Training for transitions: it starts now!

Although curricula at the University of Bordeaux are subject to constant evolution, it is nevertheless exceptional for them to incorporate a brand new module in just over a year. However, several teaching teams undertook the challenge of meeting the requirements of a ministerial circular requesting, as of 2025, a new transdisciplinary core module focusing on an introduction to the challenges of transitions. Going even further, the university also plans to develop a second disciplinary module aiming to extend and clarify the content of the first one - each of these modules represent thirty hours of training and are awarded 3 ECTS upon completion. On behalf of the college of Human Sciences, professor Michèle Koleck specialised in health psychology, joined the initiative a year ago to support the rollout of this new undergraduate teaching unit.

Happiness and a future worth dreaming about

“I have the utmost respect for the work carried out by my colleagues; it was a major challenge to create pedagogical content adapted to all undergraduate students, irrespective of their course of study." Course content is spread over nine sessions, covering a broad range of themes, such as climate, biodiversity, environmental pollution, energy, social change and global health. The two remaining sessions will be dedicated to a “systemic vision of transitions” and to “finding solutions for a desirable future”. Case studies will complete the learning process, using examples of the cities of Bordeaux, Agen or Périgueux as well as the specific ecosystems of the Bay of Arcachon, forests or vineyards. Last but not least, in response to the environmental anxiety and mental health issues reported by many students, the notion of happiness represents a recurring theme.

Professor Michèle Koleck expressed regret concerning the difficulties encountered in delivering this module on-site in certain training units. At the college of Human Sciences, students in physical and sporting activity sciences, sociology and education sciences were the first to experiment an on-line version starting in January. The college of Health Sciences is also prepared to deliver this module to the more than 3,000 students in the Specific Health Access Pathway (PASS). Jonathan Visentin, a lecturer-researcher in immunology and a hospital practitioner, began examining the issue of transitions following the publication of the Jouzel report (in French), in 2022: "health professionals have a key role to play regarding transitions, knowing that climate change, pollutions and loss of biodiversity all affect human health. Furthermore, the healthcare sector must question its practices, with regard to its own environmental impact, which the Shift Project estimates to be 8% of France’s overall carbon footprint.”

Reflecting on our lifestyles

The subjects addressed in the seventh session of the introduction to transitions will include prevention, adaptation and understanding the concept of global health and its evolving practices. Jonathan is pleased with this insight directed at future caregivers (who will explore this subject in depth during the second disciplinary module) but also at all the other students who will be made aware that in “high-income countries, more than 90% of deaths are linked to diseases associated with our lifestyles: exposure to pesticides, pollution, excessive consumption of fat and sugar, lack of exercise… If we change our lifestyle, we will generate far fewer health problems. The best patient is the one who is not ill.”

Within the college of Science and Technology – the only one for the time being to offer this “transitions” module on-site –, courses will start in February. Nicolas Berger, professor of eco-design, will lecture the enrolled students. Similarly to his colleagues involved in the creation of this new course, he is highly motivated by the idea of transmitting a systemic vision of the challenges of environmental and societal transitions. “These courses will not be a simple add-on to the main course or to the core profession for which the students are being trained. We could compare it with how English was taught in the seventies and eighties when some teachers considered it superfluous in their curriculum but ended up making room for what now seems to us to be crucial.” However, Nicolas highlights a major difference with this previous educational “revolution”: “English was not fully integrated into a global vision of the curriculum. At the University of Bordeaux, transitions will not be set aside but will rather form a pillar of each educational path”.

Listening to the new generation

As this new module begins, professor Michèle Koleck admits that she is impatient to discover the reaction of students: “the new generation, at least the one I am familiar with, has already been made aware of these challenges in middle and high school, and strike me as particularly eager to make a change on an environmental and societal level. It seems to me that by introducing this module in their Bachelor programme, we are signalling to them that we are going to help and support them in this process and that we are by their side.” And in all honesty, “this is not only tinkering or placing a “transitions” label on poorly put together content. This project involved dozens of teachers and educational engineers: all kinds of resources, in variable forms, were analysed before being possibly integrated. The perspective of the rollout of a second specialised training module next year allows us to hope to live up to these challenges at the University of Bordeaux.”