Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of academic staff who are committed to embedding sustainability within tertiary curricula and pedagogy. Design/methodology/approach -The focus of this paper is on a New Zealand university. A survey of staff was undertaken and in-depth interviews conducted with 11 sustainability "champions". A narrative variant of thematic analysis was used to examine the ways these sustainability "champions" made sense of the work they do. Through an analysis of their metaphors and metaphorical language, a sense of the identities that they held as educators of sustainability was gained. Findings -Three types of identities emerged -the sustainability "saviour", "nurturer" and "struggler". These identities reflected the champion's experiences, disciplinary affiliations and pedagogical approaches. Interdisciplinarity emerged as a key tenet and challenge for such sustainability champions. Originality/value -This paper provides rare insights into the experiences, identities and teaching approaches of sustainability champions within higher education. It highlights the need for university-wide conversations and cross-discipline support for such academics.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.