Catching rays, finding ways—Reflections on the CUSP summer school
Right before the calendar moves into autumn, we hosted our third CUSP summer school, bringing together young researchers for three days to share ideas across the academic disciplines and experiences. In this short blog, Jo Kitchen shares a few reflections.
A mid-September weekend saw a gathering of PhD students from different universities and different disciplinary fields, tackling interrelated questions on sustainability. As the end of summer nears and just before a new academic year begins, we spent three sun-filled days inspiringly hosted by Cumberland Lodge, located at the heart of Windsor Great Park. This setting created spaces for discussion and exploration of the issues and challenges around sustainable prosperity… as well as the challenges we face in our respective PhD journeys.
We were encouraged by the optimism of senior CUSP academics, through various philosophical, theoretical, practical and methodological discussions while empowering us to continue exploring potential solutions and developing our voices in the dispersed, convoluted, loud, and problem-filled contexts. We had the opportunity to explore the great park, walk through the woods, and hold academic discussions under the sun on the lodge’s gardens.
Following workshops on the Theatre of the Oppressed (led by Malaika Cunningham); and Line-Dancing (led by Mark Ball), an exciting addition to this year’s schedule was “Forest School”—seen to have piqued interests of students and staff alike. Frances Harris joined us for the weekend and took us into the woods nearby. As both a researcher and forest school leader, she illustrated how the concept of forest school is a way of engaging with nature. People’s creativity flowed as we were given the task to interact and create something with naturally occurring materials in the woods. Forest school is about the freedom to loose the constraints within a classroom, meeting room or office. Though, a number of us found it rather challenging construct a bird’s nest… there was a sense of appreciation for the time given to play with ground clay, craft hats, build a play-boat with an accompanying story or simply sit under the woods’ shade and appreciate the therapeutic effects of being with nature.
Summer school was drawn to a close by a session with members from local Extinction Rebellion groups (Guildford and Godalming), exploring different perspectives on solutions for the increasingly familiar problems facing the planet and our society. Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a socio-political movement with the aims to communicate a common sense of urgency for change, and formation of citizens’ assemblies for climate and social justice. The session highlighted the varying views regarding the changes that need to happen, the degree of urgency for these changes and their feasibility—but there was a shared view that changes need to occur… urgently.
CUSP Summer School series has seen PhD students progress and develop the past three years. This is my third year in attendance, and I do acknowledge that it really has been a privilege to be exposed to such great diverse minds. There were many familiar faces and a number of new ones. CUSP’s supportive environment stimulated discussions of students’ varied and wide-ranging projects: such as those in relation with policymaking, cultural issues, creative arts, alternative businesses, economic modeling, social movements, accounting practices and the numerous philosophical views around sustainability.
Three sun-filled days: surrounded by highly motivated individuals, collectively empowering ideas, and great optimism that solutions are in sight.
