A day in the life of a Postgraduate Course Director
29 August 2024 - Emma Fromberg, Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate and Supervisor for the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Business shares a day in her life at the first workshop of our 2024 Postgraduate Certificate cohort at Homerton College.
Welcome to Homerton College, on day 3 of the first workshop of our 2024 cohort! Through this blog, I will take you with me on a day in the life of a Course Director at CISL.
I usually wake up in the college where we teach, in this case, I had a room on the South Court which has a short-cut to the New Dining Hall where I meet everyone for breakfast. At this stage, we are halfway through the workshop and some students joined our supervisor and yoga instructor, Cindy Berman for some stretching and yoga on the grass on this beautiful sunny morning.
At breakfast, I met my fellow Course Director Dr Tanja Collavo and some of the supervisors. Most of our supervisors have been with us for years, some even decades. Over our coffees, we talk about the latest news and how the workshop is going.
After breakfast, we start the day in our “streams”. One stream consists of students focussed mostly on driving change using a whole value chains approach (the value chains stream), the other stream focuses on driving change within the scope of the organisation itself (the organisational stream).
On my way to the plenary room, I meet our first speaker and PCSB alumna, Simona Azzolini. She came to give her experience of completing the Certificate – Value Chains stream and progressing onto the continuous route of the Master’s.
I find it very impressive how she managed to successfully complete a full postgraduate degree, whilst having a young family and a demanding career. She also presents top tips for non-native English speakers and students who have not been in academia for a while.
Simona’s session is followed by an interactive lecture on An Introduction to Sustainable Value Chains by supervisor David Lawrence. The students prepared for this session through their pre-reading, which allows time to discuss these topics in the classroom. Students are invited to share how the theory is applied (or not applied!) in their organisation and some of the challenges and barriers they face are surfaced.
David touched upon a variety of topics to set the sustainable value chain landscape such as pre-competitive collaboration, the role of activist groups, procurement trends, regulation and best practices in sustainable value chain management.
After this introduction, we have a critical reflection on existing approaches in small groups: Professor Steve Evans reflects on efficiency in supply chains, Justin DeKoszmovszky evaluates current impact assessment discourse and Simona Azzolini addresses double materiality. We do this in two rounds so that we have approximately 10-15 students in each room to allow the students to engage in a lively dialogue with the speakers.
Then, it is time for a joint lunch break with both streams. Some students also have their supervision for their first individual assignment: the Analysis Paper. Instead of staying in their breakout rooms, some decided to have these sessions in the sunny gardens of Homerton College.
The rest of the cohort gathered in the marquee and got to know each other whilst enjoying a break. An important part of the programme is for the cohort to develop social cohesion and build a network that lasts beyond the workshops.
Besides individual assignments, students also work in small groups on a collective research project. This week, their goal is to narrow down the scope and one group requested that I do a qualitative research clinic to give them inspiration on kinds of methodology they may wish to use. This group was specifically interested in net zero and negative emissions strategies. Later on, I ran another clinic with a group focused on the role of pre-competitive collaboration in meeting sustainability goals.
As the students proceed to work in their groups, I had the chance for another catch-up with Tanja. We reflected upon the previous two days and agreed on a time to take a group photo for the students.
During our workshops, we get a unique sense of what our students are consumed by. This year, new CSRD Reporting and Disclosure Requirements, mostly affecting EU businesses, are on the minds of our students. We always continue to evaluate what kind of content could support our students in addressing contemporary sustainability challenges.
We head back inside for another lecture, this time from supervisor Erinch Sahan where he focused on the business response to sustainability.
He ran a poll with the students on what would be the most effective in changing business behaviour: (1) campaigning, (2) investor voice, (3) collaboration, (4) change policies and, (5) transformation of business design.
What is a workshop without an official group photo? As a little interlude, we headed outside!
When we look at sustainable value chains, it is critical to evaluate how these contribute to a regenerative economy. Therefore, I invited two case studies with two radically different approaches to evaluate their value chains according to the principles of a regenerative economy. The first case study with Fibreshed with speaker Emma Jane Hague. This is an excellent example of economies of scope (not scale!) and a celebration of local textiles economies. The second case study was more industrial, focusing on an automotive example through the lens of Jaguar-Landrover by Ian Ellison. They are radically different, but both fulfil important functions in the economy.
By the time the session finished, it was 17.45 and had been an intense day. The final speaker of the day is Ken Webster, former Head of Innovation from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and current CISL fellow. Sitting in a comfy armchair, Ken shared some of the history underpinning the development of the idea of a circular economy as we know it now.
As the students head into town for dinner and social time, we did the same with the supervisor group and had some delicious pizzas to celebrate a fantastic day.
