Scopus
🔓 Açık Erişim
Making sense of the sustainable campus through student generated metaphors
Discover Sustainability · Aralık 2025
Makale Bilgileri
DergiDiscover Sustainability
Yayın TarihiAralık 2025
Cilt / Sayfa6
Scopus ID2-s2.0-105018224845
Erişim🔓 Açık Erişim
Özet
Sustainable campuses are spaces where universities can contribute to a sustainable future by implementing environmentally, social, and economic principles. Nowadays, it is vital that campuses serve not only as centers of education but also as small cities that are the application areas of a sustainable mindset. Therefore, educational institutions should implement sustainable practices on campuses to fulfill their responsibilities to society and contribute to a sustainable future. The aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of students studying at two state universities in Konya, Turkey, regarding the concept of “sustainable campus”. In this study, metaphor analysis and semi-structured interview methods, qualitative methods, were used together. Combining these two methods provided an in-depth understanding of both conceptual and emotional dimensions. According to the metaphorical findings, participants associated the concept of a sustainable campus with environmental, economic, social, and cultural dimensions. Social sustainability was the dimension most frequently emphasized by the participants. Participants generally defined a sustainable campus with metaphors such as “nature” and “growth”, but they stated that they had difficulty producing metaphors due to the abstract nature of the concept. According to the interview findings, students had a general awareness of the concept of a sustainable campus, but this awareness was mostly limited to concrete practices such as environmental management and energy saving. Participants emphasized only the environmental aspects of sustainable campuses, whereas they did not have enough information about other aspects such as social and cultural sustainability. It was found that students, especially in engineering and technical departments, associate the concept of sustainability with infrastructure and energy efficiency, but have low awareness of the sustainability of social functioning on campus. The findings reveal that universities should not only limit the sustainable campus concept to environmentally friendly practices and develop policies to support social and cultural sustainability.
Yazarlar (2)
1
Esra Kiziloğlu
2
Emine Nihan Cici-Karaboğa
ORCID: 0000-0001-9580-077X
Anahtar Kelimeler
Metaphor analysis
Semi structured interview
Sustainability
Sustainable campus
Kurumlar
Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi
Meram Turkey
Selçuk Üniversitesi
Selçuklu Turkey