovaniemi (Fig. 1). After carefully designing of newMaster’s program combining transformative learning with the themes ofsustainable development, responsibility and circular economy (CircularEconomy Centre, 2023), this was the day we all had waited for. Now,after a couple of months have passed by and MaSS studies are ongoing, wewanted to pull together our thoughts and experiences about the start ofthe MaSS learning journey.Figure 1. The very first group of MaSS students and tutors with guestsfrom Ukrainian Catholic University at Lapland UAS campus in Rovaniemi. Future change agents The leading thought behind the newprogram was to answer the need of experts to enhance systematicsustainability and green transition in organisations. This was alreadyin the background of designing the MaSS programme and core courses. Theworld is in a situation, where we are going to need different kinds ofexperts with a deeper understanding of sustainability, responsibility aswell as circular economy as a part of their expertise and everyday workin different organisations. The green transition is seeking responsesto the sustainability crisis and a transformation of the organisationsand work life. In the MaSS programme, we combine these substance themesinto transformational learning to provide new tools and perspectives forstudents to work with. During the orientation week, after theinitial starting day with coordinating all the technical issues, thesecond day really kicked off our MaSS learning journey and it meant toapply the transformative learning pedagogy. In practice, thisface-to-face meeting day with fellow students and tutors provided anexcellent foundation to get to know each other and supported the startof the collaboration and creating a true sense of belonging. At the endof the second day, while relaxing and filling our tummies with pizzas,the looks on our faces told it all – we were all in the right place(Fig. 2). And as many of our students commented; it felt like finallycoming home. We cannot phrase it nicer – what a sense of community wasestablished already during our very first days! And the sense of hopethat was brought upon us, this is exactly what we needed in this day andage. Figure 2. Pizza time! (Image: Marika Tuomela-Pyykkönen, 2023) At the core of the studies The core and profiling studiesof the MaSS program (Fig 3.) are designed to support the growth ofexpertise from the different perspectives of sustainable development,corporate responsibility as well as circular economy. This expertise isintegrated into the master’s thesis process. (Joutsenvirta et al. 2022;Tuomela-Pyykkönen & Tyni, 2023) With the MaSS tutor team’s support,students are practising transformative development from the verybeginning of the studies to graduation and beyond as a part of thePractising Transformative Development course. The course will continueuntil the end of the spring semester. Individual and group work willprovide support to other courses so that students can strengthen theirmind settings, values, and expertise within the different contexts. Thefeedback from the students is mainly given as comments during the groupmeetings. Overall, it has been positive feedback and they have been veryinspired and open-minded towards the new way to study. A deeperevaluation of the course will be done after the fall semester and at theend of the first year. Figure 3. MaSS degree structure Alongside the core studies, the students have an opportunity to select5-35 ECTS for their profiling studies, to support developing theirexpertise. As another pilot, in Spring 2024, MaSS students will have anopportunity to choose a new profiling study course Solutions. now. Thiscourse is arranged in collaboration with Tampere UAS, Turku UAS and LABUAS offering a great opportunity to network with fellow students fromthese organising universities. Solutions.now is a project-basedcourse, where a group of students will work with the real-life problemsprovided by different organisations. This course is part of the ClimateUniversity network collaboration, in which Lapland UAS has been a membersince 2022. This network consists of Finnish higher educationinstitutions and other stakeholders interested in developingsustainability and climate-related higher education. More informationabout the course is available in the Lapland UAS Study Guide. LaplandUAS will provide the project case but let’s keep it a secret until thestart of the course. What next? The first class of the MaSS degree program waslaunched and tutors have already received feedback from the firstcourses. One of the positive feedbacks concerned the utilisation offlipped classroom, where materials are given in forehand before groupmeetings. The actual meetings focus on discussions and sharing theexpertise between students and tutors, which provides opportunities toshare different perspectives of “wicked issues” in different kinds ofcontexts. However, the students thought that some of the discussions atthe beginning of meetings should be shorter. We should have more time togo deeper into each meeting’s main themes. Additionally, students havegiven us feedback about the amounts of tasks during the first months ofstudies. This kind of feedback is quite usual in other programmes.Master’s studies involve 60 to 90 ECTS amount of studies, and 30 ECTScome from the thesis. 60 ECTS is the number of studies, full-timestudents will make during a one year (fall and spring semester). Most ofthe students in the master’s programme are working during theirstudies, which means a quite heavy weekly programme to deal with. In theMaSS programme, courses have been designed so that individual and grouptasks would make it a little bit easier to try to combine school workwith other parts of life. Tutors are still very aware of the workloadstudents are going through and trying to seek new ways to help studentsto combine these different elements together. This kind offeedback is most appreciated, especially since the courses are new.Feedback during the semester also helps to make some smaller adjustmentsto other courses still ongoing and redesign the concepts for the nextsemester. At the moment, the first MaSS group have initiated the mostinteresting state-of-art thesis topics related to sustainability themeand will start their contributions to the global sustainability field. The MaSS mentors are quite excited to see the development process of thefirst MaSS group. We are also eager to start designing the nextversions of courses for MaSS Master students for Fall 2024 on account ofthis experience already gained during this semester. More information: Circular Economy Centre (2023) Now isthe time for changemakers – new master’s program starting in LaplandUAS, News – Circular Economy Centre, 5.9.2023,https://www.digipolis.fi/en/news/now-is-the-time-for-changemakers-new-masters-program-starting-in-lapland-uas. Joutsenvirta, M., Laininen, E., Tyni, S. & Korkeakoski, M. (2022)Transformatiivinen oppiminen kestävyysosaamisen tukena, UAS Journal,3/2022, 11.10.2022.https://uasjournal.fi/3-2022/transformatiivinen-oppiminen-kestavyysosaamisen-tukena/. Lapin AMK/Lapland UAS (2022) Lapin AMK Master School, Lapland UASYouTube Channel,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyFIhrLho40&list=PLMVFtm90HwM0r7Xr_PsdNoHszVjOGGzQM&index=2. MaSS (2023) Master of Managing Sustainability and Systems Change,Lapland UAS Master School, web pages.https://www.lapinamk.fi/en/Applicants/Masters-degrees/Managing-Sustainability-and-Systems-Change. Tuomela-Pyykkönen, M. & Tyni, S. (2023) Developing interdisciplinaryhigher education to support sustainable and systemic change in theArctic area, IPSERA International Purchasing & Supply Education& Research Association, IPSERA Conference 2023, Paper 7264.