economics for transition - schumacher college3.2.5 support to disabled students 54 3.3 student...

ECONOMICS FOR TRANSITION

Achieving Low-Carbon, High Wellbeing, Resilient Economies

Tel: +44 (0)1803 865934www.schumachercollege.org.uk

2014 - 2015Student HandbookPostgraduate Programme

2 www.schumachercollege.org.uk

Economics for Transition Handbook Contents

1. About Schumacher College 4Foreword from the Head of College 4Useful Contact Details 4Map 4

1.1 History of the College and of the Dartington Hall Trust 51.2 Teaching and learning ethic at the College 61.3 Programmes and other educational offerings 7

1.3.1 Postgraduate programmes 71.3.2 Vocational programmes 81.3.3 Short courses 81.3.4 Worldwide Learning 81.3.5 Open Evenings and Earth Talks 9

1.4 The Schumacher College Community 91.5 Educational facilities at the College 11

1.5.1 Classrooms, library and study rooms 111.5.2 IT and technical support 11

1.6 Facilities for convivial living 121.6.1 The College and gardens 121.6.2 Food and the Schumacher kitchen 121.6.3 Meditation and craft rooms 131.6.4 Guest policy 131.6.5 Miscellaneous 14

2. Postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition 16Welcome letter from the economics faculty 16

2.1 Introduction to the programme 172.2 Programme associates 18

Schumacher College 18Plymouth University 18new economics foundation 18Transition Network 19

2.3 Programme overview 192.3.1 Programme aims and learning outcomes 192.3.2 The postgraduate learning journey 192.3.3 Introduction to assessment methods & guidelines 212.3.4 Programme structure 22Curriculum outline 22Core modules 23Elective modules 23Dissertation 232.3.5 Timetable for programme and submission of assessment projects 24Core Modules 24Term 2 24Timetable for Coursework Assessments 25Dissertation timeline 25

2.4 Programme details 262.4.1 Core modules 26Module SCH501: The Ecological Paradigm 26Module SCH502: Emergence of the New Economy 28Module SCH503: The New Economics in Practice 302.4.2 Elective Modules 32Module SCH5405: Contemporary Issues in Holistic Science (Mind In Nature) 32Module SCH5412: Sustainable Enterprise (Enterprising Futures) 34Module SCH5407: Ecophilosophy (Drawing on Indigenous Wisdom) 362.4.3 Dissertation 38

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2.5 Course teachers 40Schumacher College Faculty 40Plymouth University Faculty 41nef faculty 41Transition Network Faculty 42Visiting Teachers 43

3. Information for all postgraduate students 46

3.1 Academic Policy and practice 463.1.1 Assessment policy 463.1.2 Rules for the submission of assessment assignments 473.1.3 In the event of failure of one or more modules 493.1.4 Complaints and appeals 503.1.5 Feedback on academic work 513.1.6 Examiners 513.1.7 Plagiarism 523.1.8 Student feedback and representation 523.1.9 Personal and academic records 533.1.10 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) visit 53

3.2 Facilities at Plymouth University 543.2.1 Inductions at Plymouth University 543.2.2 Plymouth University Library 543.2.3 Pastoral care, counselling and other support 543.2.4 English language and international student support 543.2.5 Support to disabled students 54

3.3 Student Support at the College 553.3.1 Induction 553.3.2 Postgraduate Quality Coordinator 553.3.3 Postgraduate support volunteer 553.3.4 Tutorial support 563.3.5 Support for disabled students 563.3.6 Food and accommodation at Schumacher College 563.3.6.1 Fully residential: £285 per week 573.3.6.2 Off-site: £100 per week 573.3.6.3 Christmas and New Year 583.3.6.4 Staying on at the College beyond the end of the second term 58

3.4 Additional information for students 593.4.1 Students coming from outside the UK 593.4.2 Immigration and visas 593.4.3 Working in the UK 593.4.4 Medical and dental care 603.4.5 Insurance 603.4.6 Climate 603.4.7 Pre-departure checklist 603.4.8 Travelling to Schumacher College 613.4.9 Finances and course fees 2014/15 623.4.9.1 Payment to Schumacher College 633.4.9.2 Money and insurance 643.4.10 Registering with the police 64

Appendix A: Dissertation Guidelines 66

A.1 Introduction 66A.2 General guidance 66A.3 Dissertation supervision guidelines 66

A.3.1 Dissertation Primary and Secondary Supervisors 67A.4 Ethical approval 68A.5 Application for ethical approval of research: postgraduate dissertations 70A.6 Guidelines for the production and submission of dissertations 71

A.6.1 The dissertation 71A.6.2 Submission 73

A.7 Indicative Dissertation Calendar 74


Foreword from the Head of CollegeUseful Contact DetailsMap

Foreword

Welcome to Schumacher College, an international centre for ecological studies, social action and transformative learning.

In a complex and chaotic world we create a transformative environment for reflection, learning and practice. We are all peers within the College’s learning community that is in service of society and the living planet. You are joining a global family of thousands who have passed through the College over the past 24 years, and a wider network of like-minded individuals and organisations.

We are especially pleased that you are joining us for what will be the College’s 25th birthday in 2015. Coinciding with this celebration we will be launching our Ecological Design Thinking postgraduate programme, as well as opening the Elmhirst Programme for Soul, Spirit and Story at Dartington Hall.

The College was co-founded by Satish Kumar and others with the foresight and support of Dartington, a pioneering charity for resilient communities established in the 1920s. We are rooted in place, we draw inspiration from our surroundings and we participate - though activities and research - with communities of place and interest to create a more sustainable future.

I look forward to getting to know you over the coming year.

Jon RaeHead of College

1. About Schumacher College

Useful Contact Details

Schumacher CollegeThe Old PosternDartingtonTotnesDevon TQ9 6EA

Reception Office telephone number:++ 44 (0)1803 865934

Eilish Alldread, Dartington Hall accounts++ 44 (0)1803 847045

(The 0 in brackets is not required when calling from outside the UK.)

Eilish Alldread, Accounts:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

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1.1 History of the College and of the Dartington Hall Trust

Schumacher College was founded by the Dartington Hall Trust with the vision of Satish Kumar and others in 1991 as a radical experiment in holistic, experiential education. It is located at The Old Postern - a medieval building much loved for its character and history – built in the 15th century as a parsonage, and re modelled on a number of occasions through the centuries.

This College forms part of a long and distinguished heritage of radical experimentation within the Dartington Hall Trust, of which it forms a part. The Trust was founded in 1925 by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, inspired by the work of the Indian poet, educationalist, social reformer and Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. They bought and rehabilitated the 1,300 acre Dartington estate in order to develop and demonstrate models for rural regeneration through diverse economic, educational and artistic activity.

Among the many initiatives pioneered by the Trust over the years was the Dartington Hall School, one of the first progressive schools in the UK, in which local children and those from a wide variety of countries and backgrounds were educated together in an atmosphere of free inquiry. The School was closed in the 1980s, but forms an important part of the intellectual legacy upon which Schumacher College is built.

Today, the Trust continues to be a centre of experimentation and runs a range of activities under its three core programme areas, Sustainability, Social Justice and the Arts. These include a conference centre based in the medieval courtyard; the Social Justice Research Centre; Dartington Space, which provides studio facilities for artists and musicians; a community radio station, Soundart; the Barn cinema; an organic market garden; and an experimental agro-forestry site located behind the College. There are a number of Tenants in buildings on the Estate including Park School, a small primary school based on experiential and environmental educational principles.

The Trust has recently undertaken a Land Use Review that explores how the estate can evolve to remain relevant to the emerging needs and challenges of today’s world. Among the policy directions included in the Review are the adoption of low-carbon and organic approaches to farming and a developing relationship with Transition Town Totnes aimed at exploring how the estate can support the transition to a resilient, low-carbon local economy. These proposals include an expansion of land available to Schumacher College for practical training and applied research.

Further information on the Trust and its activities is available at the Dartington Welcome Centre and on the Dartington website www.dartington.org.uk

“It was an act of faith to take over an old estate and transform it into an active centre of life. And life with many facets. For it was never intended to make Dartington an economic experiment, merely concentrating on farming and forestry and rural industry. From the beginning, we envisaged something more – a place where education could be continuously carried on and where the Arts could become an integral part of the life of the whole place. We believed that not only should we provide for the material wellbeing of people here but for their cultural and social needs as well…. Another essential was the need for beauty that should become our daily bread…” Dorothy Elmhirst

http://www.dartington.org.uk


1.2 Teaching and learning ethic at the College

Schumacher College has over the last 24 years developed a distinctively transformative educational model. With a focus on interactive, experiential and participatory learning, the College offers the practical skills and strategic thinking required to face the ecological, economic and social challenges of the 21st century. This involves providing stimulation for ‘head, heart and hands’, giving students the opportunity to engage in many activities in addition to participating in classroom sessions – gardening, cooking, cleaning, washing up, as well as artistic and creative activities. Our experience with this model of holistic education is that students tend to dive deeper, experience a more profound transformation and have greater recall of the new models and insights they gather along the way.

Key elements of the pedagogical approach include:

• community living and working within the residential setting of Schumacher College and the wider Dartington Estate

• acknowledging and developing the whole person - intellectual, emotional, ethical, and practical • valuing trans-disciplinary approaches and different types of knowledge (analytical, intuitive, sensory

perception, emotions and feelings)• emphasising embodiment of new learning and of practical action in the students’ own lives • providing a range of teaching and learning methods and styles , including lectures and seminars, participatory

and experiential sessions and reflective inquiry

The College attracts participants, teachers and practitioners from all over the world and this international flavour has always been an important element of the Schumacher experience.

“Schumacher College has created a unique learning environment where discussions take place in an atmosphere that is intellectually very intense and challenging, but is emotionally very safe. When I teach at the College, I feel almost like being among family, and this strong feeling of community emerges after being together for not more than a week or so. To most scholars such a situation is extremely attractive. For we who teach here this is a unique place to examine our work in depth and to try out new ideas in a safe environment”.Fritjof Capra Author of The Web of Life, Flamingo, London

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1.3 Programmes and other educational offerings

1.3.1 Postgraduate programmes

The College is undergoing an expansion in the number and range of postgraduate programmes on offer. From 1998 until 2011, the only accredited postgraduate programme offered by Schumacher College was its celebrated MSc Holistic Science. This begins from the premise that nature is our teacher and offers an immersion in systems, complexity and chaos theory, eco-psychology and the science of qualities. It provides an opportunity to look beyond the limits of traditional science in addressing today’s ecological and social problems. Beginning in 2012-13, a Postgraduate Certificate in Holistic Science is also offered together with the possibility of studying the Masters programme on a part-time basis. http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/msc-holistic-science

From 2011-12, a second postgraduate programme came on stream, Economics for Transition: Achieving low carbon, high wellbeing, resilient economies – available both as a full-time and part-time course. This programme too posits that nature is our primary teacher, looking to complexity and Gaian science for design principles on which to model and co-create our societies, economies, organisations and enterprises. It offers the opportunity to learn from cutting-edge thinkers, practitioners and activists who are making economic transformation a global reality. From 2012-13, a postgraduate certificate award in Economics for Transition is also on offer.http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/ma-in-economics-for-transition

Academic year 2012/13 saw the launch of a third postgraduate programme, Sustainable Horticulture and Food Production: Growing low-input, diverse and resilient food systems. This programme brings together thinking, research and practice at the cutting-edge of today’s global food revolution. Drawing from many different projects and schools of thought around the world, it explores how we can work with nature and biological cycles to feed our growing populations while remaining within the carrying capacity of our ecosystems. Masters, Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Certificate awards are offered. The former two awards are available on either a full-time or part-time basis. The Postgraduate Certificate is available only as a full-time course. The college has decided not to run the programme in 2015 due to changes in faculty staff; Dr. Jane Pickard is returning to Australia for family reasons and Bethan Stagg will be on maternity leave for 9 months. Given our desire to ensure the quality and ethos of the programme, this will allow us to develop and integrate the new faculty staff team, for a return in 2016.http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/msc-sustainable-horticulture-and-food-production

In January 2015 our fourth postgraduate programme will be introduced, Ecological Design Thinking. For a world that is facing unprecedented challenges we need radical approaches to the way we think about and apply our designs to the systems around us. This new programme from Schumacher College explores how Ecological Design Thinking can be used to create healthy systems and the conditions in which we can all live well. It offers a new framework for the ecological design of systems that is fit for the many challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century. The programme has been developed with the School of Architecture, Design and Environment at Plymouth University, with insights from many including the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University.http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/ecological-design-thinking


1.3.2 Vocational programmes

The College runs a suite of vocational programmes. This year we are running:

The Right Livelihood Programme (starts November 2014) A year-long programme with residential retreats in UK and Bhutan with facilitated online learning – aimed at helping people develop pathways and plans to finding more fulfilling work and life opportunities aligned with their deep values and a sense of greater purpose.

The Call of the Wild, in association with WildWise (starts March 2015)An eight month course running one weekend per month for people who want to work with different client groups in connecting people back to the wild.

Sustainable Horticulture Apprenticeships (starts April 2015)A six month programme led by our garden team giving people the skills and design practice to grow their own food in a sustainable manner.

The Craft Revolution Apprenticeships (starts April 2015)A six month programme aimed at people wanting to live a more ‘handmade’ life – working alongside local makers using local materials.

1.3.3 Short courses

From the outset, Schumacher College has run a full and diverse programme of short courses throughout the year, bringing to Dartington a generation of internationally renowned and respected intellectual pioneers, including James Lovelock, Fritjof Capra, Paul Hawken, Gunter Pauli, Rupert Sheldrake, Meg Wheatley, Arne Naess, Vandana Shiva and many others. In an important sense, Schumacher College can be said to have helped propel such figures to international recognition, being among the first educational centres to provide a platform for such innovative, ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking.

Courses last for between four days and three weeks and cover a wide variety of topics, reflecting the proud inter-disciplinary heritage of Schumacher College. Participants on a course exploring Gaian science, for example, can find themselves sharing a dinner table with those on another course diving into re-imagining the design of our money systems or exploring how natural design principles could inform the evolution of technology or organisational forms. It is precisely in such fresh and unexpected meetings of minds that much of the charm and transformative power of the Schumacher model resides.

January 2015 will see an exciting new development in our short course offering; the College will launch a new year-round short course series entitled the Elmhirst Programme: Soul, Society and Story, which will be located in the Elmhirst Centre at Dartington Hall. It will draw on the great religions, the spiritual practices and indigenous wisdoms of our world to explore and nourish the depths of our own lives, livelihoods and our inter-dependence. The Elmhirst Programme will host an exceptional scholar, practitioner or artist for up to three-months to contribute to and help hold the Programme. Run along the same principles of the Old Postern, the space at the Elmhirst Centre will be available for quiet study and reflection for all within the broader learning community of the College.

Details of upcoming short courses can be found here http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses

1.3.4 Worldwide Learning

Our world-wide learning courses integrate cutting edge interactive e-learning technology with facilitated residential intensives to integrate both a high academic standard and deep experience learning. The integration of e-learning with intensive residentials we call ‘blended’ learning.

In May 2012, ten students in Kyrgyzstan started the first blended learning course in Holistic Science and Alternative Development, a six-month introduction to holistic science, sustainability and resilience thinking, and economic development for wellbeing. This was a mixed programme of reading, audio and video resources, forum discussions and online lectures. Locally, students were hosted and taught by two graduates of the MSc Holistic Science programme.

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This pilot course was the start of our World-Wide Learning programme. Since then, the course has developed into the Certificate in Holistic Science and Economics for Transition, drawing on elements of these two postgraduate programmes. The Certificate was first offered in Columbia in 2013 and will run again in Columbia and Iberia in 2014-2015. In the future, we hope to expand the Schumacher Certificate into other subject areas and offer it in a wider range of countries. As part of Worldwide Learning we are also offering courses in collaboration with international partners. For example, the Schumacher Ireland Summer School has been run in collaboration with Queens University Belfast since 2012. In 2014-15 we are piloting a one year programme in Right Livelihood in collaboration with the Centre for Gross National Happiness in Bhutan. At the postgraduate level, we are exploring collaborations with University partners in a number of different countries.

Further information on Schumacher College’s World-Wide Learning Programme can be found here:http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/world-wide-learning-courses

1.3.5 Open Evenings and Earth Talks

On mid-week evenings, the College often opens its doors to the public for talks and presentations. Earth Talks are generally offered by guest presenters at the College who are teaching on short courses. In some cases, especially where speakers have a strong international profile, the talks are transferred from the College to the Great Hall at Dartington.

Details of Open Evenings, Earth Talks and other events can be found here: http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/community/events

1.4 The Schumacher College Community

Schumacher College is not just an academic institution. It is a community where people live, work, come to learn and be part of a greater field of change. Throughout the year, present at the College are members of staff, students, helpers, visiting teachers, short-course participants and occasional visitors.

StaffSchumacher College today has around 20 staff members, many of whom are part-time or share jobs. Pictures and background information about our staff team can be found here http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/staff/details

Residential studentsIn 2014/15 Schumacher College will be hosting two groups of postgraduate students in the first term (Holistic Science and Economics for Transition) and a third group (Ecological Design Thinking) in the second term. Throughout the year students on the longer courses are joined by up to 25 participants on the short course programme, which can be for between four days and three weeks. Short course participants, their facilitators and teachers, provide critical flow through the College of nourishing trans-disciplinary dialogue, insight and community life. Knowing the diversity of people that the College tends to attract, this guarantees a rich pool of wisdom, talent, support - and good times!

Short course participants are also resident at the College, albeit for one, two or three weeks at a time. They form part of the community while at the College and join in with the daily cooking, cleaning and gardening rotas.

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/community/events


Resident volunteersAt any time at the College there is a resident team of four to six short-term volunteers. Volunteers have previously attended courses at Schumacher College and return to assist with the day-to-day running of the College and to support and participate in the learning community. Most volunteers stay for a period of between two weeks and three months. Generally, there are in addition at least two Senior Volunteers who stay for longer periods to share their experience and provide continuity. Volunteers are an integral and vital part of the College community and without them the College would not operate as well or have the same feel. Some of them work on their own private study or research in addition to their work at the College. The College also hosts seasonal WWOOFers (willing workers on organic farms).

One volunteer plays the role of Postgraduate Support Volunteer, with the role of providing ‘support to all the postgraduate students to help create healthy feedback processes, group dynamics, culture, and communication with others in the College and outside of the College’. More information on this role is provided in 3.3.3.

Visiting teachersThe postgraduate programmes and short courses play host to an array of mostly well-known visiting teachers, often visionary or radical thinkers in their fields. Regular, relaxed exposure to these teachers over the course of the day is one of the great delights of life at the College.

Non-residential studentsThe vocational courses are largely non-residential. Vocational students work in a number of places around the Dartington estate, the Craft Education building, the nearby School Farm, Dartington Hall gardens and the gardens surrounding Schumacher College.

VisitorsOthers occasionally resident in the College for short periods may include past students or staff conducting their own research, writing a book and/or studying; potential collaborators exploring forging working links with the College; and formal guests of the College, or personal guests of students and other residents. We try to ensure that all visitors are introduced at the daily morning meeting.

Alumni and the Schumacher NetworkWhile they are not in residence in the College, it is worthwhile here to mention the College alumni, the many thousands of people who have passed through the College as postgraduate students, short course participants, course leaders and facilitators, and scholars. This is a powerful network of friends and allies around the world that constitute one of the College’s greatest assets. We keep in touch through social media and our monthly newsletter than goes to upwards of 8000 readers.

We have also been undertaking research to establish an on-line worldwide networking platform (the ‘Schumacher Network’). Once established, the ‘Schumacher Network’ will enable alumni to connect together across communities of place and communities of interest. We are planning to launch the first phase of the Schumacher Network in 2015.

The College also endeavours to continually forge working links with like-minded organisations both in our backyard and around the world. Within our own bioregion, these include the new economics foundation (nef), Transition Town Totnes (TTT), the Transition Network (TN), the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), the Eden Project, Duchy College and Resurgence Magazine. There are also a number of institutions around the world with whom we are exploring the establishment of formal relationships with a view to making the Schumacher College educational model more widely accessible internationally. This work is being led by our College faculty member, Julie Richardson.

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1.5 Educational facilities at the College

1.5.1 Classrooms, library and study rooms

The College will provide a dedicated teaching room for each of the postgraduate programmes. The Postgraduate Horticulture classroom is also an equipped field ecology laboratory. In addition to these spaces, the library, the television-room, the computer room and the students’ bedrooms are available for private study. Our future plans include more rooms for study in the Elmhirst Centre.

The College is equipped with a well-stocked library, including titles in the fields of ecology, complexity science, environmental and ecological economics, Buddhist economics, political theory, holistic science, philosophy, religion and ethics. It also holds various journals and a broad selection of papers written by visiting teachers and participants. There is a large number of videos and DVDs with lectures and interviews of visiting teachers. The College is working on digitising this audio-video material.

Students also have access to the facilities of Plymouth University, details of which can be found in section 3.2.

