Lakehead University
IN-4: Innovation 4

The purpose of the Centre for Place and Sustainability Studies is to contribute to the wellbeing of people and places. The Centre incubates and supports diverse place and sustainability related research, education, and action initiatives within the Lakehead University community, in the region, and internationally in order to create more socially and ecologically just environments. The Centre for Place and Sustainability Studies will:

-Convene a meeting ground for reflection and action around key social and ecological sustainability issues impacting diverse communities places in the local region;

-Support relationship and capacity-building around shared interests across university departments and communities in Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario;

-Develop collaborative partnerships through place and sustainability related research, education, and outreach initiatives;

-Experiment with and model ways of being and working together that help foster wellbeing, compassion, courage, and care.

The Centre name draws from a growing international movement of “place-focused” sustainability study as a focus for inquiry across academic disciplines, and from Indigenous and grassroots communities around the world who are “place attached” and working to improve the wellbeing of local people and the places in which they live. The relation of local place to changing global trends is a core theme in sustainability research. The international dimension of the Centre, and the broad context of sustainability, serves to guide local and regional inquiry with a global and planetary context of interconnected challenges and opportunities, including local adaptation to climate change, fostering environmental literacy, and creating sustainable economies and livelihoods.

Around the world, businesses, governments, non-government organizations, educational institutions, and citizens are at work innovating to respond to the many social, environmental, and economic challenges of sustainability. Institutions of higher education have a significant role to play as leaders in sustainability education, research, innovation, and engagement (M’Gonigle & Starke, 2005; Wals & Jickling, 2002). Lakehead University, in policy and practice, is committed to sustainability. As a signatory to the Talloires Declaration for sustainability in higher education, Lakehead University committed to creating an institutional culture to “engage in education, research, policy formation, and information exchange” toward the goal of “environmental literacy”(University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, 1990).

In 2009, Lakehead University joined with 20 other Ontario universities to sign the pledge, Ontario Universities Committed to a Greener World. This multifaceted document pledges signatories “to assist in finding solutions to the challenges of environmental sustainability; to share knowledge about sustainability and climate change; and to incorporate, wherever possible, principles of sustainability into our own operations” (Council of Ontario Universities, 2009). More recently in its 2010-2011 Report to the Community, Lakehead University declared that a major strategic direction is “leading the nation in environmental sustainability” (Lakehead University, 2011).

The Centre for Place and Sustainability Studies works to enact this ethic. It seeks to convene a meeting place for individuals and organizations within Lakehead University and across the regions of Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario to collaboratively create initiatives responding to issues of place and sustainability.

Centre themes:

Sustainability in Higher Education
Community-University Partnerships
Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Relations
Environmental and Sustainability Education
Urban and Rural Sustainability
Healthy People, Healthy Places

The CPSS drives a number of sustainability-related initiatives on campus, including the STARS assessment which will help our university develop future goals in best practices in sustainability in higher education.

In addition, the CPSS makes connections with the local community, offering financial support to organizations with commitments to sustainability, such as EarthCare and Roots to Harvest.

Each year the Centre hires several graduate assistants to help with Research. In the 2013/2014 year the Centre offered two workshops on integrating sustainability across the curriculum.

The Centre also produces current and relevant papers and research to add to the fields of place studies, sustainability studies, health and well-being, environmental education, and cultural studies.