Culture of sustainability at ARU

Art student, Cecelia Wood, spent 6 weeks as an intern with the Global Sustainability Institute helping us to design a unique sustainability welcome pack for all new students

During my internship, I created a ‘Guide to Sustainability at Anglia Ruskin’. This is designed to inform about all the great work Anglia Ruskin is doing in sustainability, and its main focus is to let students know how they can get involved. It will be launched to new students arriving in September, as part of a student welcome pack.

The first task was to bring together the information to be included in the new guide. I collected this from various university publications and areas of the website. I then created illustrations for the guide, using plants and recycled paper, before bringing the whole design together, considering the colours, typefaces and layout.

Alongside this, I also created content to promote sustainability and EfS through the Anglia Ruskin app, Facebook, and the info screens around campus. I focused on creating engaging images, so that the campaign is really visual. This will be sent out during the summer and then into the new semester, so we hope this will really raise the profile of sustainability among students. I also designed new signage for the campus edible garden, and helped deliver a workshop about sustainability as part of a festival at Hill Road Sixth Form. So it has been a busy 6 weeks!

I have immensely enjoyed working in such a supportive and welcoming working atmosphere. The staff at the GSI are researching such diverse and interesting projects – there are so many things going on you can’t help but learn a lot about many different facets of sustainability!

I think these internships are a unique offering which can’t be found anywhere else in or outside of the university. The fact that the role is paid, I feel, has benefits beyond the obvious; it creates professional expectations around the role and this is invaluable experience. An added bonus for me was that I am able to incorporate this internship into one of my modules for my final year studies.

I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity to create work that is so relevant to my own practice, to my course and to my future career aspirations. This role has allowed me to gain confidence in my work and my ability to apply and adapt my skills to a new situation, and I feel more prepared going into my final year. Most of all, I hope the work I’ve done will have a positive impact for EfS too.

Cecelia Wood, BA (Hons) Illustration, 2nd year
Summer 2018