1.5.2 IT and technical support

ComputersIt is more or less essential for each student to bring a computer on which they can store learning resources and complete writing projects. There are various computers in classrooms for students to use when their laptop is not to hand, or when printing. There are also classroom laptops and data projectors for presenters to use. Support is available at the College to connect personal computers to our network.

InternetStudents have access to the internet via the Dartington Guest Network, for which a login code is given on arrival at the college. This code allows 2 devices to connect at any given time. All internet use is passively monitored. Wifi connectivity extends throughout most areas of the College, as well as Dartington Hall and other locations on the Dartington Estate.

Student File ServerA local network file server stores a wide range of relevant resources, including documents from past courses, audiovisual materials and informal personal storage. It is accessible from all College workstations, and from personal computers via wifi, for which instructions will be given during the College induction. This local file server is in addition to the online VLE service, and is not accessible from outside the College.

Online student resourcesMany resources specific to each postgraduate programme will be provided online, either through the College website, or via the VLE online learning platform. A full briefing on accessing online materials will be provided at the beginning of the academic year as part of the student induction, during which students will be enabled to join all College online platforms and services.

Printer & photocopier A versatile photocopier/printer is available to students on the College network. Postgraduate students are given their own printing/copying accounts. Students can print from public computers or from their own laptops via wifi, for which a software setup is needed. It is also possible to scan documents to a USB stick.


1.6 Facilities for convivial living

1.6.1 The College and gardens

The Old Postern is the original home of Schumacher College. It houses some of the teaching rooms, the kitchen and dining room, tea and coffee area, College library, TV room, meditation room, the Scholars Flat and a number of the staff offices. The adjacent Linhay building is currently being used for apple juice production and storage. The buildings are surrounded by gardens, woodland and a horticultural area and are adjacent to an Agro Forestry Research Centre.

The three accommodation blocks (Northwoods, Hawthorns and Centries) are more modern buildings that provide simple and comfortable accommodation for postgraduate students, short-course participants, helpers and resident staff. This accommodation has been supplemented over the past few years by similar bedrooms located by Dartington Hall in the Higher Closer building. At either location, each room has a bed, work desk and desk-lamp, a chair, a wardrobe and a bedside table. Linen and towels are provided, as are extra blankets. There is a washbasin in each room, with communal toilets, showers and bath facilities on each floor of each accommodation block.

There are a number of other buildings on the site that are used for teaching and office space. These include the former Craft Education Centre and the Chicken Shed.

The College’s five acres of grounds constitute a diverse mosaic of flower borders and ‘edible landscapes’, forest gardens, a labyrinth, herb garden, composting scheme, compost toilet, and a kitchen garden with polytunnels. In the autumn of 2014 the College will take on an additional 5 acres. Wild inhabitants of the Gardens include about forty bird species, breeding grass snakes, slow worms, badgers, foxes, ground beetles and three bumblebee species.

The College has managed the grounds since 2007, with the help of our horticulture students, apprentices, volunteers and residential workgroups. Food production in the gardens explore agro-ecological techniques that bring into balance poly-cultures, periennial planting and minimum tillage annual production The gardens provide up to about 10% of the catering food requirements, including salad, leaf greens soft fruit with aspirations to do much more. The Forest Gardens produce about thirty different herb species for lunchtime salads in spring.

Grounds maintenance is based on organic principles, which leads to the grounds looking wilder than in a formal garden setting. These wilder areas provide a variety of habitats, including scrub for nesting birds, foraging for birds and insects in the forest gardens and hedgerows, wildflower meadow and flower nectar sources for pollinators, habitat piles and long grass for invertebrate nesting. The forest gardens (based on the pioneering work by Martin Crawford, who has a large established forest garden adjacent to the college) contain over one hundred species with edible or other use, far more than a vegetable garden or orchard.

Close to the Craft Education building a new garden is taking shape, including polytunnels for horticultural student research, a new kitchen garden area, a research plot focussed on perennial cropping and a greenhouse with heated propagation.

The Elmhirst Centre located next to Dartington Hall is home to the College’s Elmhirst Programme for Soul, Spirit and Story. Here are quiet study and reflective spaces that postgraduate students can use whilst remaining respectful for its role on the short course programme.

1.6.2 Food and the Schumacher kitchen

“Eating – be it breakfast, lunch tea or supper – is not just a matter of being grateful for whatever you are given and making sure you eat it all up. It is a dynamic act. Not only does what you eat become the very stuff of you; now, more than ever before, thousands of diverse economic, social and technological influences, feeding in from all over the world, affect how the food arrives on your plate, in what form, where from and at what ecological expense. As a consumer, you have the power to feed back into this stream of influence by actively making decisions about what you eat and where it comes from. Thus eating becomes not only a statement of philosophy but a politically charged act.” Julia Ponsonby (Schumacher College chef), Gaia’s Kitchen: Vegetarian recipes for family & community

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We take food very seriously at the College. How we source ingredients, prepare meals and share the gift of good food together is considered no less important in the life and consciousness of the learning community than what happens in the classroom. Indeed they are seen as being complementary. The kitchen is a hub of creativity and fun where feasts are conceived and created.

Ingredients are, where possible, organic and local. We bake our own organic bread daily, buy regional organic cheeses and make every effort to support local growers and producers. There is a growing tendency within the College to eat with the seasons, to reach out into nature’s larder as it surrounds us. In the case of exotic food products, we buy fairly traded goods where possible.

The diet at the College is entirely vegetarian and we ask students not to keep any meat or fish products in the college fridges, within the Old Postern or student accommodation blocks.

There are four main reasons for adopting a vegetarian diet within the College:• Moral/spiritual: we object to the inhumane way animals are treated in many

factory farms and honour the traditions that wish to affirm the sacredness of life by avoiding the slaughtering of innocent animals to indulge our own appetites

• Ecological: we recognise that the ecological crisis is amplified by the large amount of land devoted to growing food for use as animal feed, and grazing beef cattle, and that over-fishing is a serious problem. A vegetarian diet is ten times more efficient in energy and resource use, and therefore minimizes the college’s ‘footprint’

• Health: a balanced, varied, unprocessed, additive-free lacto-vegetarian diet has been found to be particularly healthy and to promote longevity

• Practical: as an institution we are bound to comply with health and safety regulations and undergo regular inspections. Serving vegetarian food only makes us a low-risk venue from the environmental health inspector’s point of view and allows us to include all our students in the preparation of food without training. In fostering this participatory aspect of cooking, we open the doors to a healthy serving of playfulness, and fun in the kitchen - which in turn reinforces the teambuilding that comes when the essential task of feeding the college community together is accomplished.

1.6.3 Meditation and craft rooms

There is a meditation room on the ground floor of the Old Postern. This is available for optional meditation sittings in the morning at 7.15am or at any other point in the day. The craft room has paints, papier-mâché equipment and other craft materials. Students are free to use these facilities at any time. The College occasionally hosts an artist in residence who has use of the craft room and can offer art workshops.

1.6.4 Guest policy

There are many people who wish to visit Schumacher College. We try to ensure that there are never so many visitors that the programmes running are in any way disturbed. If you wish to invite anyone to the College, please note the following guidelines:

• Visiting times. Guests may visit residents at the weekends, but preferably not during the week. However, if a guest does come during weekdays, it is important that they do not interfere in any way with College activities, so that the integrity and intimacy of the course experience is respected. Any guest visits, either at weekends or during the week, must be agreed beforehand with the College

• Privacy. Your guests should be entirely in your care, so that other residents are not imposed upon

• Course sessions and library. Your guests may not have access to course sessions or to the library, but are welcome to Open Evenings and earth talks.


• Meals. Please check with the kitchen staff that there is space for your guest(s) before issuing an invitation for a meal. You then pay the Operations Manager for any guests you have for lunch or supper. On occasion, it may not be possible to provide your guest(s) with a meal

• Overnight guests. All accommodation and meals must be paid to the Operations Manager at the reception office. Prices are as follows:

– guest(s) in their own room: £25 per person bed & breakfast plus £5 for each lunch and/or supper

– guest in student’s room: £10 bed & breakfast plus £5 for each lunch and/or supper

1.6.5 Miscellaneous

TelephoneIf pre-arranged with a caller, Incoming personal calls to you are best received on +44 (0) 1803 847223. This telephone sits in the Photocopier room within the Old Postern. Outgoing calls can be made on this phone using a phone account which dials into a UK free number first (phone card). Calls to Totnes and Plymouth are free.

The College administration number +44 (0) 1803 865934 will only be able to handle emergency messages.

Mobile PhonesReception for mobile phones at Schumacher College is not very good for some networks. The recommended networks for the accommodation blocks are 02, Orange and T-Mobile. You are asked not to use mobile phones in places where other residents may be disturbed, especially in the main College buildings and in other communal areas.

ParkingCar parks are located by the main entrance, and behind the Craft Education Centre, adjacent to the College. Please do not park in the courtyard. Students with a car will need to display a free parking permit at all times. These should be collected immediately on arrival to avoid incurring a parking fine.

PostPost is delivered to and collected from the reception office every week day except public holidays.

NewspapersNational newspapers are delivered to the dining area for communal use every morning.

LaundryLinen and towels are provided and can be changed from the clean stock at the College as needed. For personal laundry, washing, drying and ironing facilities are available.

BarThe College bar, The Edge of Chaos, is generally open after evening meetings (only during short courses) on demand, and closes at 11 pm. There are also local pubs within easy walking distance.

SmokingThere is no smoking in any of the College buildings.

InsurancePlease note that we cannot take responsibility for the safety of personal possessions whilst you are at the College. You may wish to take out your own insurance for personal belongings. However, the security record of the College has been more or less without incident in the past. You may also consider buying the following insurance:

• Travel or cancellation insurance in case you have to cancel flights or parts of the programme due to illness or other unfortunate events;

• Private healthcare insurance (although you will also be covered by NHS services in the UK)

Student Rail CardBeing registered with the Plymouth University entitles students to a student rail card, which entitles the holder to one-third off most off-peak rail travel within the UK. Application forms are available from all railway stations and a stock is also held by the Postgraduate Programmes Manager. This will need to be stamped with the College stamp and authenticated by a College official.

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W e l c o m e letter from the e c o n o m i c s faculty

Dear Participant,

Welcome to the third year of our postgraduate programme Economics for Transition: Achieving low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies. This is the world’s only postgraduate economics programme that begins with an immersion in Gaian science and complexity theory, asking how we can re-make our economies so as to be in alignment with the design principles of healthy living systems. This is an enormously exciting and innovative field of enquiry, arguably the most important single research question facing our species at this remarkable moment in our planetary journey.

As the world struggles to recover from the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, never has there been a more important time for a new approach to economics. Over the past two decades, key thinkers and practitioners have been developing alternative ways forward that once were dismissed as radical and marginal, but now are fast moving centre stage.

E.F. Schumacher was one of these foresighted pioneers who in 1973 laid out a new approach to economics that put values and compassion, people and planet at the centre of the ideal economic system. To this day, Schumacher is known as the grandfather of new economics and his work has inspired a whole generation of practising economists and environmental and social activists ever since. As the triple crises of climate change, peak oil and financial meltdown converge, now is the time to make visible these achievements, learn from what works and what doesn’t, re-write economic theory from the bottom up and accelerate the great transition towards low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies.

For over 20 years, Schumacher College has been pioneering radical new thinking in economics, attracting participants and inspirational teachers from around the globe. Now we are collaborating with the Plymouth Graduate School of Management, the new economics foundation and the Transition Network to offer a postgraduate programme in economics. The aim is no less than to inspire, skill and support a new generation of leaders and activists to drive the creation of an economy fit for the challenges of the 21st century.

Jonathan Dawson, Tim Crabtree and Julie Richardson will jointly lead the programme inviting in a wide range of experts, activists and academics as visiting teachers. We will be there to support your learning journey and will be working with you to ensure this pioneering programme meets your aspirations and helps create a platform for your ongoing life journey as an effective and empowered change agent.

Good luck and we very much look forward to sharing this learning journey with you.

Jonathan Dawson, Tim Crabtree and Julie RichardsonCore Faculty of the Economics for Transition programme

2. Postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition: Achieving low carbon, high wellbeing, resilient economies

Including: MA Economics for Transition Postgraduate Certificate Economics for Transition

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2.1 Introduction to the programme

The postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition is about creating an economic system fit for the ecological, social, economic and ethical challenges of the 21st century as we make the great transition to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies.

The challenges facing society that this programme will address include: • the triple crunch of climate change, financial crises and ecological limits to

growth; • the crises in ecosystem health and social well-being across the globe; and• the inter-connected nature of these crises and how they are systemically linked

with today’s dominant global economic model.

In exploring these challenges, the course will offer significant opportunities for the identification and development of strategies for transformation and sustainable change. The philosophy and ethos of the programme is rooted in an ecological and systemic approach within the unique holistic learning model of Schumacher College. It provides a rigorous critique of the current economic growth model from alternative schools of economic thought and explores practical, solutions-orientated pathways to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies.

The programme is designed to support a new generation of leaders and activists to co-create the new economy. It will support people at different stages in their life seeking to make a positive contribution to the transition through enhancing their knowledge of economics; helping them acquire practical skills for sustainable living, working and ecological citizenship; and providing them with an opportunity to share experiences with people from the global North and South.


2.2 Programme associates

The postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition was developed and is offered in association with the new economics foundation (nef), the Transition Network (TN) and the Plymouth Graduate School of Management. This collaborative structure provides students with a unique opportunity to study with leading thinkers and academics, activists and practitioners in the field from a range of different perspectives.

Schumacher College http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/ Schumacher College has 24 years of experience in transformational education and the postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition builds on the foundations laid by the internationally renowned short course programme and postgraduate programme in Holistic Science.

Jonathan Dawson, Tim Crabtree and Julie Richardson will lead and coordinate the programme from Schumacher College and will also teach on the core and some of the elective modules along with a wide range of visiting teachers. Other members of the Schumacher College faculty who will teach on the programme are Stephan Harding, Philip Franses, Patricia Shaw and Satish Kumar. (Details on the backgrounds and areas of specialisation of all faculty and visiting lecturers can be found in section 2.5)

Plymouth University http://www5.plymouth.ac.ukThe postgraduate programmes in Economics for Transition are accredited by Plymouth University, which has a focus on ethical business and social enterprise and has embedded sustainability across its operations. Plymouth University is one of the leading modern universities in the UK, ranked in the top seven institutions under the age of 50 by Times Higher Education. Awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2012 for marine and maritime teaching and research, has won numerous awards and accolades, and is the only university in the world to be awarded the Social Enterprise Mark. Our 30,000 students, which include those at Plymouth University’s partner colleges across the South West, are enrolled on courses from farming to pharmacy, business to biology, and design to dentistry. And the 12,000 paid internships provided every year for its students is just one of the many ways that Plymouth University helps them to develop new skills and graduate ready-for-work. Plymouth University has invested more than £150 million in its campus over the past seven years and is the first modern university to launch a medical school. And through its £100 million network of support facilities and services, Plymouth University is growing hundreds of businesses across the region and beyond. Plymouth University leads on and provides support and supervision for the dissertation that forms part of the MA Economics for Transition programme. This includes guidance on choosing and planning your dissertation; workshops on research methods related to the dissertation; and identifying suitable supervisors from the Plymouth Graduate School of Management (http://www5.plymouth.ac.uk/schools/pgsm) and other departments at the University, as appropriate. Derek Shepherd is the Plymouth University Link Tutor for the programme and is responsible for the support and supervision of the dissertation.

new economics foundation www.neweconomics.org/ The new economics foundation is a member of the Schumacher Circle, which is a network of organisations inspired by the work of E.F. Schumacher. nef is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being. nef was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES), which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G7 and G8 summits. Over the last 25 years, nef has aimed to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues.

nef combines rigorous analysis and policy debate with practical solutions on the ground towards increased well-being and environmental sustainability. It works with all sections of society in the UK and internationally to create more understanding of the new economics and to develop strategies for desirable change. nef’s current projects include The Great Transition, The Green New Deal and the Happy Planet Index.

Core staff and fellows of nef have been involved with co-designing the programme and will provide a number of the key teachers, including, David Boyle, Anna Coote and Tony Greenham.

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/

http://www.neweconomics.org/

http://www.neweconomics.org/

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Transition NetworkTransition Town Totnes, located just two miles from Schumacher College, was the first Transition Town in what is today a rapidly growing international movement. Pioneers from TTT regularly visit the College and have taught on short courses and the postgraduate programmes. As the Transition movement has spread throughout the UK, Europe and far beyond, the Transition Network (TN) has emerged as a growing social movement supporting communities worldwide to develop and implement action plans towards becoming low carbon and resilient communities, organisations and businesses.

Sophy Banks and Rob Hopkins, both of whom will teach on the course, are co-founders of Transition Town Totnes. Sophy co-developed and delivers Transition Training all over the world to inspire, instruct, and facilitate participants to create Transition initiatives. A number of other people involved in the Transition initiative will also teach on the programme.

2.3 Programme overview

2.3.1 Programme aims and learning outcomes

The main aims of the postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition are:• To develop knowledge and reflective understanding of transition pathways to

low-carbon, high well-being and resilient economies; • To acknowledge and develop the whole person as a participant in co-creating

these transition pathways; • To develop and enhance the individual’s cognitive/intellectual skills, key

transferable skills and practical skills for sustainable living, working and ecological citizenship.

In order to achieve these aims, the programme has developed specific learning outcomes, which are covered in more detail in the module descriptions in section 2.4.

2.3.2 The postgraduate learning journey

In keeping with the holistic learning ethic at Schumacher College, students are encouraged to explore not only new intellectual concepts and models but also, and in parallel, to embark on an inner journey of transition. This involves explorations on two levels. The first is an investigation into how existing belief systems and worldviews are challenged by the experience of being a member of the learning community at Schumacher College. In many cases, this involves a (not always comfortable!) process of ‘unlearning’ previous belief systems to make way for the new.

The second involves the creation of a personal transition plan. The aim of this exploration is to arrive at greater clarity about where and how the students can be of greatest service in their work, contributing their gifts to the maximum. This journey involves an exploration of areas of dissonance between values, lifestyle and the paths that the students have chosen in their lives to date.

A variety of tools will be placed at the disposal of the students to help them synthesise their outer and inner journeys of transition. These include tools for reflective practice and action, sessions exploring various modes of learning (analytical, sensory, emotional, and intuitive), and creative, artistic and experiential ways of working and playing.

An overview of learning and teaching methods employed on the programme is provided in the following table overleaf...


Teaching & Learning Methods

Description, Rationale and Examples

Presentations Presentations by faculty and visiting teachers provide students with knowledge, theories and methodologies from experts in the field. These are supplemented with reading lists and audiovisual materials.

Workshops Workshops provide a forum for discussion, role-play, peer-to-peer learning and team working. Students work with conflicting ideas and build confidence and skills in group facilitation and presentation.

Seminars Students present their own work with the support of the group. Encourages active learning and peer-to-peer learning.

Tutorials Individual tutorials allow students to discuss specific projects, respond to feedback and reflect on learning and practice.

Case Studies & Field Trips

Case studies in class and visits enable students to link theory to practice and work through examples.

Simulations, Exercises & Role Play

Encourages pro-active learning through experience; provides opportunities to link theory to practice and engage with different perspectives. Exercises develop skills in applying tools, methods and research methodologies.

Independent Study

Independent study and reading enables students to develop skills in working autonomously and to identify, plan and carry out a project.

Coursework, Research & Dissertation Feedback

Students are given the opportunity for individual feedback from tutors on drafts of essays and other work before submission for assessment. This enables students to respond to feedback, develop knowledge and critical skills; as well as refining communication skills.

Student presentations

Develops skills in communication, debate, dialogue and teamwork as well as providing opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and engaging with different perspectives.

Learning Journal Students keep a journal to relate learning to their own experience. Enables students to actively engage with the holistic learning model at Schumacher College (intellectual, emotional, ethical and practical).

Research Skills, Methods and Dissertation

Research methods and skills are taught as an integral part of the core taught modules. For example, ecological modelling and systems mapping (SCH501); scenario planning (SCH502) and simple macroeconomic modelling (SCH503).

The research methods workshops develop skills in research design, planning and implementation; presentation skills and report writing, bibliographic skills; management and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data with applications relevant to the Economics for Transition Dissertation.

Reflective Inquiry

Reflective inquiry learning sets encourage students to take ownership of learning and encourage continual cycles of reflection, refinement, action and experimentation.

Participatory Learning Methods

A wide range of methods (ranging from deep ecology exercises to open space group dynamics) are used to enable experiential and embodied learning and to link theory to practice.

Personal Transition Planning

Theoretical frameworks (such as the Max Neef Framework for Human Needs) and reflective inquiry methods enable students to reflect on their own values, purpose and behaviours and the role they can play in the new economy.

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2.3.3 Introduction to assessment methods & guidelines

Assessment is touched on elsewhere in this document. In 2.4, the assessment criteria specific to each module and the dissertation are described. Meanwhile, section 3.1 describes Plymouth University’s assessment policy and the rules governing the submission of assessment assignments. Here, a brief overview is provided to the ethic and practice of assessment relating to the economics programme.

