Ignatius in transition

We have been observing those last years a rise of ecological emergency awareness putting into lights the urgent need for change in our current way of doing business and economics. Education, and higher education in particular must be part of this process. Numerous initiatives have already been put into place in various parts of the world, although independently, to address how universities should rethink the way they teach to prepare their students to become “responsible” actors in the “Anthropocene” era. In this paper we detail the initiative put into place at the University of Namur and called “Ignatius in Transition” to tackle this issue. We first explain in what respect the “Transition” movement led by Rob Hopkins converges to Jesuit values, and offers guidelines for immediate actions towards a better and sustainable world. In a second step, we detail our process for change at the University of Namur which relies on a series of actions launched in parallel at various levels in the institution with the objective to open original courses and programmes at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels in September 2019. Our experience illustrates the great motivation for change in favour of Transition within the university. Designing a progressive curriculum from the start to more specialized programmes in which students are in the same time equipped with the theoretical knowledge but also given the opportunity to experience in the field the « power of Transition » appears to be a promising way towards a better and sustainable world.