Green University Mentoring Project (GUMP)

This project aims to implement a succession planning policy for research whereby mid-level researchers are mentored to become leading researchers. The two mentees are both teacher-researchers in environmental social science. The project therefore combines three disciplines: education, environmental science, and social studies. For education, the project involves the creation and teaching of a new course for undergraduate students manifesting transformative education through experiential learning with student-initiated real-world impacts. In addition, postgraduate students will be involved in supporting and guiding the undergraduate students. For environmental science, focusing on the issue of green universities, the project includes the design and implementation by students of ten small projects aiming to address environmental issues at the university. These ten projects will be evaluated to potentially identify low-cost high-impact projects for green universities. For social studies, selection of the ten small projects to be run will involve participatory decision making whereby all university community members will be given the opportunity to participate in the selection using an innovative social studies research instrument, namely, the constrained choice survey. By providing the mentees with several cutting-edge experiences, it is believed that the project is highly likely to provide multiple opportunities for researcher development.