A range of assessment methods has been devised to ensure that the learning outcomes of the programme are adequately assessed. These will include opportunities for formative assessment such as constructive feedback on drafts of assignments and peer-to-peer feedback on presentations.

As Schumacher College takes a holistic and transformative approach to learning, the postgraduate programme also encourages novel and holistic approaches to social scientific investigation and communication of the results. Students’ assessment assignments may take many forms and result in very different outcomes to traditional styles of research and reporting, especially as one of the aims of the programme includes developing reflective awareness of one’s own values, purpose and behaviours related to the economics of transition.

Therefore, assessment projects associated with both the core and elective modules and the dissertation may include alternative creative formats alongside those normally used in the social sciences. These may include personal narrative and experimental material woven into the written account of the investigation, such as documentaries or arts works.

Core and elective module assessmentAssessed assignments produced for the core and elective modules are marked by the Schumacher College faculty, and reviewed by the External Examiner. Key assessment methods include:

• Attendance: You are expected to attend all teaching sessions of the three core modules and two of the short-course electives.

• Projects / essays: For each core and elective module, students are expected to submit either a full academic essay (3,000 words), a shorter academic essay (1,000 words) together with an artistic project (such as a documentary), or a shorter academic essay (1,000 words) along with a formal presentation. In cases where artistic work is involved, it is a requirement that the students get the approval of faculty in advance and explain in their academic essay how this work relates to the learning outcomes of the module in question. In module 3, there is a smaller piece of assessed work involving group work and presentations.

Dissertation assessmentThe Dissertation module leader, Jonathan Dawson, will help you identify a Primary Dissertation Supervisor. This Supervisor may come from within the Schumacher College faculty, from Plymouth University or from some external university or organisation. All students will also have a Secondary Supervisor. Generally, students will look to their Primary Supervisor as principal source of advice and guidance, with the Secondary Supervisor playing a significantly lighter support role, often limited to marking the final dissertation and agreeing on a mark with the Primary Supervisor. Students are required to maintain close academic contact with their Primary Dissertation Supervisor through visits and/or email.


Supervisors will accept material on which to read/comment, up to Friday 26 June 2015. By this date, it is expected that you will have produced solid working drafts of your introduction, literature review, and methodology. After 26 June 2015, students will not be able to submit drafts of their work for comment. The Dissertation Guidelines document (appendix a - at the end of this handbook) will provide you with all that you need to be able to complete a successful dissertation.

After 26 June 2015, students are welcome to contact staff members for questions, but not to read and comment on specific material. In other words you will continue to have staff support/guidance and conversations on critical issues/questions, but it is up to you to write and present the final document.

Staff agree we need to be consistent in our approach, and even though we may be around in the summer, if a student asks, “Can you read this for me?” we have to say, “no”, as it would not be fair to other students.

This may seem strict. However, some institutions provide no reading of draft material at all for Masters dissertations. At others, it is true, supervisors will read material right up until the submission deadline. On the face of it, the latter may be more appealing to you as students. However, the problems with such an open-ended arrangement are threefold: i) there are discrepancies in how much individual staff members will comment and when they are available (especially given that many staff members take their holidays in the summer months); ii) this leads to some students being (dis)advantaged over others due to things such as staff leave/other commitments; and iii) as a professional qualification, at master’s level you are expected to undertake and produce your own work, not the work of your supervisor. We believe the following arrangements will provide you with a good level of support in consideration of the above three points.

The dissertation is marked by the Primary Dissertation Supervisor and by the Secondary Supervisor and is moderated by the External Examiner.

Full dissertation guidelines, including ethical principles for research involving human participants and guidelines for the production and submission of dissertations can be found in Appendix (a) at the back of this Handbook.

2.3.4 Programme structure

Curriculum outlineA summary of the structure of the programme is shown below.

Term 1: Core Modules

Term 2: ElectivesStudents select 2 from 3 electives

Term 3: Completion of Dissertation

SCH501 (20 credits)The Ecological Paradigm

SCH502 (20 credits)Emergence of the

New Economy

SCH503 (20 credits)New Economics in Practice

SCH504 (80 credits) Economics for Transition Dissertation

SCH5412 (20 credits) Sustainable Enterprise

SCH5405 (20 credits)Contemporary Issues in

Holistic Science

SCH5407 (20 credits)Ecophilosophy

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The Masters award is obtained by satisfactory completion of 180 Master-level credits, comprising the three core modules (20 credits each), two electives (20 credits each) and dissertation (80 credits).

The Postgraduate Certificate is obtained by satisfactory completion of the three core modules (60 credits).

Core modulesStudents follow the three modules indicated in the table above in the first term, including satisfactory completion of course assessments as described in section 2.4.1:

• SCH501: The Ecological Paradigm • SCH502: The Emergence of the New Economy • SCH503: New Economics in Practice

Elective modulesMasters students are required to choose two elective modules from the Schumacher College short-course programme. These modules are 20-credit, three-week residential courses in term two. The optional modules provide the opportunity to examine areas of interest in greater depth with specialist visiting teachers.

All of the elective modules are also open to the students taking the MSc Holistic Science at Schumacher College, as well as external short course participants. A cap of no more than 25 participants will be imposed for each of these electives, with a waiting list, organised on a first-come first- served basis.

The electives offered in the 2014/15 academic year are: • SCH5405: Contemporary Issues in Holistic Science• SCH5412: Sustainable Enterprise• SCH5407 Ecophilosophy

Students should be aware that in most cases, short courses are given a different and more specific name than the generic name provided above. So, in 2014/15:

• SCH5405 Contemporary Issues in Holistic Science will be delivered under the name Mind in Nature

• SCH5412 Sustainable Enterprise will be delivered under the name Enterprising Futures

• SCH5407 Ecophilosophy will be delivered under the name Drawing on Indigenous Wisdom

Further information about the Elective Modules can be found in section 2.4.2.

DissertationThe dissertation provides students with an opportunity to pursue their own in-depth research related to Economics for Transition. A two-week workshop in research methods will be offered at the beginning of term 2. Students are strongly advised to start thinking about their dissertation in the first term. This will enable work to start in the second term, with the final term fully dedicated to the dissertation.

More information on the dissertation project is provided in section 2.4.3 and in the Dissertation Guidelines, found in appendix (a) at the end of this handbook.


2.3.5 Timetable for programme and submission of assessment projects

A summary timetable for full-time students is given below. Detailed timetables for eachmodule will be distributed at the beginning of each module.

Core Modules• Thursday 28 August – Sunday, 31 August

Arrivals, settling in and Schumacher College induction for postgraduate students

• Monday 1 September – Saturday 6 SeptemberIntroductions to the course and to each other

• Monday 8 September - Friday 10 OctoberModule SCH501 – The Ecological Paradigm

• Monday 13 October – Friday 14 NovemberModule SCH502 – Emergence of the New Economy

• Monday 17 November – Friday 19 DecemberModule SCH503 – The New Economy in Practice

• Saturday 20 December – Saturday 3 January College closed for Christmas and New Year

Term 2The first two weeks of term 2 (Monday 5 January - Friday 16 January ) - will be given over to a two-week workshop on research methodologies to help prepare students for their dissertations.

Students select two from the following elective modules that will run in term 2. (All of these modules will be advertised to the public as short courses. A cap of 25 participants will be imposed on all electives].

• 19 January – 6 February 2015Module SCH5405: Contemporary Issues in Holistic Science (Mind in Nature)

• 16 February – 6 March 2015Module SCH5412: Sustainable Enterprise (Enterprising Futures)

• 16 March – 2 April 2015 Module SCH5407: Ecophilosophy (Drawing on Indigenous Wisdom)

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Timetable for Coursework AssessmentsThe postgraduate programme in Economics for Transition is 100% assessed by coursework. Students are strongly encouraged to submit a draft of their coursework for feedback by their relevant college faculty. To receive feedback, outlines and drafts must be submitted no later than one month in advance of the final submission date.

A summary of dates to hand in drafts and final course assessments is given below.

Module SCH501: • Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 10 October, 2014• Submit final version of project by 14 November, 2014

Module SCH502: • Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 14 November, 2014• Submit final version of project by 19 December, 2014

Module SCH503:• Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 19 December, 2014• Submit final version of project by 5 January, 2015

Elective SCH5412:• Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 13 February, 2015• Submit Assessed Project by 13 March, 2015

Elective SCH5405:• Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 13 March, 2015• Submit Assessed Project by 10 April, 2015

Elective SCH5407:• Submit draft project for tutor feedback by 17 April, 2015• Submit Assessed Project by 4 May, 2015

Final submissions need to be made via the virtual learning environment (VLE) no later than midday on the date specified above.

Dissertation timeline There will be two weeks of teaching on research methodologies in the social sciences at the beginning of term 2. This will include advice for students on the process for selecting and designing a suitable research topic for their dissertation. Students are required to submit a proposal outlining their project and proposed methodology no later than 2nd February 2015. This is both to encourage the students to begin early the process of selecting a dissertation topic and to enable the allocation of the most appropriate dissertation supervisors. The proposal is not formally assessed but does need to be approved by the leader of the Dissertation module; Ethical approval processes for research involving human participants will also be considered at this time.

Students are encouraged to select their own dissertation topic but can also draw from a communal pool of projects prepared in advance by the programme faculty. Examples of indicative dissertation topics include: developing quantitative and/or qualitative indicators of economic resilience; the application of concepts from complexity theory to business leadership; a documentary about the health of global financial markets based on a systems model; and an action research inquiry into setting up a local transition initiative.

Submit project proposal for tutor feedback 2 February 2015Submit completed dissertation 31 August 2015


2.4 Programme details

2.4.1 Core modules

The first full week at the College will be given over to induction of the students into the programme and life at the College. The rest of the first term will be divided into three core modules.

A detailed timetable, including session details, presenters and recommended resources for each module will be provided to students in advance of the module in question.

Module SCH501: The Ecological Paradigm

Module Teachers: Julie Richardson, Jonathan Dawson, Tim Crabtree, Satish Kumar, Sophy Banks, Stephan Harding, Philip Franses, Claudius Van Vyk and Tom Butterworth

Dates: Monday 8 September – Sunday 10 OctoberCredits: 20 (level 7)

AimsThis module aims to:

• Differentiate between different concepts of sustainability; • Apply principles from ecology and Gaia Theory, dynamic systems thinking and complexity science to socio-

economic systems illustrated with case studies; • Develop personal & group inquiry practices to raise awareness of the interdependent relationship between

the individual, society and nature & between theory, experience & practice.

Module and syllabus contentThis module explores the evolution of sustainability from Brundtland, to the triple bottom line, to the recent focus on ecological resilience. Students apply principles from ecology & contemporary science to the socio-economic domain and develop personal & group inquiry practices to raise awareness of the interdependent relationship between the individual, society and nature. Indicative syllabus content: evolution of the concept of sustainable development; overview of current sustainability challenges; key principles of the ecological paradigm drawn from ecology and systems thinking, chaos and complexity science, and Gaia Theory; applications and limitations of applying principles from whole systems science to the socio-economic domain; deep ecology, personal and group inquiry practices to explore the interdependence between self, society and nature.

Assessed learning outcomes At the end of a module you are expected to be able to:

• Critically analyse, compare and contrast theoretical approaches to sustainable development; • Demonstrate theoretical and experiential understanding of an ecological worldview drawn from systems

thinking, chaos and complexity science, ecology and Gaia Theory; • Apply holistic science theory to case study applications in the socio-economic domain;• Self-evaluate and reflect on own values and behaviours in order to improve professional and personal

awareness, practice and team work.

Assessment Criteria (Threshold Level) Students will:

• Be able to critically compare and contrast different approaches to sustainability; • Demonstrate understanding of an ecological world view;• Use case studies to demonstrate application of holistic science theory to the socio-economic domain; • Self-evaluate and reflect on own values and behaviours in order to improve professional and personal

awareness, practice and team work.

Assessment mode100% coursework comprising: Project: This can be an academic essay or an artistic project with an academic commentary (indicative weighting – 100%);

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Schedule of teaching and learning A mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, field trips, simulations, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, learning journal, participatory learning methods and personal development planning.

Recommended texts and sources • Capra F. and Luigi Luisi P. (2014) The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision.

Cambridge University Press. Chapter 16, The Ecological Dimensions of Life. pp 341 – 361

• Richardson J. et al, (2011) Resilient Economics in Harding S. (ed) Grow Small, Think Beautiful: Ideas for a Sustainable World from Schumacher College. Floris Books, Edinburgh, pp 155-173.

• Weber, A. ‘Enlivenment: Towards a fundamental shift in the concepts of nature, culture and politics’, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Ecology Series, Vol. 31 pages 11-28

• Walker B. and Salt D. (2006) Resilience Thinking. Island Press, Washington DC • Berkes F., Colding J. and Folke C. (2008) Navigating Social-Ecological Systems –

Building Resilience for Complexity and change, Cambridge University Press. • Gunderson L.H. and Holling C.S. (2002) Panarchy: Understanding Transformations

in Human and Natural Systems. Island Press, Washington DC • Stern N. (2006) Review on the Economics of Climate Change, [on-line] http://

www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm • Heinberg R. And Lerch D. (eds) (2010) The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the

21st Century Crises. Chapters 1,2,3,6 and 15. Watershed Media, California. • Capra F. (1997) The Web of Life, Flamingo, London • Harding S.P, (2009) Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia • Goodwin B. (2007) Nature’s Due: Healing Our Fragmented Culture, Floris Edinburgh • Lovelock J. (2000) Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine, Gaia Books. • Kauffman S. (1993) The Origins of Order. Oxford University Press. • Meadows D.H. (1997) Places to Intervene in a System. Whole Earth, • Arthur W.B. (1999) ‘Complexity and the Economy’. Science 284: 107-109. • Omerod P (1998) Butterfly Economics. Faber and Faber, London. • Oxfam (2011) A Safe and Just Space for Humanity: Can we live within the

doughnut?• http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-safe-and-just-space-for-

humanity-can-we-live-within-the-doughnut-210490 • Lent A. and Lockwood M (2010) Creative Destruction: Placing Innovation at the

Heart of Progressive Economics, IPPR, London • Beinhocker E. (2007) The Origin of Wealth – Evolution, Complexity and the

Radical Re-Making of Economics, Random House, London • Richardson J et al (2007) Using Science to Create a Better Place. EA, Bristol. • www.worldmapper.org Ecological footprints of resource use • www.teebweb.org/ The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity • www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries Planetary Boundaries • www.oneplanetliving.org WWF One Planet Living within Earth System Boundaries • http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/ Synthesis of policy relevant climate

science • www.lse.ac.uk/complexity Socio-economic applications of complexity science

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm


http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-safe-and-just-space-for-humanity-can-we-live-within-the-doughnut-210490

http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-safe-and-just-space-for-humanity-can-we-live-within-the-doughnut-210490

http://www.worldmapper.org

http://www.teebweb.org/

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries

http://www.oneplanetliving.org

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/

http://www.lse.ac.uk/complexity


Module SCH502: Emergence of the New Economy

Module Teachers: Jonathan Dawson, Kate Raworth, Pat Conaty, Anna Coote, Tony Greenham, David Bollier, Gustavo Esteva, Martin Shaw

Dates: Monday 13 October – Friday 14 NovemberCredits: 20 (level 7)

Aims This module aims to:

• Develop systemic understanding of the links between sustainability crises and the economy; • Examine and critique the neoclassical underpinnings of the global economy from an historical perspective

and through the lens of alternative schools of thought; • Derive pluralistic principles for a new economic approach; • Co-create scenarios for the transition to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies; • Use reflective inquiry to relate learning to personal and group practice.

Module and syllabus contentThis module explores how current sustainability crises are systemically linked to global economic forces. The mod-ule begins with a tour of the history of economic thought. It then dives into theoretical issues in four main areas: macroeconomics; enterprise and work; finance; and governance and ownership. The module aims to enable students to engage with multiple heterodox strands of thought that are woven into the new economics, including ecological economics, behavioural economics, institutional economics, the Schumacherian and Buddhist traditions and so on.

Assessed learning outcomes At the end of the module, you are expected to be able to:

• Identify, select and analyse sources of knowledge and evidence of market, policy and institutional failures that give rise to systemic crises in our economic, social, and ecological systems;

• Critically appraise the theoretical model of neoclassical economics from an historical and socio-political perspective and from alternative schools of economic thought;

• Co-create theoretical principles for a new approach to economics for the transition to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies;

• Construct future scenarios and critical paths for selected economic sectors;• Show insight into cultural narratives and economic behaviours.

Assessment Criteria (Threshold Level)Students will:

• Use sources of knowledge and evidence of market, policy and institutional failures that give rise to systemic crises in our economic, social, and ecological systems;

• Critically appraise the theoretical model of neoclassical economics from an historical & socio-political perspective and alternative schools of economic thought;

• Co-create theoretical principles for a new approach to economics for the transition to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies;

• Construct future scenarios & critical paths for selected economic sectors;• Show insight into cultural narratives & economic behaviours.

Assessment mode100% coursework comprising: Project: This can be an academic essay or an artistic project with an academic commentary (indicative weighting – 100%);

Schedule of teaching and learning A mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: Presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, field trips, simulations, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, learning journal, participatory learning methods and personal development planning.

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Recommended Texts and Sources • Arthur B. (2013) Complexity Economics: A Different Framework for Economic

Thought, SFI Working Paper: 2013-04-012http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Papers/Comp.Econ.SFI.pdf

• Beinhocker E. (2007) The Origin of Wealth – Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Re-Making of Economics, Random House, London. Chps 1-4.

• Bollier D. and Silke Helfrich (2013) The Wealth of the Commons http://wealthofthecommons.org/

• Boyle D. and Simms A. (2009) The New Economics: A Bigger Picture, Earthscan (especially Chapters 1 & 2)

• Daly H.E. and Farley J.C. (2004) Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications, Island Press, Washington. Part 1: An Introduction to Ecological Economics

• Dawson J., Norberg-Hodge H. and Jackson R; (2010) Gaian Economics: Living Well within Planetary Limits. Permanent Publications

• Eisenstein C. (2011) Money Gift and Community in an Age of Transition, North Atlantic Books

• Graeber D. (2011) Debt: The first 5,000 years, Melville House, New York• Heinberg R. And Learch D. (2010) The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st

Century Sustainability Crisis, Post Carbon Institute, USA. Part Nine: The Economy• Lewis M. and P. Conaty (2012) The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions

to a Steady-state Economy, New Society• Jackson T. (2011) Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet,

Earthscan• Murray R. (2009) Danger and Opportunity: Crisis and the New Social Economy.

Social Innovation Series, The Young Foundation and The Lab, NESTA • Patel R. (2012) The Value of Nothing, http://rajpatel.org/2012/07/09/announcing-

generation-food/) • Scharmer O, Kaufer K (2013) Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System

to Eco-System Economies. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco• Scott-Cato M, (2012) The Bioregional Economy: land, Liberty and the Pursuit of

Happiness, London:Earthscan• Stern N. (2006) Review on the Economics of Climate Change, [on-line] http://

www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm • Nef (2009) Happy Planet Index 2.0, [on-line] http://www.happyplanetindex.org/

public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Papers/Comp.Econ.SFI.pdf

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~wbarthur/Papers/Comp.Econ.SFI.pdf

http://wealthofthecommons.org/

http://wealthofthecommons.org/

http://rajpatel.org/2012/07/09/announcing-generation-food/

http://rajpatel.org/2012/07/09/announcing-generation-food/



http://www.happyplanetindex.org/public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf


Module SCH503: The New Economics in Practice

Module Teachers: Tim Crabtree, Jonathan Dawson, Naresh Giangrande, Rob Hopkins, Frances Northrop, Fiona Ward, Jay Tompt, Andrew Simms, David Boyle, Robin Murray, Derek Shepherd

Dates: Monday 17 November – Friday 19 DecemberCredits: 20 (level 7)


• Apply theoretical frameworks and principles to practical application across key topics in the new economy; • Engage students in debate and discussion from different perspectives to gain knowledge and understanding

of the key debates in new economics across selected themes; • Introduce tools, methods and policy interventions of the new economy in practice using case studies,

exercises and assignments; • Develop practical and experimental steps towards the transition to low carbon, high well-being, resilient

economies; • Develop skills in reflective inquiry to apply learning to students’ own experience.

Module and syllabus content How are we going to make the transition to low carbon, high well-being and resilient economies? This module applies the principles of the new economy to practice by demonstrating the application of practical tools, methods and policy interventions and illustrating with case studies from around the globe and drawn from students own experience. There will be a special focus on new economy initiatives in the south-west of England and students will be invited in teams to engage in a design process in small groups to apply to the context of their choice (regional, sectoral, organisational, etc.) the insights garnered during the module.

Assessed learning outcomesAt the end of a module you are expected to be able to demonstrate:

• A critical understanding of the theoretical frameworks and the main debates related to selected topics in new economics in practice;

• Skills and knowledge of the application of new economics tools, methods and policies to real world case studies across different aspects of the economy;

• Synthesise practical steps towards the transition to low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies across selected sectors/themes;

• Reflective inquiry to apply learning to improve personal and professional practice and team work.


