Careers team win new Sustainability Award

Posted on: 4 July 2021 by Richard Finch in Events & News

The University’s Careers & Employability team were announced as winners of the first ever Sustainability Impact Award at the AGCAS Awards for Excellence 2021 showcase event on 25 June.

The AGCAS Awards aim to encourage, reward, and share good practice amongst HE careers and employability practitioners by promoting quality, innovative and collaborative projects and high professional standards across the full range of HE careers and employability work.

The award recognised the University’s new Sustainability in Action programme as an initiative that achieved significant sustainability-related outcomes. The judging panel were impressed with the impact on the sustainability goals of the university and the way in which it was linked to employability, as well as the active student voice in the development of the programme.

Sustainability in Action offered an extra-curricular module for students during the 2020/21 academic year, with the aim of providing an opportunity to make connections, create friendships, and embrace new opportunities – all intrinsic to employability development and enhancing the student experience.

Sustainability was chosen as the perfect topic focus to appeal to students from across all degree subjects and help to create debate and motivate action. Using the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) as the foundation, an online learning module was created for students to complete during Foundation Week and beyond.

Over the course of the year around 800 students completed the module, which was also HEAR accredited. In addition, over 3,200 students contributed to the module discussion board, and 5,300 completed at least one of the online quizzes on Canvas. Students who completed the module also received a toolkit to help them reflect on the skills they had developed and then evidence them when applying for jobs.

Iwan Williams, Employability Business Partner in Careers & Employability said: “Sustainability in Action is an example of how we can use a central theme, one that matters so much to all of us, as a way to bring together students and University colleagues to achieve something really special.

The online module has had a far-reaching impact for our student’s employability, as well as helping them to engage with a new and different experience. The student interns who were involved in developing the module demonstrated creativity, dedication and energy, and were key to the success of the project. We look forward to re-launching the module in Welcome Week 2021!”