• Demonstrate a critical understanding of the theoretical frameworks and the main debates related to selected topics in the new economy in practice;

• Show skills and knowledge of the application of new economics tools, methods and policies to real world case studies across different aspects of the economy;

• Synthesise practical steps towards the transition to low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies across selected sectors/themes;

• Demonstrate use of reflective inquiry to apply learning to improve personal and professional practice and teamwork.

Assessment mode 100% coursework comprising: Project: This can be an academic essay or an artistic project with an academic commentary (indicative weighting – 70%);Presentation: Students will work in teams on a design project. (Indicative weighting – 30%, 15% for presentation and 15% for an accompanying academic commentary.)

Schedule of teaching and learning A mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: Presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, field trips, simulations, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, learning journal, participatory learning methods.

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Recommended texts and sources• Boyle D. and Simms A. (2009) The New Economics: A Bigger Picture, Earthscan • Mark Anielski (2009) The Economics of Happiness, New Society Publishers, BC • Nef (2009) Happy Planet Index 2.0, [on-line] http://www.happyplanetindex.org/

public-data/files/happy-planet-index-2-0.pdf • Seyfang G. (2009) The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption, Macmillan • Murray R. (2002), Zero Waste, Greenpeace Trust, UK • McDonough W. And Braungart M. (2002) Cradle to Cradle, North Point Press, NY • Stahel W. (2006) The Performance Economy, Palgrave MacMillan • Pauli G. (2010), The Blue Economy, Paradigm Publications, Taos, NM • Robertson J. (1990), Future Work, Gower Publishing, Hants. • Gallie E.D. (2007) Employment Regimes and the Quality of Work, OUP • nef (2010), 21 Hours, nef (2000) Plugging the Leaks; nef (2002) The Money Trail;

nef (2006) [on-line] http://www.neweconomics.org/publications • Douthwaite R. (1996) Short Circuit: Strengthening Local Economies for Security

in an Unstable World, Green Books, Totnes • nef (2009) Public Services Inside Out, [on-line] www.neweconomics.org/

publications/public-services-inside-out • Cahn E. (2000) No More Throw Away People, Essential Books, Washington • Wilkinson R. and Pickett K. (2010) The Spirit Level, Penguin, London. • Jackson T. (2009) Prosperity Without Growth, Earthscan, London. • Victor P.A. (2008), Managing Without Growth, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham • nef (2008) A Green New Deal, [on-line] http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/

green-new-deal • Robertson J. (2000) Creating New Money, new economics foundation, London

Green Fiscal Commission (2009) The Case for Green Fiscal Reform, [on-line] http://www.greenfiscalcommission.org.uk/images/uploads/GFC_FinalReport.pdf

• Reed D. (ed) (1996) Structural Adjustment, the Environment, and Sustainable Development. Earthscan, London

• Scott Cato M. (2006) Market, Schmarket, New Clarion Press, Cheltenham


2.4.2 Elective Modules

Students select two out of the following three modules offered in Term 2:•

Module SCH5405: Contemporary Issues in Holistic Science (Mind In Nature)

Module Teachers: Anna Breytenbach, Stephan Harding, Philip Franses, Rupert Sheldrake, Shantena Sabbadini, David Rothenberg

Dates: 19 January – 6 February, 2014Credits: 20 (level 7)

Aims The module aims to examine novel material and concepts in holistic science that shed new light on a variety of areas within mainstream science, together with an exploration of the ecological and ethical implications of such a unified perspective.

Module and syllabus contentStudents will explore a selection of scientific issues from the perspective of holistic science, including: the connections between matter and consciousness; quantum physics and its ontological implications, nature as an ‘extended mind’; emergent properties and the behaviour of complex systems; ecology; evolution and animal behaviour.

Assessed Learning Outcomes: At the end of the module the learner will be expected to be able to:

• Explain how insights from holistic science can create new understandings within key areas of mainstream science;

• Articulate how notions about quantities and qualities became dissociated from each other during the development of Western science;

• Present modern ideas in science, psychology and spirituality using the notion of the universe as a unified whole

• Articulate and reflect upon the ethical and ecological implications of these new insights in relation to the principles of holistic science.

Assessment Criteria (Threshold Level)Students will be able to:

• Articulate how notions about mind and nature became dissociated from each other during the development of Western science

• Present critically modern ideas in science, philosophy and aesthetics that help us to see mind and nature as a unified whole,

• Evaluate to what extent mind-like behaviour can be seen to inhere in natural phenomena, and to reflect on these ideas in relation to the principles of holistic science.

• Demonstrate the ethical and ecological implications of a unified understanding of mind and nature.

Assessment mode100% coursework comprising: Portfolio: This can be one of the following:

• An academic essay (weighting: 100%),• An academic essay with oral presentation• (Indicative weighting: 90% for the academic essay, 10% for oral presentation), • An artistic/design project with an academic commentary• (Indicative weighting: 70% for the artistic project, 30% for the academic commentary)• An artistic/design project with an academic commentary and oral presentation• (Indicative weighting: 70% for the artistic project, 20% for the academic commentary, 10% for oral

presentation).

Schedule of teaching and learningA mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: Presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, field trips, simulations, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, learning journal, participatory learning methods and personal development planning.

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Recommended Texts and Sources• Abram, D. (2011). Becoming Animal. Vintage Press• Bateson, G. (2002). Mind in Nature. Hampton Press• Bateson, G. (2004). Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. Hampton

Press• Bekoff, M. (2008). The Emotional Lives of Animals. New World Library• Charlton, N.G. (2008). Understanding Gregory Bateson. SUNY• Harding, S.P. (2009). Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia. Green Books• Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description.

Routledge• de Quincey, C. (2010). Radical Nature: The Soul of Matter. Perk Street Press• Rothenberg, D. (2005). Why Birds Sing. Allen Lane.• Rothenberg, D. (2012). Survival of the Beautiful. Bloomsbury• Sheldrake, R. (2005). A New Science of Life. Icon Books• Sheldrake, R. (2012). The Science Delusion. Coronet


Module SCH5412: Sustainable Enterprise (Enterprising Futures)

Module Teachers: Patricia Shaw, Tim Crabtree, Pat Conaty, Robin Murray, Sister JewelDates: 16 February - 6 March, 2014Credits: 20 (level 7)

Module Aims:This module aims to:

• Present processes and mechanisms to encourage green and ethical investment.• Introduce students to different models and case studies of sustainable enterprise.• Explore alternative ownership, governance and financing mechanisms.

Module and Syllabus ContentThis module will review different models of sustainable enterprise, both old and new, to show the plethora of alternatives to shareholder capitalism. Links will be made to the financial processes and reforms need to support ethical and green investment in enterprises for the future.

Assessment Criteria (Threshold Level)Students will:

• Compare and contrast different models of sustainable enterprise;• Identify, select and analyse sources of knowledge and evidence to propose alternative financing mechanisms

for sustainable enterprise• Critically appraise different models for ownership and governance structures for sustainable enterprise

Assessment Mode100% coursework comprising: Project: This can be an academic essay or an artistic project with an academic com-mentary. (indicative weighting: 70% for the artistic project, 30% for the academic commentary).

Schedule of Teaching and Learning:A mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: Presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, simulations,, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, participatory learning methods

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Recommended Texts and Sources • Wheeler D. (1997), The Stakeholder Corporation, Pitman, London• Porritt J. (2007), Capitalism as if the World Matters, Earthscan, London• Kelly M. (2009) Not Just for Profit, Strategy and Business, Issue 54, Spring• Kelly M (2009) Keeping Wealth Local, Tellus Institute, Boston• Pauli G (2010), The Blue Economy, Paradigm Publications, Taos• Conaty P. (2009) Towards Fair Trade Banking, MakingWaves, Vol. 20(3)• Conaty P. and Lewis M. (2009) Sweden’s JAK Bank, MakingWaves, vol 20(3)• Murray R., Caulier-Grice J. Mulgan G. (2010), The Open Book of Social Innovation,

[on-line] www.nesta.org.uk• CIPFA (2010) Social Enterprise [on-line] http://www.cipfa.org.uk/panels/charity/

download/social_enterprise_briefing_paper_nov10.pdf • Murray R. (2010) Cooperation in the Age of Google, Cooperatives UK, Manchester• Flores F.,Spinosa C. & Dreyfus H. (1999) Disclosing New Worlds: Entrepreneurship,

Democratic Action & the Cultivation of Solidarity. MIT Press, Cambridge• Naxnub H, and Zuboff S. (2004) The Support Economy, Penguin

Websites:• www.responsiblecredit.net• www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html (International Cooperative Alliance)

http://www.responsiblecredit.net


Module SCH5407: Ecophilosophy (Drawing on Indigenous Wisdom)

Module Teachers: Colin Campbell, Lucy Hinton, Stephan Harding, Philip Franses, Martin Shaw, Peter Oswald, Julie Richardson, Jonathan Dawson, Liz Hosken and Gustavo Esteva (by video link)

Dates: 16 March - 2 April 2014Credits: 20 (level 7)

Module aims: To explore the principles of ecology and philosophy that are relevant to holistic and ecologically sustainable participation with nature.

Module and syllabus content: • The ecological consciousness of other cultures and lifestyles, and how these converge with insights from

ecophilosophy.• The theory and practice of ecological identity and the ecological self.• The relationships and overlaps between deep ecology and indigenous wisdom• The historical development of ecocentric and anthropocentric world views, incorporating a critical assessment

of their essential differences.

Assessed learning outcomes:At the end of the module students will be expected to be able to:

• Elucidate how, through its philosophical inheritance, a society construes its relationship to nature.• Critically assess the proposal that only a deep reverence for human and non-human life can lead to

ecologically and socially sound lifestyles. • Articulate how ecophilosophical thought applies to modern challenges in ecological activism.

Assessment criteriaStudents will be able to:

• Articulate the main elements of an indigenous approach to wisdom, with particular reference to the indigenous Sangoma tradition of Southern Africa.

• Evaluate to what extent insights from indigenous wisdom can help to create greater harmony between Nature and Western culture, with particular reference to holistic science and economics for transition.

• Demonstrate critical theoretical and experiential understanding of the parallels between ecophilosophy and indigenous wisdom.

• Self-evaluate and reflect on own and others’ application of indigenous wisdom to the elucidation of personal ecophilosophies.

Assessment mode100% coursework comprising: Portfolio: This can be one of the following:

• An academic essay (weighting: 100%),• An academic essay with oral presentation

(Indicative weighting: 90% for the academic essay, 10% for oral presentation), • An artistic/design project with an academic commentary

(Indicative weighting: 70% for the artistic project, 30% for the academic commentary)• An artistic/design project with an academic commentary and oral presentation

(Indicative weighting: 70% for the artistic project, 20% for the academic commentary, 10% for oral presentation).

Schedule of Teaching and Learning:A mixed range of teaching and learning methods drawn from the following: Presentations, workshops, seminars, tutorials, case studies, simulations, exercises and role play, independent study, research methods, action research and reflective inquiry, participatory learning methods.

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Recommended texts and sources• Abram D. (1997) The Spell of the Sensuous. Vintage• Climate and Capitalism (2013). Two Views of Extractivism and Buen Vivir http://

climateandcapitalism.com/2014/06/02/two-views-extractivism-buen-vivir/ ? u t m _ s o u rc e = f e e d b u r n e r & u t m _ m e d i u m = f e e d & u t m _ c a m p a i g n = Feed%3A+climateandcapitalism%2FpEtD+%28Climate+and+Capitalism%29

• Drengson, A. and Devall, B. (eds) (2010). The Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess. Counterpoint.

• Esteva G. (2004) Back from the Future http://www.gustavoesteva.com/english_site/back_from_the_future.htm

• Esteva G. (2013). Hope from the Margins http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-21/hope-from-the-margins

• Giovanini M. (2013). Social Enterprises for buen vivir in Chiapas: An Alternative to Development, UNRISD http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/search/D23EF0647F3BCD28C1257B980034954C?OpenDocument

• Harvey, G. (2006). Animism: Respecting the Living World. C Hurst and Co.• Harvey, G. (2013). The Handbook of Contemporary Animism. Acumen• Ingold, T. (2011). Being Alive. Routeldge• Seed, J. et.al. (1988). Thinking Like a Mountain. New Society.• Some, M (1995). Of Water and the Spirit. Penguin• Van der Post, L (2002) The Heart of the Hunter. Vintage Classics

http://climateandcapitalism.com/2014/06/02/two-views-extractivism-buen-vivir/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateandcapitalism%2FpEtD+%28Climate+and+Capitalism%29




http://www.gustavoesteva.com/english_site/back_from_the_future.htm

http://www.gustavoesteva.com/english_site/back_from_the_future.htm

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-21/hope-from-the-margins

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-05-21/hope-from-the-margins

http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/search/D23EF0647F3BCD28C1257B980034954C?OpenDocument

http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BE6B5/search/D23EF0647F3BCD28C1257B980034954C?OpenDocument


2.4.3 Dissertation

Module Code: SCH504Module Title: Economics for Transition DissertationModule Leader: Jonathan DawsonSupervisors: Arranged in association with Plymouth UniversityCredits: 80 (level 7)


• Introduce students to a range of research methodologies in the social sciences; • Provide an opportunity for students to pursue in depth a topic of their own interest; • Extend students’ powers of critical evaluation and original thought; • Develop the skills and confidence necessary to carry out research in other areas once the taught elements of

the degree have been completed.

Module and syllabus contentThe dissertation provides students with the opportunity to develop and demonstrate their capacity for independent study in the application of research skills to a topic appropriate to the degree. This will involve several sessions during Terms 1 and 2 on social science research methods.

Assessed learning outcomes At the end of a module you are expected to be able to:

• Identify a suitable research topic, formulate research questions and develop a research design; make use of scholarly reviews and primary resources appropriate to the discipline;

• Plan an investigation and evaluate alternative courses of action; • Analyse the research problem using an appropriate methodology; • Appreciate the ethical dimensions of the research; • Synthesise recommendations which follow logically from the research; • Prepare a clear, well-presented report or project (such as documentary) or artefact (such as sculpture) which

communicates the ideas, problems, solutions and results in an accessible manner (to both specialist and non-specialist audiences).


• Identify a suitable research topic, formulate research questions and develop a research design; make use of scholarly reviews and primary resources appropriate to the discipline;

• Plan an investigation and evaluate alternative courses of action; • Analyse the research problem using an appropriate methodology; • Appreciate the ethical dimensions of the research; • Synthesise recommendations which follow logically from the research; • Prepare a clear, well presented report or project (such as documentary) or artefact (such as sculpture) which

communicates the ideas, problems, solutions and results in an accessible manner (to both specialist and non-specialist audiences).

Assessment mode 100% coursework: Dissertation: Either 15,000 – 20,000 word dissertation, not including tables, list of references, contents or appendices; or an approved artistic project plus an academic commentary (that may include an oral presentation). You will receive Dissertation Guidelines including information and support on deciding on and planning a research project, and the assessment methods.

Schedule of teaching and learningIndependent study; dissertation feedback; reflective inquiry and action research methods

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Recommended texts and sources • Bryman, A. (2008) Social Research Methods. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University

Press. • Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2011) Business Research Methods. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford

University Press. • Dixon J.A., Scura L.F., Carpenter R.A., and Sherman P.B. (1996) Economic Analysis

of Environmental Impacts, London: Earthscan • Gill, J. and Johnson, P. (2010) Research Methods for Managers. 3rd edn. London:

Sage. • IIED (1997) Valuing the Hidden Harvest: Methodological Approaches for Local

level Economic Analysis of Wild Resources. Research Series Vol 3 No 4. • Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative Researching. 2nd edn. London: Sage. • Moser, C.A. and Kalton, G. (1993) Survey Methods in Social Investigation. 3rd edn.

London: Heinemann. • Reason P. And Bradbury H. (eds) (2008) The Sage Handbook of Action Research,

Sage Publications, London. • Sayer, A. (2010) Method in Social Science. Rev. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.


2.5 Course teachers

Schumacher College Faculty

Jonathan Dawson is a sustainability educator and activist until recently based at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, where he taught human ecology and applied sustainability studies. He is a recent President of the Global Ecovillage Network and has published widely both on Eco villages and other sustainable community initiatives.

Jonathan has spent much of the last 20 years involved in development work in Africa and South Asia, as a researcher, author, project manager and consultant, working primarily in the field of small enterprise and community economic development. He has worked for clients as diverse as the World Bank, the United Nations and numerous bilateral development agencies and NGOs, including the organisation created by E.F. Schumacher, Intermediate Technology Development Group (recently renamed Practical Action).

Tim Crabtree has been actively involved in the development of Community Enterprise and Co-operative Economic Systems since the 1980’s, when he was one of the first coordinators of the new economics foundation. He is an experienced social enterprise advisor, working with a range of initiatives such as development trusts, city farms, arts organisations and community nurseries. He developed and worked for one of the south west’s leading social enterprises – the Wessex Reinvestment Trust group, which is a community development financial institution. The Wessex group has pioneered the development of new financial mechanisms including community share issues – Wessex Community Assets has registered 39 organisations as industrial and provident societies using specially developed rules, and assisted 19 of them to raise £3.2 million in aggregate. Another Wessex company provides home improvement loans in partnership with 19 local authorities and has over £3 million out on loan. Tim was also the founder of Local Food Links Ltd, one of the UK’s most prominent community food enterprises. With Local Food Links, Tim set up Dorset’s first Farmers’ Markets, the UK’s first Local Food Centre, and an ethical catering enterprise serving meals to children at 23 schools. Recently, Tim has also been involved in the development of Bridport Renewable Energy Group CIC and Bridport Energy Services Ltd, an industrial and provident society. He is also a founder director of Bridport Area Development Trust, which is involved in two asset transfer projects.

Julie Richardson has over 20 years international experience working across a range of sectors and organisations covering different aspects of sustainable development in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. She has taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate

levels at the University of London and in the African and Asian School at the University of Sussex.

More recently she has worked as a senior environmental policy advisor to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and as Principal Sustainability Officer for Jonathon Porritt’s Forum for the Future. Here her work included advising the business sector on how to incorporate sustainability issues into their corporate strategy including measuring and reporting their wider social and environmental impacts.

In 2005, Julie was awarded an MSc Holistic Science (with distinction) at Schumacher College and since then has undertaken a range of projects to show how new thinking in science can be applied to sustainable development. This includes setting up a programme to attract social and environmental enterprises to the Dartington Estate (where Schumacher College is based) to demonstrate industrial ecology in practice. Julie has published widely, including her most recent co-authored book, The Triple Bottom Line: Does It All Add Up? The book highlights a fresh approach to organisational performance that takes account of environmental, social and economic impacts. Julie Richardson was also a Trustee of the Transition Network in its start-up phase.

Dr Stephan Harding FLS oversees the MSc Holistic Science, and will teach on the Economics for Transition programme. Stephan was born in Venezuela in 1953 and came to England at the age of six. Since childhood Stephan has had a deep fascination with the natural world, and his scientific cast of mind led him to do a degree in Zoology at the University of Durham and then a doctorate on the behavioural ecology of the muntjac deer at Oxford University. He has been involved in ecological research, expedition and teaching in Zimbabwe, Peru, Venezuela and Costa Rica.

Stephan became a founder member of Schumacher College in 1990. The College’s first teacher was James Lovelock, with whom Stephan has maintained a long-lasting friendship and scientific collaboration that culminated in their joint appointment as chair holders of the Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo. Stephan lives on the College campus with his wife Julia Ponsonby and their son Oscar, and is the author of Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia published in 2006

Philip Franses is a lecturer in complexity and holistic science at Schumacher College. Born in 1958 in England, Philip studied mathematics at New College Oxford from 1976 to 1980. Academia’s dull explanation of the world inspired him on a counter-journey into the depths of experience, travelling and a re-sensitisation to quality. In 2005, after a fifteen-year career designing intelligent

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software, Philip had a chance encounter with Satish Kumar and was moved to come to Schumacher as an MSc student. Here he was especially inspired by the work and scientific approaches of Goethean scientist Henri Bortoft, the physicist Basil Hiley and the late Brian Goodwin, professor of biology.

Philip now runs local workshops in Goethean science, has begun the forum Process and Pilgrimage (inaugurated in 2009 at Birkbeck College) and is working in partnership with Aboca herbal health company, restoring the whole herb as the qualitative source of health.

Satish Kumar was only nine years old when he joined the wandering brotherhood of Jain monks. Dissuaded from his path by an inner voice at the age of eighteen, he left the monastic order and became a campaigner for land reform, working to turn Gandhi’s vision of a peaceful world into reality. Fired by the example of Bertrand Russell, he undertook an 8,000 mile peace pilgrimage, walking from India to America without any money, through deserts, mountains, storms and snow. It was an adventure during which he was thrown into jail in France, faced a loaded gun in America – and delivered packets of ‘peace tea’ to the leaders of the four nuclear powers.

In 1973, he settled in England, taking the Editorship of Resurgence magazine. He has been the editor ever since (30 + years!). He is the guiding spirit behind a number of ecological, spiritual and educational ventures in Britain. He founded the Small School in Hartland, a pioneering secondary school (aged 11-16), which brings into its curriculum ecological and spiritual values. In 1991, Schumacher College, a residential international center for the study of ecological and spiritual values, was founded, of which he held the title of Director of Programme.

Professor Patricia Shaw is an Associate Director of the Complexity and Management Centre at the Business School of the University of Hertfordshire, which she helped to found in 1995. She is author of Changing the Conversation in Organisations. With her colleagues at CMC she has developed approaches to

organisational leadership, learning and change based on insights emerging from what are now known as the Complexity Sciences. In particular this approach pays attention to the conversational life that emerges in everyday organisational relating and how we all participate in sustaining and potentially transforming the kind of possibilities the future may hold. As well as a thriving research and consulting practice, with links to many other universities, the Centre has established one of the first professional doctorate programmes in the UK, which draws experienced managers from all over the world seeking to develop their capacity as practitioners in leading organisational change.

Plymouth University Faculty

Dr Derek Shepherd is Director of Teaching and Learning at the School of Tourism and Hospitality. His academic background was originally in agriculture and agricultural economics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to joining the Plymouth University, Derek worked as an economist for the National Farmers’ Union, the Building Employers’ Confederation and the Confederation of British Industry.

nef faculty

David Boyle has worked for nef since 1987 as a researcher, author and advisor, and developing and launching new projects. David is the author of a range of books about money, change and the future, including Funny Money (1999), The Tyranny of Numbers (2002), The Money Changers (2002), Authenticity (2003) and Money Matters (2009). He has written for many national newspapers and magazines, and edited a range of magazines including Town & Country Planning and Liberal Democrat News and he is the editor of Radical Economics. David also writes history books. All his work is devoted to one broad theme: the importance of human-scale institutions over centralised ones, human imagination over dull rationalism, and the human spirit over technocratic reduction.

David has been at the heart of the effort to introduce time banks to Britain as a critical element of public service reform. He is also


the founder of the London Time Bank network and co-founder of Time Banks UK.

David Boyle and Andrew Simms co-authored the book The New Economics: A Bigger Picture (2009) and Eminent Corporations: the Rise and Fall of the Great British Corporation (2010).

Anna Coote is Head of Social Policy, leading work on developing a new social settlement to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This aims to promote well-being for all and sustainable social justice. It includes practical work on: moving investment and action upstream to prevent harm; changing the way we use and value time; building a fair, sufficient and sustainable social security system; transforming public services by developing co-production as the standard way of getting things done; and safeguarding the interests of future generations. Her recent publications for nef include The Prevention Papers, The Wisdom of Prevention, The Big Society and the New Austerity and 21 Hours.

A leading analyst, writer and advocate in the field of social policy, Anna was responsible for ground-breaking work on health and sustainable development as Commissioner for Health with the UK Sustainable Development Commission (2000-9). She led the Healthcare Commission’s work on engaging patients and the public (2005-8) and was Director of Health Policy at the King’s Fund (1998-2004). Earlier posts include Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of ippr (Institute for Public Policy Research) from 1989-1998, Editor and Producer of current affairs television for Diverse Productions (1982-6), Deputy Editor of the New Statesman (1978-82). Anna has written widely on social policy, sustainable development, public health policy, public involvement and democratic dialogue, gender and equality.

Tony Greenham is Head of Finance and Business at nef, the programme of research into reforming the financial sector and aligning the interests of society and business. He brings to this role his experience as a corporate stockbroker, commercial accountant and sustainability consultant. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, he worked in UK Equity Capital Markets first with Barclays Bank and then Credit Suisse where he advised household names such as Sky, GlaxoSmithKline and Debenhams. Prior to joining nef, Tony was working with the Transition Towns movement as a director of Transition Town Totnes and a business consultant for Transition Training and Consulting.

Transition Network Faculty

Sophy Banks joined the Transition movement in 2006, when Transition Town Totnes was just starting. She co-founded the “Heart and Soul” group, which addresses

the inner aspects of a community transitioning to a sustainable and vibrant future. As the Totnes project grew, Sophy got involved in developing and running the organisation. After having founded Transition Training and having taken their workshop around the world, visiting many Transition and other community projects along the way, Sophy’s current interest is in supporting, connecting and resourcing Inner Transition groups around the movement. Originally trained in science and engineering, Sophy worked in London for over 20 years as a computer trainer and systems consultant in all sectors. She retrained in inner work, amongst others psychotherapy, family constellations, and The Work that Reconnects, and works as a therapist. Sophy is deeply committed to exploring the individual and collective journey towards a life-affirming, joyful and healthy future.

David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and consul-tant exploring the commons as a new paradigm of eco-nomics, politics and culture. In 2010, he co-founded the Commons Strategies Group, a consulting project that works to promote the commons internationally. He is the host of an educational film, This Land Is Our Land: The Fight to Reclaim the Commons; as the Croxton Lec-turer at Amherst College where he taught “The Rise of the Commons” in 2010. He is co-editor of the celebrated book, Wealth of the Commons.

Gustavo Esteva is a grassroots activist and ‘deprofes-sionalized intellectual’. Author of many books and es-says, former advisor to the Zapatistas, and member of several independent organizations and networks, Mexi-can and international, he lives in an indigenous village in Oaxaca, in southern Mexico.

Hal Gilmore is from a local farming family and grew up falling in and out of boats on the River Dart. He has been actively involved in Transition Town Totnes since 2008 in a number of roles. His prior professional background includes tourism, business development, training & de-velopment and leading wilderness expeditions overseas. Hal’s Transition experience includes communications and outreach; six months as central project manager of TTT; catalysing the Business and Livelihoods network; initiating Transition Tours; facilitating Transition Streets groups and training, and being an accredited Trainer for the Transition Network. Hal is married with two small children and fosters a discreet romance with the River Dart where he also works as a canoe guide in the summer months. Hal is the Director of Big Green Canoe Ltd. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations and business development, which is shared with the rest of the team.

Rob Hopkins is co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and the Transition Network. He has many years experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and set up the first 2-year full-time permaculture

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course in the world in Kinsale, Ireland, which was also the first community to develop an Energy Descent Action Plan. Futhermore, Rob set up the Hollies Centre for Practical Sustainability in Ireland. He is author of The Transition Handbook and The Transition Companion, and publishes www.transitionculture.org, recently voted the 4th best green blog in the UK.

Frances Northrop is the Transition in Action manager at Transition Town Totnes, with overall responsibility for internal management, income generation and strategic influencing. Her background is in community development and social enterprise with a strong track record in successful business development for community based charities and enterprises

Holly Tiffen has been living in Totnes for over 5 years and has been an active volunteer with Transition Town Totnes’ Food group throughout this time. For the past two years she has been working for TTT developing the Food-Link project. Food-Link draws producers, processors and retailers together to look at ways of working that can help increase the provision and variety of locally sourced food in the town.

Jay Tompt is actively involved in a number of Transition projects including the Transition Town Totnes REconomy Business Network. He is also the founder and managing director of William Verde & Associates, a consultancy advising organisations on sustainability, business development, and marketing strategy. For the last 20 years, Jay launched, led, or advised numerous companies and non-profit organisations across a range of industry and non-profit segments. Prior to starting Wm. Verde & Assoc., Jay was co-founder and vice president of Plan-It Hardware™, the first independent comprehensive ethical products distributor in the US home improvement industry. He also has an MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a BA in Philosophy from San Jose State University.

Fiona Ward has been involved with Transition since 2006, firstly with Transition Town Totnes (TTT) and then also with the Transition Network. She set up and ran the Transition Streets project for

TTT, and initiated and runs the REconomy Project for the TN. Fiona is also doing some REconomy work on the ground in Totnes around strategic planning. She has also contributed to organisational processes and strategy for both organisation. Fiona’s background is in business consulting, working with companies of all shapes and sizes over the last 20 years or so to define and deliver business transformation strategies. After realising that these kinds of transformations weren’t generally what served the greater good (or her own good!) Fiona moved from London to South Devon in 2006 just as TTT was getting going, a fantastic piece of good fortune. She can usually be found in the garden, and always in the company of Rosie the chocolate Labrador.

Visiting Teachers

Anna Breytenbach is a professional animal communicator who has received advanced training through the Assisi International Animal Institute in California, USA and has been practising for 12 years in South Africa, Europe and the USA with domestic and wild animals. Her conservation experience includes working with cheetahs, lions, wolves, baboons and elephants in educational and rehabilitation programmes. Anna’s goal is to raise awareness and advance the relationships among humans and other species, on both the personal and spiritual levels. She’s also the subject of the documentary movie “The Animal Communicator” due for international release in 2013. In her communication and conservation work, Anna lives her personal mission of being a voice for the animals and the wilderness.

Colin Campbell grew up in rural south-eastern Botswana, the son of a renowned anthropologist and a creative healing mother. His grandmother was a famous healer, whom people voyaged to see from far afield. On formative childhood trav-els with his father he slept under stars, learned from traditional San people and ways of the desert. At the age of eleven he began his training and was eventually ini-tiated as a traditional doctor and sangoma. Through the time of his upbringing he ac-quired a deep knowledge of Tswana culture and its traditional medicinal and spiritual practices.

http://www.transitionculture.org

http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/

http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/


Colin is currently a practitioner of traditional African medicine, based in Cape Town, South Africa and the U.K. He receives clients from all over the world, and facilitates international group processes relating to natural law, transformation, healing & personal power, sacred sites, and cross-cultural cosmology. His work has taken him from the Amazon Basin to Los Angeles, the sacred sites of Venda to the urban grit of Johannesburg, and remote Ethiopia to the City of London. Colin co-founded and co-runs a training school in Botswana for traditional doctors and sangomas with his brother Niall Campbell. He is also a lifelong artist and musician.

Pat Conaty worked as a researcher at nef for eight years, becoming a nef fellow in 2007. Educated at the University of California with a degree in Political Economy, Pat is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, a Research Associate at the University of Salford and an Executive Director of Rebuilding Society Network, a social enterprise in Mid Wales. Formerly the Development Director of Birmingham Settlement, an inner city community regeneration organisation, Pat played a pioneering role in setting up several social enterprises fostered there: including Business Debtline and the Aston Reinvestment Trust - the first mutually owned, local Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) in Britain. He worked for many years in the debt advice field as Director of Money Advice Services for Birmingham Settlement and he is a founder and former Executive Director of the UK Social Investment Forum - the national association of socially responsible investment organisations. Pat also works as a community development finance trainer and consultant with NACUW (National Association of Credit Union Workers) and is a Director of Land for People - the Community Land Trust network for rural Wales and Shropshire

Lucy Hinton has a degree in Natural Sciences (Ecology) from the University of Cambridge, taught earth education from a young age, co-pioneered creative projects for social change and has traveled and worked widely, from Death Valley to Honduras, Sumatra to Outer Mongolia. Working on big-picture creative activism in the field of sustainability & education, over time Lucy naturally gravitated toward the place where the needs of the world merge with the needs of the Self; the deep confluence where individual soul draws its potency from intimate conversation with the soul of the wild. This trajectory led to training and apprenticeship in what is known as contemporary wilderness rites of passage/ecopsychology, largely in the system taught by the School of Lost Borders, and Lucy has been guiding in this capacity for almost ten years in various parts of Britain, continuing to learn from elders, writers, rocks, creatures, stories and stars. Significant & prolonged trials of physical disability have also offered their own lessons in patience, initiatory terrain and appreciation of the simple things. She has a deep love of both people and the land.

Tim ‘Mac’ Macartney is the founder and CEO of Embercombe, a social enterprise that seeks to ‘inspire committed action towards a truly sustainable world’. In 1983 Mac was the gardener at a management training centre. By 1987 he was the Head of consultancy at the same place, and two years later had his own London based people and organisation development consultancy. This consultancy was later expanded into Russia and Poland. Over a period of twenty years he was mentored and coached by Native American metis ‘Medicine’ people to learn the Earth Wisdom teachings that once informed the practice of our own British indigenous culture. Embercombe is a place where corporate executives sit next to inner city youth, next to elderly people, next to family groups, next to environmental activists, and the privileged wealthy. It is a dynamic, adventurous enterprise that speaks to people from all walks of life, to engage, commit, and become active in work that will secure our children’s future. His book Finding Earth, Finding Soul – the invisible path to authentic leadership speaks to the necessity for each of us to become the leaders ‘we have been waiting for’.

Robin Murray is an industrial economist. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and at the London School of Economics. He joined the London Business School, where he lectured in Economics, and then moved to the Institute of Development Studies, the national centre for the study and teaching of development at the University of Sussex, where he was a Fellow for 20 years.

His work as a consultant on industrial and development issues led him to the conclusion that there was a major role that could be played in achieving social goals by mission driven third sector companies. In the field of development he co-founded Twin and Twin Trading in 1985, working with and establishing farmer’s co-operatives. Robin has also developed a range of new ventures in the environmental field. His interest here is in the economy of distributed systems, and their potential for environmental and social sustainability. He co-founded the environmental partnership Ecologika, whose members work in the fields of waste, energy, transport, food and health. From 2004-5, Robin was seconded to the Design Council as Director of RED, its innovation unit, where he led the team working on new forms of health care.

Peter Oswald is a poet, playwright and performer. His was Writer-in-Residence at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1998 to 2005, and his plays in verse and prose have been performed there, at the National Theatre, in the West End, on Broadway and all over the world. He is a founder of The Abyss Theatre Company. With his wife Alice Os-wald, he teaches creative writing at Sharpham House, Devon.

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Kate Raworth is a renegade economist and development re-thinker, focused on creating an economic toolkit for 21st century challenges, and is the creator of Oxfam’s ‘doughnut of planetary and social boundaries’. She is a Senior Visiting Research Associate and lecturer at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, a Senior Associate of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, and Visiting Fellow in Economics at the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED).

From 2002 to 2013 she was Senior Researcher at Oxfam, leading work on rethinking the meaning and metrics of economic development. Prior to joining Oxfam, she was Economist and co-author of the UN Development Programmes’ flagship Human Development Report, 1997-2001. Kate began her career in international development with her feet firmly on the ground in the villages of Zanzibar, as a Fellow of the Overseas Development Institute, 1994-97. She holds a first class BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and a Masters in Economics for Development, both from Oxford University. She has been invited to give seminars at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton, Sussex, and The London School of Economics, and has written for The Guardian, The New Statesman, Wired and Resurgence. Kate blogs regularly on rethinking economics at www.kateraworth.com.

Dr Shantena Sabbadini was born in Como, Italy, in 1943 and lives in Spain, Italy and Switzerland. He has been a theoretical physicist, a farmer and a translator. From 1994 to 2002 he was scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation, an East-West research centre located in Ascona, Switzerland. Since 2002 he has been an associate director of the Pari Center for New Learning, an alternative academic institute located in the medieval village of Pari, Tuscany, Italy. He gives lectures, courses and seminars about physics as an instrument of wonder, about using the I Ching, the ancient Chinese oracle, as a tool for introspection and about the relevance of Taoist thought for our post-modern predicament.

Dr. Martin Shaw is a mythologist, storyteller and award winning wilderness Rites-of-Passage guide. Author of A Branch from the Lightening Tree: Ecstatic Myth and the Grace in Wildness (June 2011 White Cloud Press), he works internationally and is visiting lecturer on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Leadership Programme at Templeton College, Oxford. Director of the Westcountry School of Myth and Story he has a weekly blog spot at: http://www.theschoolofmyth.blogspot.com/

Dr Rupert Sheldrake is one of the world’s most innovative biologists and writers. He is best known for his theory of morphic fields and morphic resonance, which leads to a vision of a living, developing universe with its own inherent memory. He worked in developmental biology at Cambridge University, where he was a Fellow of Clare College. He was then Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), in Hyderabad, India. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project. There he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge.

Sister Jewel (Chan Chau Nghiem in Viet-namese) grew up in the US and Kenya. Thich Nhat Hanh ordained her as a Buddhist nun in 1999 and a Dharma Teacher in 2007. Before ordaining, she graduated from Stan-ford University with a B.A. and M.A. in An-thropology and Social Sciences. She has led retreats in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Brazil, India and Southern Africa. She is passion-ate about exploring the ways art, play and mindfulness practice intersect and sustain each other. She spends much of her time sharing mindfulness and compassion, es-pecially with children and young people, and bringing mindfulness to teachers and schools, as part of the Wake Up Schools initiative. She has lived for the last 5 years at the European Institute of Applied Bud-dhism in Waldbroel, Germany, and is cur-rently on a sabbatical traveling year. She is editor of Planting Seeds: Practicing Mind-fulness with Children by Thich Nhat Hanh, and has articles and chapters published in several books, including Together We Are One; The Buddha’s Apprentices: More Voic-es of Young Buddhists; Dharma, Color and Culture; and Friends on the Path.

http://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/

http://www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk/

http://www.cpsl.cam.ac.uk/

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/

http://hdr.undp.org/en/

http://www.odi.org.uk/

http://www.odi.org.uk/

http://www.theschoolofmyth.blogspot.com/

http://www.theschoolofmyth.blogspot.com/


3. Information for all postgraduate students3.1 Academic Policy and practice

The regulatory framework for taught postgraduate awards at Plymouth University can be downloaded from here: http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/extexam/Documents/Academic%20Regs/Assessment%20Regs/Regulatory%20Framework%20for%20Taught%20Postgraduate%20Awards.pdf

This covers all details of the rights and obligations of students relating to their academic work. It is recommended that all students download and study these regulations.

3.1.1 Assessment policy

In its approach to assessment policy and procedures, Schumacher College follows the guidelines provided by Plymouth University.

The University identifies the primary purpose of assessment as being “to enable students to develop and demonstrate their potential. More specifically, the University expects assessment to:

• assist student learning by providing appropriate feedback on performance • measure students’ achievements objectively against the learning outcomes of modules • provide a reliable and consistent basis for the recommendation of an appropriate grade or award • assist staff in evaluating the effectiveness of their teaching.”

Recognising the distinctive approaches that its own teaching and learning model encourages, Schumacher College enthusiastically endorses the University’s policy that “assessment processes are multi-dimensional and highly contextualised. This is reflected in the distinctive and diverse assessment processes...” that are permitted within the University’s guidelines. The College’s own interpretation of this policy is described in more detail, in the context of the current programme, in section 2.3.3 above.

Plymouth University identifies the following principles for assessment and these are followed by Schumacher College:

• Assessment will be reliable • Reliability refers to the need for assessment to be accurate and repeatable. This requires clear and consistent

processes for the setting, marking, grading and moderation of assignments. • Assessment will be valid• Validity ensures that assessment tasks and associated criteria will effectively measure student attainment

of the intended learning outcomes. • Information about assessment will be explicit and accessible • Clear, accurate, consistent and timely information on assessment tasks and procedures will be made

available to students, staff and other external assessors or examiners. • Assessment will be inclusive and equitable• Inclusive and equitable assessment will ensure that tasks and procedures do not disadvantage any group or

individual. • Assessment will address all of the programme/stage aims and outcomes. • Assessment tasks will primarily reflect the nature of the discipline or subject but will also ensure that

students have the opportunity to develop a range of generic skills and capabilities. • The amount of assessed work required will be manageable. • The scheduling of assignments and the amount of assessed work required will provide a reliable and valid

profile of achievement without overloading staff or students. • Formative and summative assessment will be included in each programme/stage.• Formative and summative assessment will be incorporated into programmes/modules to ensure that the

purposes of assessment are adequately addressed.

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/extexam/Documents/Academic%20Regs/Assessment%20Regs/Regulatory%20Framework%20for%20Taught%20Postgraduate%20Awards.pdf


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3.1.2 Rules for the submission of assessment assignments

All assessment assignments must be submitted via an electronic ‘drop box’ on the Virtual Learning Environment by 12 noon on the specified deadline date for each module (see 2.3.5). Where CDs, DVDs or other project materials are submitted as part of the project, these should, where possible, be submitted in triplicate, enabling both of the main markers and the External Examiner to receive copies. These must be presented by 12 noon on the specified deadline date to a member of faculty to be nominated in advance of each deadline date.

Style guidelines for all assessment assignmentsPlease use the Harvard system for referencing the work of other authors cited in academic papers.

For books, record:• The author’s or editor’s name (or names) • The year the book was published • The title of the book • If it is an edition other than the first • The city the book was published in • The name of the publisher

For example: Pears, R & Shields, G. (2006) Cite Them Right: The Essential Guide to Referencing and Plagiarism. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Northumbria University Press.For journal articles record:

• The author’s name or names • The year in which the journal was published • The title of the article • The title of the journal • As much other information as you can find about the journal, for example the

volume and issue numbers • The page number/s of the article in the journal

For example: Trefts, K. & Blaksee, S. (2000). Did you hear the one about Boolean operators? Incorporating comedy into library instruction. Reference Services Review. 28 (4) p. 369-378.

For electronic resources, record:• The date you accessed the source • The electronic address or email • The type of electronic resource (email, discussion forum, WWW page, etc)

For example: 20/12/2010. www.schumachercollege.org.uk. WWW page In addition to these details, if you copy direct quotations or if you put the author’s ideas in your own words, write down the page numbers you got the information from.

AppendicesYou should think carefully why appendices are needed. References, copy of questionnaires, interview transcripts are required but do not ‘pad out’. Appendices should be numbered, titled and have page numbers that follow from the main text.

Font size, spacing and word lengthPapers must be typed 1.5 spacing, font size 12, on A4 paper, with at least 2.5cm left hand margin and with consecutive page numbers.


Other style guidelines• Abbreviations/acronyms – should appear in full on first appearance followed by acronym in brackets. If you

are only going to use once or twice then only use full name. • Third person – Normally, the dissertation is written in the third person. Exceptions to this guideline can be

discussed with your dissertation supervisor.• Terms – unfamiliar terms, especially those in foreign languages, should appear in italics, followed with their

meaning in English in parenthesis. Example……modiriat (management)……• Spelling – ensure you spell check your work using UK spelling. • Numbering – Do not number each paragraph.

Assessment of group assignmentsFor the group project, a group of students are able to submit an academic essay or an artistic project or an applied project. For example, this might be a report, documentary or a training programme that fulfils the assessed learning outcomes and assessment criteria outlined in the Assessment Guidelines for the elected module.

The group project is submitted instead of the individual project or applied project and will represent 70% of the mark. The grade for the group project will be applied to all students equally. It is the responsibility of the students in the group to ensure effective working and clear responsibilities.

In addition to the group project, students will submit an individual 1,000 word academic essay related to the group project, which represents 30% of the mark.

All group projects must be approved by at least one member of faculty. The same deadlines for submission of draft and final group projects apply.

Late submissionsCoursework which is percentage marked and submitted after the deadline date and time will be capped at the minimum pass mark (50%) within the first 24 hours of the deadline and will be awarded a mark of zero if submitted more than 24 hours late.

Grading of assessment assignmentsThe overall grade awarded at the end of the course will be in one of four categories:

• distinction (70 per cent and over) • merit (60 to 69 per cent)• pass (50 – 59 per cent) • fail (less than 50 per cent)

While the criteria to be used for each specific assessment exercise was provided in 2.4 above, a more general word is in order here about grading.

Distinction grade will be awarded for pieces of work that provide extremely good presentation of material and arguments that demonstrate strong elements of synthesis and original creative thinking and that are based on substantial well-referenced sources. A student will be awarded a distinction grade overall for their chosen programme provided that s/he has achieved a credit-weighted average mark of 70% or above across all modules (including the dissertation/major project for Masters) and, for Masters, the mark for the dissertation/major project module is not less than 70%.

Merit grade. will be awarded for pieces of work that provide very good presentation of material and arguments that demonstrate strong elements of synthesis and original creative thinking and that are based on well-referenced sources. A student will be awarded a merit grade overall for their chosen programme provided that s/he has achieved a credit-weighted average mark of 60% or above across all modules (including the dissertation/major project for Masters) and, for Masters, the mark for the dissertation/major project module is not less than 60%.

Pass grade will be awarded for pieces of work characterised by good presentation, some evidence of synthesis and original creative thinking and based on incomplete references to other relevant research.

Fail grade will be awarded for work that is characterised by weak presentation, limited evidence of synthesis and original creative thinking and based on inadequate references to other relevant research.

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Extenuating circumstancesAny student wishing to apply for an extension to the deadline for any assessment assignment on the basis that they may have a valid cause for claiming extenuating circumstances should read and understand the detailed policies and procedures published by Plymouth University, Plymouth University Extenuating circumstances policy and procedures for students on taught programmes. The information which follows is a broad summary but further details will be found in the policy document.

Extenuating circumstances are circumstances which:• are exceptional• are outside the student’s control• can be corroborated by independent evidence• occurred during or shortly before the assessment in question; and• may have led to an unrepresentative performance in relation to the student’s

previously demonstrated ability.

A form, Application for Extenuating Circumstances Affecting Late or Non-Submission or Non-Attendance of Assessment is available from the Postgraduate office and should be completed, signed and submitted to Plymouth University along with corroborating evidence as soon as feasible (a copy of this documentation will also need to be held by the Postgraduate Programme office). The cut-off date should be checked with your Programme faculty whose responsibility it is to know and be able to communicate this.

3.1.3 In the event of failure of one or more modules

Where a student fails to achieve a pass in one or more taught modules, the Award Assessment Board (comprising representatives of Plymouth University, Schumacher College and the External Examiner) may at its discretion, based on a judgement of the student’s overall performance and potential:

• compensate for the failure (provided that the module mark(s) is/are within 5% of the pass mark and the module is not designated as non-compensatable). The maximum compensation permitted within each postgraduate award is:• Postgraduate Certificate 10 credits• Postgraduate Diploma 20 credits• Masters Degree 30 credits

• permit the student to be reassessed in the module(s), in whole or in part of each element of assessment, at the next available opportunity (the Board will determine whether the assessment will take the same form as the original);

• permit the student to retake the module(s), with or without attendance, by a date to be determined by the Board;

• require the student to withdraw from the programme; • require a student whose extenuating circumstances will prevent the completion

of the award during the normal period of registration, or have prevented her/him from making academic progress in the previous session, to interrupt studies or withdraw from the programme; or

• require a student who has developed a health or other problem that prevents her/him from meeting the learning outcomes of her/his programme to transfer to an alternative programme or withdraw from the programme.

The maximum mark for any element of assessment that has been failed and is being reassessed/retaken will be 50%. Further details of the process to be followed in the event of a failure can be found in section 7 of the regulatory framework for taught postgraduate awards at Plymouth University: http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/extexam/Documents/Academic%20Regs/Assessment%20Regs/Regulatory%20Framework%20for%20Taught%20Postgraduate%20Awards.pdf





3.1.4 Complaints and appeals

The Plymouth University website https://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/essentialinfo/regulations/Pages/default.aspx details the procedures for registering and taking forward any complaint a student may have relating to any aspect of the academic performance of the College or any of its staff, and a summary flow chart is shown below. Students with any such complaint are advised initially, if possible and appropriate, to take up the complaint with the Head of Schumacher College.

Stage 1As a student you should raise any issues or prob-lems with your Tutor or alternative member of staff at the partner college where you study. The college will work with you to resolve the issue. If you are not happy with the outcome of this stage, you can raise a formal complaint in writing (Stage 2) with the University using the [email protected] email address.

Stage 2If you wish to raise a formal complaint you need to contact the University’s Complaints Office (CO). The CO will contact the college with details of your complaint and advise the college as to possible solutions that could be offered to address your complaint. The college will then write to you to address the formal complaint and to offer a resolution.

If you are not happy with the outcome of Stage 2, you can escalate the complaint to Stage 3 with the University at [email protected] where a Committee of Investigation will take place.

Stage 3If you are not happy with the outcome of Stage 2, you should contact the CO. A Committee of Investigation will be set up to review your complaint. After the Committee has made a decision they will write to you with the outcome. If, following this, you are still not happy with the outcome, your next step would be take your complaint to the OIA (Office of Independent Adjudicator).

Stage 1 – NotesThis is an informal step in the complaints pro-cess. It is envisaged that either the Tutor, or an alternative college representative will be able to resolve the issue raised by you and will meet with you to discuss the outcome.

Stage 2 – NotesThe University’s CO will contact the college on receipt of your formal complaint in order that the College can consider your issue. The CO will also give advice to the College as to ways to resolve your complaint.

Stage 3 – NotesThe Committee of Investigation is formed by Academics, Registrars, and the Student Union. The CO will contact the college on receipt of your complaint and provide them with a copy of the information you have submitted. The college will then be required to prepare a written submission in response to your complaint and submit this to the Committee of Investigation. The committee will consider all the facts and make a decision regarding the complaint. The CO will write to both you and the college with the outcome of the committee’s decision.

https://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/essentialinfo/regulations/Pages/default.aspx

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3.1.5 Feedback on academic work

Feedback will be an integral part of the assessment process. Students are entitled to feedback on all submitted formative and summative assessment assignments. The nature, extent and timing of feedback for each assessment task will be made clear to students in advance.

Schumacher College uses a simple assessment form, which indicates how the marking tutor has used the assessment criteria to arrive at the overall mark. This is not necessarily numerical, but aims to communicate how and why the assessor is making their particular judgment and what they see as its strengths and weaknesses. We also aim to provide written feedback (summative and qualitative) for module assessments and dissertations.

3.1.6 Examiners

All assessment assignments other than the dissertation will, in the first place, be marked by Schumacher College faculty. Dissertations will be marked by the primary and secondary supervisors.

A selection of assessment assignments representative of high (70 and above), medium (60 and above) and low (below 55) will then be considered by the Subject External Examiner who moderates the programme. Schumacher College has always recognised the value and importance of External Examiners in supporting the ongoing development of its postgraduate programmes and in underpinning the College’s commitment to quality in the teaching and learning experience. They bring an independence of perspective and a duty of objectivity and are selected for these qualities as well as their expertise and experience in their particular field of study. External Examiners are appointed for a period no greater than four academic years, in alignment with Plymouth University’s policies.

While the awarding body is responsible for their appointment, the College plays a central role in the nomination and briefing of External Examiners. These are duties that the College takes very seriously in recognition of the importance of the position.

Plymouth University identifies the following five key roles for External Examiners in ensuring that the:

• standards are appropriate by reference to published national subject benchmarks (where applicable), the National Qualifications Framework and the University’s programme and module specifications;

• assessment process measures student achievement against the intended learning outcomes;

• assessment process is in line with the University’s Assessment Strategy; • University’s awards are comparable in standard to awards conferred by other UK

HE institutions; and • assessment process is operated fairly and equitably and in accordance with

University Regulations.

An Award External Examiner will support the Award Assessment Board and the Faculty in ensuring that awards for students are made in accordance with the assessment regulations and that individual students are treated fairly, taking account of any recommendations resulting from prior consideration of extenuating circumstances or assessment offences.

The Award External Examiner will be asked to provide informative comment and recommendations upon whether or not the College is maintaining the threshold academic standards agreed with the awarding institution for its awards, and about the comparability of standards of student performance at award level with similar awards in other UK institutions with which s/he is familiar. S/he will be a member of the appropriate Award Assessment Board, which makes decisions on progression and awards on the basis of the module marks confirmed by the Subject Assessment Panel.


For students and staff there should be a strong reassurance that the External Examiner will contribute to the overall effectiveness of quality assurance and the total teaching and learning experience by representing key qualities of transparency and credibility. To this end students can expect to have the opportunity to meet the External Examiner for their programme on at least one occasion during the academic year.

3.1.7 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is not tolerated. This is defined by Plymouth University as: ‘The submission for assessment of material (written, computer-generated, visual or oral) or ideas originally produced by another person or persons, without clearly indicating that the material is not original, such that the work could be assumed to be the student’s.’

Information about what constitutes plagiarism can be found here:https://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/essentialinfo/regulations/Pages/Plagiarism.aspx

Plymouth University’s code for defining and dealing with Examination and Assessments Offences, including the process that needs to be followed together with the students’ rights and responsibilities, can be found here:http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/extexam/Documents/Academic%20Regs/Assessment%20Regs/Examination%20and%20Assessment%20Offences%20201314%20v1.doc

3.1.8 Student feedback and representation

Feedback from students is considered to be of great importance on a number of levels: enabling the students to actively co-create the programmes; providing vital information to faculty and management of the College on the level of student satisfaction; and generating a flow of insider information to be used to continually enhance the design and delivery of the course for future cohorts.

There will always be a formal end of module evaluation for each module. This may be complemented by more informal feedback sessions as the need arises or in response to requests from students. The formal end-of-module evaluations will include feedback on:

• quality of academic guidance and support during the course; • appropriateness of the content of the curriculum to student learning; • clarity of the module learning outcomes; • clarity of the assessment tasks; • appropriateness of criteria and feedback on assessments; • range and quality of the teaching and learning; • improvements that could be made to the module.

Student feedback on the whole programme will include an evaluation of: • clarity and understanding of the programme learning outcomes; • organisation of the curriculum; • workloads and the staging of assessments; • availability and accessibility of learning resources for the programme; • overview of the range, appropriateness and quality of teaching; • quality of academic guidance and pastoral support during the programme.

Where possible, feedback will be both qualitative and quantitative, permitting both a natural qualitative flow of feedback, and a more easily analysable scoring system.

One or more student representatives from each of the postgraduate programmes will be invited to sit on two College committees: the Postgraduate Programme Committee, which includes membership from Plymouth University, and the College’s Postgraduate Programmes Management Committee. Students are also invited to meet with a Panel during any University-led Periodic Reviews, which take place for any given programme roughly every six years. There is no Periodic Review scheduled for 2014/15. The method of selection of the student representatives will be entirely determined by the student body in each of the postgraduate programmes. These committees play a key role in overseeing, reviewing and making recommendations regarding the academic performance and all other aspects of the postgraduate programmes. Full details of the responsibilities of these bodies can be found in the Schumacher College Quality Manual.

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3.1.9 Personal and academic records

The College will maintain personal files for each student. This will contain records and personal data relating to the student’s application and pre-study communication together with records relating to assessment and feedback. The College is also required to maintain certain information in order to fulfil the statutory and regulatory requirements of the UK Home Office in relation to immigration matters. The College is committed to compliance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. Any student who has any concerns or questions relating to the personal data held should address these to their Programme Coordinator in the first instance, who will aim to provide any answers or explanations in a timely way.

3.1.10 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) visit

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) is an independent body entrusted with monitoring, and advising on, standards and quality in UK higher education. Schumacher College, alongside the University of Plymouth, work together to ensure we meet the expectations of the Quality Code http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code. Both Institutions monitor and work strategically to enhance our provision, putting students at the heart of the process and aiming to develop a student experience of the highest standard.

An integral part of our quality process involves feedback from both staff and students; as noted in section 3.18, we regularly ask students to reflect on all aspects of the student experience and give feedback. In addition, we look to assign student representatives each year to represent your cohort to the College, University and the QAA. We encourage you to be positively engaged with this process so that we may better support you and future cohorts. We welcome feedback and if you would like to discuss this area in further detail, please do not hesitate to contact the Postgraduate Quality Coordinator or Head of College.

The Plymouth University Quality Handbook for Taught Programmes can be found at: http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/ouruniversity/organisation/quality/qahandbook/Pages/default.aspx.

A hard copy of the Schumacher Quality Handbook will be available to you at the College and an e-copy available on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). This Quality Handbook contains further information about our current policies and procedures and engagement with the Quality Code; It will be updated from time to time in light of changing student needs, recommendations from the QAA, student or staff programme reviews and/or feedback. Questions about the content or suggestions for amendments should be sent to the Quality Assurance Coordinator: [email protected].

Students are asked to note that QAA assessors will be visiting the College on the 9th/10th December 2014, to follow-up on the College’s Annual Monitoring Review, to be submitted in September 2014. The visit is in accordance with the Home Office’s requirement for all Tier 4 sponsors to be regularly monitored for quality assurance purposes. The QAA will wish to meet with students in private – that is, without the presence of any Schumacher College staff. All students are strongly encouraged to attend any sessions to which they are invited by QAA. Your input into this process is very important, and the College’s academic timetable has made provision for the QAA visit.

For further information on the work of the QAA please visit the QAA website http://www.qaa.ac.uk

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/assuring-standards-and-quality/the-quality-code

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/ouruniversity/organisation/quality/qahandbook/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/ouruniversity/organisation/quality/qahandbook/Pages/default.aspx


http://www.qaa.ac.uk


3.2 Facilities at Plymouth University

Plymouth University is a dynamic university with an educational history dating back to 1862. The full range of facilities and services available to students can be found here at http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/studentgateway/Pages/learninglife.aspx

3.2.1 Inductions at Plymouth University

An induction visit to Plymouth University will be organised for early on during the first term. This will involve a tour of the campus, when you will learn about the facilities and services available to you as a Schumacher College postgraduate student.

3.2.2 Plymouth University Library

The University library is open 24 hours a day, and houses a large selection of journals and books (both print and electronic) as well as multimedia resources such as DVDs, digital maps, digital newspaper archives, and online streaming of television programmes. Enrolling with the University automatically generates membership of the library and computing services.

Schumacher postgraduate students can make use of the distance library facilities in order to have books posted to the College or for chapters and articles to be scanned and emailed. Access to these resources is via the student portal of the University website, for which you need your University username and password. You will be instructed in how to access the student portal during the online enrolment process, which you will be asked to undertake before the start of term. You can also access the online resources via the below link (this is a deep link into the student area of the University website) but you will need to have enrolled in order to access the e-journals via Primo.

http://plymouth.libguides.com/schumacher

Follow up training and ongoing support will be provided as necessary. Additionally, Fernanda Rocha Vidal, the Postgraduate Support Volunteer (see 3.3.3) will be able to help with students’ library queries.

3.2.3 Pastoral care, counselling and other support

Plymouth University provides a chaplaincy and counselling service, detailed on the University’s website at http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/faith/Pages/default.aspx and http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/counselling/Pages/default.aspx respectively.

3.2.4 English language and international student support

The English Language Centre (see http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/englishlanguagecentre/Pages/default.aspx) supports the College’s international students through one-to-one tutorials, free English classes, workshops tailored for particular groups of students and e-mail. It is also possible for English Language Centre staff to visit the College to tutor students, individually or in groups, by prior arrangement.

3.2.5 Support to disabled students

The Disability ASSIST service http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/disability/Pages/default.aspx offers advice and guidance on disability to current and prospective Plymouth University students and staff. This includes arranging appropriate provision for disabled students. Support is also available to students who believe they may have a learning difficulty, such as dyslexia. You are encouraged to disclose any impairment or condition (for example, dyslexia, a physical, sensory or mental health condition) to your Head of Faculty at Schumacher College at the earliest opportunity so that we can endeavor to meet your needs.

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/studentgateway/Pages/learninglife.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/studentgateway/Pages/learninglife.aspx

http://plymouth.libguides.com/schumacher

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/faith/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/faith/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/counselling/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/englishlanguagecentre/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/disability/Pages/default.aspx

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3.3 Student Support at the College

3.3.1 Induction

The Schumacher College induction will take place during the first week after students arrive and will help students become familiar with the College, its people, culture and philosophy, the facilities, buildings and grounds, and the Dartington estate. The induction will also comprise a full briefing on the academic requirements of all programmes, including hand-in deadlines, assessment and feedback methods, and from where students can access this information both electronically and in paper form.

3.3.2 Postgraduate Quality Coordinator

In 2014, Schumacher invested in a new role, Postgraduate Programme Quality Coordinator. Michelle North was appointed to this role In April 2014. This role serves to strengthen management of our quality assurance processes, to support the Postgraduate faculty in Programme operations, and to integrate postgraduate students with the life of the college. Michelle will be working closely with the Postgraduate support volunteer (3.3.3), Postgraduate Programme Manager, students and the faculty, to support your student experience, coordinating and enhancing our Quality Assurance work.

If you have any feedback concerning the quality of any element of your Schumacher College experience, please do not hesitate to contact Michelle; either in person or at: [email protected].

3.3.3 Postgraduate Support Volunteer

Students will be supported by the Postgraduate Support Volunteer, Fernanda Rocha Vidal, a graduate from the Economics for Transition Masters programme in 2014/15. The job description for this post is as follows:

Keeping the PulseKeep aware of individual and group dynamics, catching issues as they arise, and bringing these to other college staff as needed.

FeedbackHelp strengthen, enrich, and quicken feedback process between postgraduate students, faculty and the rest of the college.

CultureHelp incoming postgraduate students integrate into and participate in a lively Schumacher postgraduate culture whilst maintaining space and time for reflection and learning.

Emotional SpacesFacilitate the process of providing spaces for students to express emotions and for feelings to be heard and honoured as part of the learning journey.

Support PersonBe a clearly defined “support person” for postgraduate students – able to point students to sources of further support/information and provide help with accessing the University’s e-resources.

Facilitate CommunicationFacilitate communication and linkages between the postgraduate students and staff, volunteers, short course participants and longer-term students, and local community, relevant networks and alumni.

AdministrationSupport the gathering of information from amongst the postgraduate students for administrative purposes. Support the students to fully participate in Schumacher’s on-going quality assurance processes.



3.3.4 Tutorial support

Students at Schumacher College will have far more time in one-on-one and small group tutorials than at almost any other higher education body in the UK. Indeed, this highly personalised relationship with tutors within a community-based learning environment lies at the heart of the College’s distinctiveness. Students are guaranteed a 45-minute one-on-one tutorial with a member of faculty in the reading week at the end of each of the three core modules. In addition, students are encouraged to engage in an ongoing, rolling exploration of themes and questions that are of importance to them with faculty members throughout the academic year. An important reason for asking students to submit drafts of assessment assignments several weeks before final submission dates of assessment assignments is to encourage such a dialogue to flow.

3.3.5 Support for disabled students

Schumacher College operates an inclusive policy on diversity, including wherever possible the provision of disability access. The College operates in accordance with the Dartington Hall Trust Policy on Disability (2006), which is committed to complying with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. A copy of this policy is available on request.

Schumacher College is located at The Old Postern, a 17th century manor house, where full disability access is provided for student residences, toilets and bathrooms, dining areas, library and lounge facilities. The postgraduate teaching classrooms are located on the first floor, where disability access is limited; and in a recently refurbished building on the Schumacher campus. Where possible, provisions will be put in place across all properties and land the College is responsible for at the Old Postern site, Higher Close and the Elmhirst Centre, to ensure disabled students have full access to all teaching sessions and materials and where necessary, additional tutorial support will be provided.

The College wishes to ensure that students with disabilities are able to play as full a part in the life of the College community as possible. Further assistance is available from Disability Assist at the Plymouth University (see 3.2.5) and all facilities open to Schumacher College students at Plymouth University (such as the library) have full disability access.

3.3.6 Food and accommodation at Schumacher College

A copy of the full food and accommodation policy should have been sent to you with your offer letter. If you would like a further copy, please ask the Postgraduate Programmes Manager.

We expect all postgraduate students to foster the College’s ethos of living-and-learning-in-community by living in the student accommodation provided at either of our two sites on the Dartington Estate during their taught modules. However, we understand that students with families may not want this, and we therefore permit students with families to live in their own off-campus accommodation and commute in to the College each day during taught modules.

The College has accommodation for postgraduate students at two sites, The Old Postern and Higher Close. Within the Dartington complex there are facilities and cultural activities including the Barn Cinema, Space, The Roundhouse Café, and the White Hart Bar and Restaurant - adjacent to the magnificent medieval Great Hall, where many artistic performances take place throughout the year. Students can enjoy year-round access to squash courts located in the Higher Close complex and the free use of an outdoor swimming pool during the summer months. Higher close is a stones throw away from Dartington Hall. For further information see www.dartington.org/arts

The Old Postern is part of the Schumacher College campus, and is where volunteers and short course participants are also resident at various times throughout the year. We have reserved some bedrooms for postgraduate students, to be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Parking is available at either of the Postern’s two car parks; students will need to get a parking permit from the College’s administration office.

Higher Close AccommodationHigher Close comprises student accommodation formerly used by students of the Dartington College of Arts, which re-located to Falmouth in 2010. This accommodation underwent renovation in 2012, enjoys panoramic views of the Dartington Estate and is a 10 to 15 minute walk from The Old Postern, or a 5 minute bicycle ride. There are secure cycle racks at each end. Nearby car-parking in the main car park is also available (students will need to get a parking permit from the College’s administration office).

Students living at Higher Close take all their meals at Schumacher College.

http://www.dartington.org/arts

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3.3.6.1 Fully residential: £285 per week

If you are fully residential, you will have a private room in either the Schumacher College complex or Higher close. All our food, which is vegetarian, largely organic and locally-sourced, is prepared freshly by our in-house chefs and members of the College community for every meal. The £285 a week is for full-board accommodation, and includes a private study bedroom with shared bathroom facilities, heating, lighting, laundry, and all meals as well as unlimited snacks and beverages taken outside of scheduled meal times including weekends when there is generally no formal teaching. A Duvet, bed linen and towels are provided and laundered by the College.

Term 1: 28 August 2014 - 19 December 2014 Core modules and study weeks (16 weeks) - £285 per week. Students are expected to be in residence at all times and no refunds will be issued if students choose to leave the College during a study week.

Term 2: 5 January 2015 to 2 April 2015 (Masters Students only)Six weeks electives and seven weeks study - £285 per week.

In 2014-15 Economics and Holistic Science students have the option to remain at the College until the 10th April 2015, at the end of the Taught Programme. There will be no charge made for this additional period.

It is understood that students will not leave the College during taught modules, unless extenuating circumstances apply. In the latter case, the College will apply discretion in refunding food and accommodation charges.

3.3.6.2 Off-site: £100 per week

Where it has been agreed with the College you may live off site due to family commitments, you will not have a private study bedroom and overnight accommodation at the College. The £100 a week charge includes all meals as well as unlimited snacks and beverages taken outside of scheduled meal times, including weekends when there is generally no formal teaching. This charge applies during all taught modules. The community environment which underpins the teaching ethos of the College requires students living off-site to still be part of the College community. Food is prepared and eaten in community, and the clearing up after meals is also a community task. For these reasons we do not allow students living off-site any reduction in food charges for meals they choose not to take in College. It is also not an option for off-site students to bring in their own food, as this disturbs the community dynamic of sharing food that has been prepared in the kitchen.

The offsite rate which you have paid in advance covers all food for the taught weeks, not the study weeks.

Term 1: 28 August 2014 to 19 December 2014 (all Postgraduate Students)Paid for: 13 taught weeks. 3 study weeks (see note below re: payment during study weeks)

Term 2: 5 January 2015 to 2 April 2015 (Masters Students only)Paid for: six weeks of electives (taught weeks). 7 study weeks (see below re: payment during study weeks).

During Study Weeks: If you wish to take meals occasionally at the College during study weeks in the second term you must pay for these on an ad hoc basis, and let us know at least one day ahead of your intention to eat here. Lunch and Evening meals are charged at £5.00 per meal, and breakfast at £2.50 per meal.


3.3.6.3 Christmas and New Year

Holistic Science and Economics for Transition students are advised that the College is closed during Christmas and the New Year period, when food and accommodation at the College is therefore not available (and has not been charged for in the 2014/15 food and accommodation fees).

3.3.6.4 Staying on at the College beyond the end of the second term

Periods of residency at the College span Terms 1 and 2, so ending 10th April 2015. Students are ordinarily expected to leave the College at the end of the second term, to work on their dissertation projects. However, past experience suggests that some Masters students may prefer to continue their dissertation research whilst remaining as community members, resident on the Dartington estate. We will therefore set aside a number of study bedrooms for this purpose, which will be available until the latter part of July .We will do our best to accommodate all postgraduate students wanting to remain living within student accommodation. However, we will need to limit the number of rooms we can set aside for this purpose, and in general, students who have travelled from overseas will have priority. The standard charge of £285 per week will apply.

Please note all Masters students may still have access to the College’s library and computing facilities up to the end of their academic year.

Early in 2015, we will ask Economics for Transition and Holistic Science students about their accommodation requirements beyond the second term so we may plan ahead. If you are definite you wish to remain living in student accommodation beyond 10th April 2015, you are advised to inform the College as soon as possible.

For as long as you are a resident in the College community, you will be expected to participate in the community workgroups which are organised each week.

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3.4 Additional information for students

3.4.1 Students coming from outside the UK

All students from outside of the UK are strongly recommended to read the guidance provided by UKCISA, the UK Council for International Student Affairs, http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/immigration.php This is packed with very useful information and advice.

3.4.2 Immigration and visas

Students needing visas who are in receipt of this Handbook will have already acquired their visa, or will likely be waiting to receive it. This section is therefore not intended to provide comprehensive information on Tier 4 policy and/or the application process for acquiring a Tier 4 visa. If you have any immigration queries after you arrive at the College please ask the Postgraduate Programmes Manager in the first instance, who will seek out advice for you where possible. Otherwise you may be directed to UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) (https://www.gov.uk/tier-4-general-visa) or to UKCISA (www.ukcisa.org.uk).

If a student needs to make a telephone call to receive help or advice from UKVI or UKCISA while at the College, they are welcome to use an office telephone and are encouraged to ask any member of staff.

Please note: Under the rules of the UKVI, Schumacher is obliged to record student attendance and absences; notifying the UKVI of any ongoing absence, or withdrawal of sponsorship of a student. At the end of the Taught modules and during your dissertation writing up period, it is a requirement of the UKVI that you keep the College informed as to your movement, both within the UK and beyond. We kindly ask you to notify the Postgraduate Administration team as soon as possible of any change of address, travel plans, and of your final departure date from the UK. We understand that this could feel restrictive; however, it is important to support the college in meeting these requirements so we can maintain our Highly Trusted Status and continue to offer the courses to Tier 4 students in the future. Thank you.

3.4.3 Working in the UK

In 2014/15, students studying at Schumacher College who have entered the UK on a Tier 4 visa are not permitted to work. This is because The Dartington Hall Trust, who sponsor Schumacher College students’ Tier 4 visas, is not a UK higher education institution, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration (see clause 318 of the Tier 4 Policy Guidance for Students, available from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/330612/T4_Guidance_07-14.pdf.

If you are issued with a Tier 4 visa which specifies you have permission to work, you are strongly advised to alert the immigration authorities to the apparent error. In the UK you should contact the Immigration Enquiry Bureau:

UK Visas and Immigration contact centre Telephone: 0300 123 2241 Monday to Thursday, 9am to 4:45pm Friday, 9am to 4:30pm

Website: https://www.gov.uk/contact-ukvi/overview

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/immigration.php

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/immigration.php

https://www.gov.uk/tier-4-general-visa

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/330612/T4_Guidance_07-14.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/330612/T4_Guidance_07-14.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/contact-ukvi/overview


3.4.4 Medical and dental care

All full-time international students whose courses last for six months or more are entitled to free medical treatment through the UK’s National Health Service. Dependents also qualify for this service. All students are strongly advised to register with a General Practitioner (GP) on arrival: the local health centre is the Leatside Surgery in Totnes, telephone 01803 862671 http://www.leatside.co.uk/index.aspx

To find alternative NHS General Practitioners (GP’s) please see: http://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/GP/LocationSearch/4

There is a charge for prescriptions for medicine, but you may be exempt from paying this, depending on your financial circumstances. Health and Wellbeing Services at Plymouth University http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/health/Pages/default.aspx can provide help with this. Doctors will make house calls in the event of your being too ill to attend an appointment at a surgery. In case of accident and emergency, you should report it to a member of staff immediately who will record the incident and will arrange transport for you to be taken to your GP surgery or the local hospital, or arrange an ambulance. You can call an ambulance by dialing 999 on any telephone (9-999 from Schumacher College telephones).

There are a number of dentists in Totnes including an NHS dentist, Dart Vale Dental Care (http://www.dartvaledentalcare.co.uk/) telephone 01803 840200. To find alternative NHS dentists please see: http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/dentists/Pages/find-an-NHS-dentist.aspx

3.4.5 Insurance

You may wish to consider taking out insurance against the following:• loss of air fares and course fees if you have to cancel through illness, etc.;• personal private healthcare (but see information on medical and dental care above);• damage or loss of personal possessions: your possessions are not covered by the Schumacher College

insurance policy.

3.4.6 Climate

The climate in the South West of England is temperate and fairly mild. It rains a lot, particularly over the coastal locations, but temperatures are rarely extreme. For the winter you will need warm, waterproof clothing and footwear. The College has spare waterproofs and Wellington boots for students to use.

3.4.7 Pre-departure checklist

Students travelling from overseas are strongly advised to read the advice UKCISA provide to overseas students arriving in the UK. See http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/info_sheets/arriving_in_uk.php Here are some important questions: Have you got a valid passport?

• Have you obtained a visa or other entry clearance, if applicable?• If you are a visa student have you got all the original documents, including academic certificates/transcripts,

university and College offer letters, proof of your financial ability to pay your fees and support yourself, which you may be asked to show when you enter the UK?

• Have you got everything you need to pay your fees, or have you already arranged for payment of these fees?• Do you have all the directions for travelling to Schumacher College?• Have you checked whether your own government has restrictions on the amount of money you can take out

of your country?• Have you checked whether you need permission to transfer money to the UK?• Have you ordered British currency for your immediate expenses on arrival in the UK?• Have you bought travel tickets and travel insurance, and checked your baggage allowance? (Excess baggage

is expensive).• Have you taken out personal insurance (if required)?• Have you an itinerary from your travel agent or airline?• Have you obtained a letter from your doctor for any prescribed drugs you may need to bring with you?• Have you checked with your local British Embassy or High Commission what must be declared to customs?

UKCISA provide good information on procedures undertaken when you pass through UK customs.

http://www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/GP/LocationSearch/4

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/health/Pages/default.aspx

http://www1.plymouth.ac.uk/health/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.dartvaledentalcare.co.uk

http://www.dartvaledentalcare.co.uk

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/dentists/Pages/find-an-NHS-dentist.aspx

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/dentists/Pages/find-an-NHS-dentist.aspx

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/info_sheets/arriving_in_uk.php

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3.4.8 Travelling to Schumacher College

From overseas:If you are flying to the UK from most destinations abroad, you will arrive either at London Heathrow or London Gatwick airport. Some budget airlines now fly into Bristol airport, which is much closer. In all cases, the quickest way to get to Schumacher is to take the train to Totnes, which is two miles from the College. Alternatively, you may take a coach from any of these airports to Totnes, but the journey time is around one third longer. Allow roughly three hours train time from London Paddington to Totnes, and five to six hours coach time from London Victoria to Totnes.

The information below is for guidance only. You are advised to check all information – train/coach times, fares and availability - via the train and coach websites or helplines:

Train: www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk Telephone National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950. Calls from overseas to First Great Western should be made to + 44 (0) 345 7000 125 (7am – 10pm every day). This is an automated helpline; to access the correct extension, when requested, please press: Option 4, and then Option 1.

Coach: www.nationalexpress.co.uk Telephone National Express on 08717 818181 (within the UK) or 00 44 8717 818181 from overseas. Lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Bookings may be made from these websites using credit and debit cards.

From Heathrow Airport, there are two ways to connect with the train to Totnes: 1. You can take the bus (the Rail Air Link), which goes to Reading station from each

terminal at Heathrow every half hour and takes about 45 minutes. From Reading, you should get a train to Totnes (final destination will be shown as Plymouth or Penzance). The journey time once on this train is about 2.5 hours, and the trains leave every one or two hours, depending on the time of day. The last train leaves at about 20:30, but on Sundays the last train leaves earlier than on other days of the week.

2. You can take the Heathrow Express train back into London Paddington. This leaves the airport every 15 minutes and takes only 15 minutes, but is more expensive than the bus to Reading. From Paddington, you get the same Totnes train as you would pick up in Reading. Journey time from Paddington is about 3 hours, with the last train leaving at about 20:00, but on Sundays the last train leaves earlier than on other days of the week.

From Gatwick airport, take the train to Reading, and then proceed as outlined above. Journey time from Gatwick to Reading is a little over one hour.

From Bristol airport, take the bus to Bristol Temple Meads train station (a 15-minute journey). Trains run regularly from there to Totnes, and take about 1.5 hours.

It may be cheaper for you to purchase a single ticket for your journey to Totnes and for you to purchase another single ticket back, when you next leave, rather than buying a return ticket.

Within the UK:By Train: For further information on train times and fares, visit www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk, www.rail.co.uk or telephone National Rail Enquiries on 08457 484950. Calls from overseas to First Great Western should be made to + 44 (0) 345 7000 125 (7am – 10pm every day). This is an automated helpline; to access the correct extension, when requested, please press: Option 4, and then Option 1.

The nearest station is Totnes, which is two miles from the College. Totnes is on a major railway line, with journeys taking about three hours from London Paddington, 3.5 hours from Birmingham and 30 minutes from Plymouth. Taxis from the station to the College cost between £6 and £9 depending on time and day.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk

http://www.nationalexpress.co.uk



http://www.rail.co.uk


By Coach: National Express runs a coach service direct to Totnes from London Victoria via Heathrow Airport, and also from Gatwick Airport. Journey time is about 5 hours. For all enquiries 08717 818181. From overseas: 0044 8717 818181. Lines are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Visit www.nationalexpress.co.uk

By Car: Dartington lies a few miles south of the A38 Devon Expressway, which is a continuation of the M5.

From Exeter, take the A38 for about 20 miles until the A384 turnoff, signposted Buckfastleigh, Totnes, Kingsbridge, Dartmouth. Follow signs to Totnes. After about 4 miles, you enter the village of Dartington and proceed downhill to Dartington Church. Turn left by the church (signposted Dartington Hall).

From Plymouth, take the A38 about 20 miles until the A385 turnoff, signposted Paignton and Dartington. After about 3 miles, you enter the village of Dartington and come to a roundabout, where you turn left, signposted Buckfastleigh and Ashburton. About ¼ mile later, turn right by Dartington Church (sign-posted Dartington Hall).

Schumacher College (the Old Postern) is the next building on the left after the church. For easiest unloading of luggage, take the second left turning off the side-road (signed Old Craft Education Centre), go up the narrow access lane and turn left again immediately after the speed bump into the tarmac area in front of the College reception. We ask people not to leave their cars here once they’ve unloaded, but to park in the overflow car park beside the Old Craft Education Centre

Getting from Totnes to Schumacher CollegeFrom Totnes, you should get a taxi to the College – it is just a couple of miles and costs between £6 and £9, depending on the time and day.

Cycle Route from TotnesIf you would like to bring your bicycle, there is a cycle path all the way from Totnes station to the College. Go through the South Devon Railway car park and follow signs to Riverside Walk. The path runs along the River Dart and then comes out on the main drive to Dartington Hall. Turn right on this road, and a few yards on you will see the cycle route going left off the road. Follow the cycle path signs through the Dartington Shops, and you will come out right in front of the College. Total distance is about 2 miles.

3.4.9 Finances and course fees 2014/15

The below table summarises all tuition, food and accommodation fees for our postgraduate programmes in 2014/15.

2014/15

Postgraduate Programmes

Masters

EcoDT

PG Diploma

EcoDT

PG Cert

EcoDT

Masters

HS and E4T

PG Cert

HS and E4T

2014/15 Food and accommodation charges

Residential £6,840 £6,840 £3,420 £8,265 £4,560

Off-site £1,900 £1,900 £900 £1,900 £1,300

2014/15 tuition fees

UK / EEA students £13,225 £11,025 £6,615 £13,225 £6,615

Tier 4 students £18,715 £13,915 £8,349 £18,715 £8,349

2014/15 comprehensive fees

Residential UK / EEA students £20,065 £17,865 £10,035 £21,490 £11,175

Off-site UK / EEA students £15,125 £12,925 £7,515 £15,125 £7,915

Residential Tier 4 students £25,555 £20,755 £11,769 £26,980 £12,909

Off-site Tier 4 students £20,615 £15,815 £9,249 £20,615 £9,649

The above table is based on terms as detailed below:HS and E4T: Term 1 16 weeks, 28Aug - 19Dec 2014; Term 2 13 weeks 5Jan - 2Apr 2015 (Final modules end 2Apr - accommodation will be available until 10Apr 2015 for HS and E4T students only)

EcoDT: Term 1 12 weeks 8Jan - 2Apr 2015; Term 2 12 weeks, 27Apr - 17Jul 2015

http://www.nationalexpress.co.uk

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For information on our food and accommodation charges please refer to our food and accommodation policy (details of which are contained within 3.3.5.) You will also need to budget for travel, books not held in the library, specialist research or University materials, clothing, stationery and other additional items and services that fall outside of course fees.

3.4.9.1 Payment to Schumacher College

You may make payments to Schumacher College by cheque, credit or debit card, or by a direct transfer from your bank account to ours. All payments must be made in sterling.

Dartington Hall Trust administers payments for Schumacher College. Contact details are:

Telephone: +44(0)1803 847045Fax: +44(0)1803 847047E-mail: [email protected]: Dartington Hall Trust Accounts, The Estate Accounts Office, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon, United Kingdom TQ9 6EL

1 Payment by cheque

Please make your cheque payable to Dartington Hall Trust and send it to the above address. Please write your programme of study on the reverse of the cheque.

2 Payment by credit or debit card

A charge of 1.5% will be levied if you choose to pay by credit card (but not debit card), plus any charges your card provider may choose to levy for converting the payment into sterling. If you wish to pay by this method, for security reasons we must take payment details by telephone. Upon request, we can scan and email back your receipt and/or post the original to you.

NB Dartington Hall Trust does not accept AMEX or Diners cards.

3 Payment by bank transfer

IMPORTANT: Before making a payment by bank transfer please email [email protected] to advise how much money is being transferred into the Dartington Hall Trust’s account, and what this is payment for.

For payments coming from a bank within the UK, you simply need to instruct your bank to send the money to our bank, whose details are given below. Ordinarily you will not be charged for this service (but you may wish to check this with your bank).

Bank: Barclays BankAddress: 39 – 40 Fleet Street, Torquay, Devon TQ2 5DL UKSort code: 20-60-88Account number: 10315230Account name: Dartington Hall Trust, Number 2 Account

For international transfers (money coming from a foreign bank outside of the UK), additional information is needed and charges are levied by both your bank and our bank, which you will need to include in your payment. Please note we can only accept payment in sterling, so please ask your bank to transfer the funds to us in Sterling.



The additional information you will need includes:

Transfers from EU countries• IBAN code: this is the International Bank Account Number for our bank, in which the sort code, account

number and country code are included on one line. This code is GB56BARC20608810315230• SWIFT-BIC code: BARCGB22• Plus account details as shown above

From non EU countries• SWIFT-BIC code: BARCGB22• Plus account details as shown above

3.4.9.2 Money and insurance

Before you come to the UK, you should ensure you have a debit and/or credit card that work in ATMs in the UK. You may want to consider opening a bank account if you think you may have regular expenses in the UK such as, for example, for paying rent and utility bills.

Regulations are strict and banks will do credit and address checks. You are advised to have with you a bank statement and your University and College offer letters which are addressed to your home country address to help you to open a UK account. To assist our students with opening a bank account, we will provide a letter confirming the student’s enrolment on to their chosen programme and their residency at the College, or confirmation of their address if they are living off-site.

You may find it useful to read the information given by UKCISA (UK Council for International Student Affairs) about opening a bank account in the UK, and the link below includes an informative leaflet produced by the British Bankers Association. Please visit: http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/content/2506/Opening-a-bank-account

The nearest bank branches are in Totnes, including HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest. Please ask the Postgraduate Programme Manager if you require a letter confirming your enrolment.

3.4.10 Registering with the police

Some international students from outside the EU may need to register with the local police. If this is the case, there will be a stamp on your visa stating ‘Police Registration within 7 days of UK entry’.

At the police station you will have to fill in a form which, with the necessary documents, (see below) will be left with the police for processing. After initial registration you will be asked to return to the police station in person after two weeks to collect your passport and certificate of registration. Your police registration certificate is an important document and should be kept in a safe place. If you go away from the College you must take it and keep it with you at all times. It is valid for your entire stay, but must be renewed every time you extend your leave or change your local address.

Travelling to the Police Station

Totnes Police do not have the facilities for administering student registrations, and students are therefore required to register in Torquay. Torquay is located about 10 miles east of Totnes and the Police Station is within five minutes walk of Torre railway station. The address is South Street, Torquay, Devon TQ2 5AH and you can see a map at: http://www.devoncornwall.police.uk/ContactUs/EnquiryOffice/Pages/TorquayEnquiryOffice.aspx

If you are travelling by public transport then you are advised to take the train from Totnes to Torre (not Torquay). You will need to change at Newton Abbot but the trains run fairly frequently and the waiting time is usually no more than 20 minutes. At Torre, you are five minutes walk from the Police Station (see map on website link above), and if you ask any passers-by they should easily be able to direct you.

The Police station will be open for registration between 0800 hours to 1900 hours 7 days per week. No more than 4 students should attend at any one time and the best time to go is between 1300 hours and 1700 hours. When you go to the police station, it will save you time if you fill in as much information as possible, in advance, on the Police Registration form and take it with you. The postgraduate admissions office will provide you with a copy of the form.

http://www.devoncornwall.police.uk/ContactUs/EnquiryOffice/Pages/TorquayEnquiryOffice.aspx

http://www.devoncornwall.police.uk/ContactUs/EnquiryOffice/Pages/TorquayEnquiryOffice.aspx

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Please make sure that you have all of the following with you, otherwise you will not be able to register.

• 2 passport-sized photographs• Passport• Offer letter from the University • Documentary evidence of how you are funding the course and/or a receipt for

any payments already made.• £34 registration fee which must be paid in cash – please have the correct money

available

You must report to the Police within 7 days of any of the following changes:

• change of address• change of University• change of marital status or birth of children• extension of stay granted by the UKVI• change of passport• temporary absence of 4 weeks or more from registered address.

Sometimes the police official may ask to retain your passport but this will be returned to you usually within 10 days. It is likely that you will need to return in person to the Police Station to collect it.

If you need to update your Police Registration Certificate with any of the changes you must visit Torquay Police Station to do so. Please follow the instructions above.

If you go to stay at another address for more than 4 weeks you will need to register at the nearest Police Station to your new address. You will need your Passport and Police Registration Certificate.

Registering with the police is an important procedure, and if you are in any doubt about what you need to do, you should ask the Postgraduate Programmes Manager or other member of staff.

When you finally leave the UK you must return the Police Registration Certificate to Torquay Police Station, South Street, Torquay, Devon TQ2 5AH. You are advised to send this by registered post

If you have been staying at another address, registered with the local Police Station there and are finally leaving the UK from that address then you will need to return your Police Registration Certificate to them.


In preparing for your dissertation it is critical that you also refer to the Dissertation Module Record for your programme which can be found elsewhere in the student handbook.

A.1 Introduction

The Masters dissertation allows students to pursue their research area in depth with the support of a supervisor. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide you with a framework from which to develop your thoughts into an acceptable Master’s dissertation.

As you will have read in the earlier chapters of this handbook, each student will choose a dissertation topic approved of by a supervisor at Plymouth University and the secondary supervisors from the faculty at Schumacher College. It is the student’s responsibility to arrange meetings with their dissertation supervisors and consider the advice they are given. Your supervisors are there to advise and support you, but you must develop your research question, an appropriate methodology, theoretical framework, and analyse your data in a way that is consistent with Master’s level work.

A.2 General guidance

The dissertation is designed to provide students with an opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding in relation to a specific topic area within your chosen area of study. It is highly recommended that as you develop your topic, you select one which is of interest to you, and/or which has practical application to a current or future career. Whilst rewarding, the dissertation can be a long and difficult process, and those students who ignore the previous advice tend to find it longer and more difficult than most. To successfully complete this task, within the dissertation, students must fulfil the following:

1) You must identify and justify an appropriate topic within the framework of the programme.2) You must demonstrate critical understanding of the relevant literature, issues, theories, and methodologies

within your topic area. This will include drawing upon both academic and non-academic sources of information. 3) In addition to providing understanding of the criteria mentioned above, you must demonstrate an ability to

synthesise various sources of information and develop conclusions and recommendations.4) The work must be produced to a high standard of English and presentation, and use appropriate referencing.

A.3 Dissertation supervision guidelines

The purpose of this section is to make you aware of arrangements for dissertation supervision once your proposal has been accepted, particularly with regard to the commencement of written work. The supervisory team has had lengthy discussion regarding the appropriate type of support to provide students, and the need for consistency in approach. Just so you are aware, some institutions provide no reading of draft material for Masters Dissertations. At others, supervisors will read material right up until the submission deadline. On the face of it, the latter may be more appealing to you as students. However, the problems with such an open-ended arrangement are threefold: 1) there are discrepancies in how much individual staff members will comment and when they are available (especially given that many staff members take their holidays in the summer months); 2) this leads to some students being (dis)advantaged over others due to things such as staff leave/other commitments; and 3) as a professional qualification, at Master’s level you are expected to undertake and produce your own work, not the work of your supervisor. We believe the following arrangements will provide you with a good level of support in consideration of the above three points.

Appendix A: Dissertation Guidelines

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1) Supervisors will accept material to read/comment on up to two months prior to the submission deadline. After that students will not be able to submit “drafts” of their work for comment. These Dissertation Guidelines provide you with what needs to be in your thesis and a possible framework, and the final proposal will have served to get you on your way in terms of the problem, key literature, and methodology. The feedback does not guarantee that you will pass or achieve merit or distinction for your work. By this time, it is expected that you will have produced solid working drafts of your introduction, literature review, and methodology.

2) After the above deadline (Point 1: two months prior to submission), students are welcome to contact staff members for questions, but not to read and comment on material. In other words you will continue to have staff support/guidance on critical issues/questions, but it is up to you to write and present the final document.

3) Staff have agreed that we need to be consistent in our approach, and that even though we may be around in the summer, and a student says, “Can you read this for me” we have to say no, as it would not be fair to everyone else.

4) Nearer to July the link tutor at the Plymouth University will distribute a “rota” of sorts, listing who will be available at Plymouth University during July/August, so that if you have questions, you know who to contact.

A.3.1 Dissertation Primary and Secondary Supervisors

When you have decided on a particular subject area, the link tutor will recommend a primary supervisor from Plymouth University, the College or an agreed 3rd party. In addition, another appropriate academic will be available as a secondary supervisor. Your primary supervisor is expected to afford you up to 20 hours of supervision, including time for reading drafts and the final dissertation. Where your primary supervisor is a 3rd party, their role will be confirmed by the programme’s link tutor and they will be contracted by the College to fulfil the role.

In addition to your supervisors, you are encouraged to draw broadly from others in the field in which you are working. Your research is a good way to make contacts that might be useful further on in your journey. Schumacher College has a flow through of expert teachers from all sorts of fields who will be pleased to help you. At least one member of the faculty at Schumacher College will be available for supervision (either in person, by telephone, by email or by Skype) over the dissertation period. To cover for faculty leave and other commitments over this period, notes of supervisory meetings will be taken to enable a handover of supervisor responsibilities between faculty members at Schumacher College.

Recommended Texts and Sources: • Bryman, A. (2008). Social Research Methods. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.• Hoffman, N. (2007). Goethe’s Science of Living Form; The Artistic Stages. Adonis

Press.• Mason, J. (2002). Qualitative Researching. 2nd edn. London: Sage.• Moser, C.A. and Kalton, G. (1993). Survey Methods in Social Investigation. 3rd

edn. Heinemann.• Reason, P. And Bradbury, H. (eds.) (2008). The Sage Handbook of Action

Research, Sage Publications, London.• Shaw, P. (2002). Changing Conversations in Organizations: A Complexity

Approach to Change. Routledge.• Wemelsfelder F. (1997). The scientific validity of subjective concepts in models

of animal welfare. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, (53), 75-88.


A.4 Ethical approval

Ethical principles for research involving human participants

Following discussions with your primary supervisor you may be advised or directed to submit for ETHICAL APPROVAL through the College’s Ethics Committee. Where required, please submit for approval through the College’s Postgraduate Quality Co-ordinator as soon as possible and no later than one month prior to the end of Term 2.

Informed consentThe researcher should, where possible, inform potential participants in advance of any features of the research that might reasonably be expected to influence their willingness to take part in the study.

Where the research topic is sensitive, the ethical protocol should include verbatim instructions for the informed consent procedure and consent should be obtained in writing.

Where children are concerned, informed consent must be obtained from parents or teachers acting in loco parentis.

Openness and honestySo far as possible, researchers should be open and honest about the research, its purpose and application.

Some types of research appear to require deception in order to achieve their scientific purpose. Deception will be approved in experimental procedures only if the following conditions are met:

• Deception is completely unavoidable if the purpose of the research is to be achieved.• The research objective has strong scientific merit.• Any potential harm arising from the proposed deception can be effectively neutralised or reversed by the

proposed debriefing procedures (see section 5).

Failing to inform participants of the specific purpose of the study at the outset is not normally considered to be deception, provided that adequate informed consent and debriefing procedures are proposed.

Covert observation should be resorted to only where it is impossible to use other methods to obtain essential data. Ideally, where informed consent has not been obtained prior to the research it should be obtained post hoc.

Right to withdrawWhere possible, participants should be informed at the outset of the study that they have the right to withdraw at any time without penalty.

In the case of children, those acting in loco parentis or the children themselves if of sufficient understanding, shall be informed of the right to withdraw from participation in the study.

Protection from harmResearchers must endeavour to protect participants from physical and psychological harm at all times during the investigation.

Note that where stressful or hazardous procedures are concerned, obtaining informed consent (1) whilst essential, does not absolve the researcher from responsibility for protecting the participant. In such cases, the ethical protocol must specify the means by which the participant will be protected, e.g. by the availability of qualified medical assistance.

Where physical or mental harm nevertheless does result from research procedure, investigators are obliged to take action to remedy the problems created.

DebriefingResearchers should, where possible, provide an account of the purpose of the study as well as its procedures. If this is not possible at the outset, then ideally it should be provided on completion of the study.

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ConfidentialityExcept with the consent of the participant, researchers are required to ensure confidentiality of the participant’s identity and data throughout the conduct and reporting of the research.

Ethical protocols may need to specify procedures for how this will be achieved. For example, transcriptions of the interviews may be encoded by the secretary so that no written record of the participant’s name and data exist side by side. Where records are held on computer, the Data Protection Act also applies.

Ethical principles of professional bodiesThis set of principles is generic and not exhaustive of considerations which apply in all disciplines. Where relevant professional bodies have published their own guidelines and principles, these must be followed and the current principles interpreted and extended as necessary in this context.


A.5 Application for ethical approval of research: postgraduate dissertations

Name of Student:

Name of Supervisor: Dates and Duration of the research project:

Aims and objectives of the research project:

Brief description of research methods and procedures:

Specify subject populations and recruitment method. Please indicate also any ethically sensitive aspects of the methods. Continue on additional sheets if required.

a) Participants – inclusion/exclusion criteria

(b) Method of recruitment

Brief description of research methods and procedures:

(c) Details of research methods

DeclarationTo the best of our knowledge and belief, this research conforms to the ethical principles laid down by Plymouth University.

Student: ....................................................... Signed: ....................................................... Date: ............................................Please print your name.

Supervisor:................................................... Signed: ....................................................... Date: ............................................Please print your name.

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A.6 Guidelines for the production and submission of dissertations

Cover pageRefer to submission details.

Title pageThe title page must provide a title relevant to the topic as well as the student’s full name, the name of the course, the college and university and the year of submission.

AbstractYour abstract must be between 110 and 120 words. It should summarise concisely the topic/phenomenon that was investigated, the key results, and the main conclusions reached.

AcknowledgementsAll acknowledgements, including sources of funding, assistance received from colleagues/supervisor appear immediately after the abstract.

Table of contentsThis is simply an outline of the headings with relevant page numbers.

List of tables/figuresIf you have tables or figures you will want to include a separate page giving their titles and relevant page numbers.

A.6.1 The dissertation

Information relating to all of the following categories is normally required in a dissertation. The following sequence is generally regarded as a good model. The precise format of a final dissertation however is a matter of personal choice to be discussed and agreed with your supervisors.

The standard dissertation is made up of five distinct elements: (1) introduction, (2) literature review, (3) methodology, (4) findings and discussion, and (5) conclusion, followed by references and appendices outlined below.

INTRODUCTION • The heading for this section is simply INTRODUCTION (in upper case and in

bold). • The purpose of this section is to set the stage/context for the Main discussion.

This May be achieved by discussing previous literature and by highlighting the project’s importance and/or value and/or contribution to its related field of study.

• This section should end by outlining the project aims and objectives and by detailing an outline of the structure of the thesis.

LITERATURE REVIEW• The heading for this section is simply LITERATURE REVIEW (in upper case and

in bold). • It provides a critical assessment of the relevant bodies of knowledge and

theoretical frameworks pertinent to your research problem. It is not enough simply to report the literature in a “who said what” manner. At Master’s level you are required to synthesise and draw your own conclusions on the key areas within your topic.

• Please note that as much as possible, please use present tense (not past tense) when discussing the literature.

METHODOLOGY• The heading for this section is simply METHODOLOGY (in upper case and in bold). • It should justify and explain both your approach and choice of methods in


relation to both primary and secondary data. • It should be presented in such a way that the reader would be able to replicate what you have done should

they wish to do so. Thus, detail is important, as are those things that did not work or could have been improved. Thus, it is essential to demonstrate reflection and critical awareness in your methodology by discussing limitations and issues of reliability and validity.

• The subjects in the study should be described together with the criteria and method of selection• It should discuss ethical issues and justify ethical approaches.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION• The heading for this section is as ‘FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION’ (in upper case and in bold).• It should present your data and findings in a clear and appropriate Manner, but more importantly you are

providing the reader with the analysis of these data/findings and a discussion that is set within the context of the literature review and methodology

• This discussion is subtitled as appropriate. This is the penultimate section of the dissertation. It is here that you demonstrate to the reader your discoveries.

CONCLUSION• The heading for this section is simply CONCLUSION (in upper case and in bold).• This section can begin with a restatement of the research problem, followed by a summary of the research

conducted and the findings. • It then proceeds to make concluding remarks, offering insightful comments on the research theme,

commenting on the contributions that your study makes to the formation of knowledge in the holistic science field, and may also suggest research themes/challenges in years ahead.

• This section need not be limited to one or two paragraphs. The contribution of your project deserves to be insightfully featured here.

TABLES AND FIGURES• Tables and figures should be numbered and given a brief one-line descriptive title. Example:

Table 1. UK National ParksFigure 1. The Study Area in the South Hams

• Data in tables should be presented in columns with non-significant decimal places omitted.• All table columns should have brief headings• Tables should be kept as short as possible (i.e. no more than a single side).• Important details should be footnoted under each table or figure, using alphabetic superscripts to connect

the footnote to the relevant term/figure in the table. References to sources of information should appear at the bottom of the table. Example: Source: Smith (2013: 203).

• Tables and figures generated by the author need not be sourced.• All illustrations or graphical representations should be referred to as figures.

REFERENCES• It is vitally important that you refer to sources of literature wherever possible. This may be achieved

throughout the dissertation’s text and/or in a list of references that appear at the end of the dissertation. • Please note that you should provide a list of only those references that you have cited in your dissertation.

You are neither asked for, nor should you provide a bibliography, which is all the Material you consulted during the research process.

• You should follow the Harvard system of referencing.

APPENDICES• You should think carefully why appendices are needed. References, copy of questionnaire, interview

transcripts are required but do not ‘pad out’. • Appendices should be numbered, titled and have page numbers that follow from the main text.

FONT SIZE, SPACING AND WORD LENGTH• The report must be typed 1.5 spacing, font size 12, on A4 paper, with at least 2.5cm left hand Margin and

with consecutive page numbers. • The word limit for the dissertation on MA Economics for Transition and MSc Holistic Science is 15,000 to

20,000 words and on MA Ecological Design Thinking 10,000 – 12,000 words not including tables, list of references, contents or appendices.

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OTHER STYLE GUIDELINES• Abbreviations/acronyms – should appear in full on first appearance followed

by acronym in brackets. If you are only going to use once or twice then only use full name.

• Third person – Normally, the dissertation is written in the third person. Exceptions to this guideline can be discussed with your dissertation supervisor.

• Terms – unfamiliar terms, especially those in foreign languages, should appear in italics, followed with their meaning in English in parenthesis. Example……modiriat (Management)……

• Spelling – ensure you spell check your report using UK spelling. • Numbering – Do not number each paragraph.

It is intended that these dissertation guidelines enable a wide variety of types of investigation. For example, these may include empirical research; contributions to theoretical or experiential knowledge; applied projects (such as the development of a business plan for a social or environmental enterprise) and artistic projects (such a documentary on an issue related to the holistic science). Your supervisor is there to help you structure and plan your work within the dissertation guidelines.

A.6.2 Submission

Four bound hard copies and one electronic copy of your dissertation must be submitted

The title of the project, the name of the student and the programme studied must appear on the front cover. Three hard, bound copies and one electronic copy (with the raw data on floppy disc/CD) of the dissertation must be submitted to the postgraduate coordinator’s office at Schumacher College by 12 noon on Friday 28TH August 2015 for MA Economics for Transition and MSc Holistic Science, and Friday 18th December 2015 for MA Ecological Design Thinking. Late submission or the failure to submit may result in a loss of 100% of the overall dissertation mark.

Please note: the failure to present the work in the form specified or another form agreed beforehand by your supervisor will result in Marks being lost. Also, students are reminded that academic offences, including plagiarism are treated very seriously by Plymouth University. A student who is proven to have committed an academic offence may be placing his or her degree in jeopardy. It is your responsibility as a student to make sure that you understand what constitutes an academic offence, and in particular, what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. The Plymouth University regulations on plagiarism and other academic offences are included in the faculty postgraduate programmes handbook under assessment and examination offences, including the penalties for offences. If you still do not understand what constitutes an academic offence, please consult your supervisor.

As a general guide, to avoid plagiarism students should observe the following:• Use their own words to express widely help concepts and general information

obtained from lectures and books.• When reproducing verbatim extracts from books, lectures or original papers,

these should be placed in quotation Marks.• Formally acknowledge (by means of reference) all sources of information.

The dissertation will be read by your primary supervisor (from Plymouth University) and the secondary supervisors from Schumacher College. If these supervisors cannot agree a mark, then the External Examiner will be asked to make judgement on the piece of work. Regardless of any difficulty in arriving at a mark, a copy of each dissertation and the mark awarded will be sent to the External Examiner.


A.7 Indicative Dissertation Calendar

End of Term 1Meeting with Project Tutor from Plymouth University for an initial discussion about the dissertation project. Students receive a copy of the Dissertation Guidelines including the suggested format for the Dissertation Research Proposal.

Submission of Research Proposal At the meeting in the end of Term 1, the date for the submission of the Research Proposal to the Project Tutor will be agreed. Once the Research Proposal has been approved, the link tutor will begin the search for a primary supervisor at Plymouth University. Thereafter, students should meet their primary supervisor at regular intervals (although during Plymouth University’s summer break this may not be possible)

End of Term 2Social Science Research Methods Workshop

Beginning of Term 3Students should focus 100% on their dissertation research and submit drafts to their primary and secondary supervisors to read/comment on material

Two months prior to submission dateThis is the deadline for submission of ‘drafts’ of the students’ work for comment. After this date, students are welcome to contact staff members for questions, but not to read material.

End of Term 3Dissertation submission deadline – please submit to the College 3 bound hard copies and one electronic copy.

75Tel: +44 (0)1803 865934


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Tel: +44 (0)1803 865934www.schumachercollege.org.uk