Our chapters are organized in houses as they travel through the Chapter Pathways Program.
The oikos Houses are multicultural clusters of chapters that are similar in size and timezone. One can think of fellow House chapters a bit like a family or a peer group, who are guided by a House Facilitator through the Chapter Pathways. In monthly calls, the oikos Houses offer a familiar space where chapter representatives receive and share information, ideas, tools, feedback and motivation with each other. Each chapter is invited to leverage the diversity of ideas in the hivemind by bringing questions or topics that concern their everyday work!
Why Houses? You might have already found a clue in the section about the name oikos! Inspired by the Greek translation of oikos as household, we see houses a metaphor for a warm community space, with a shared identity and a creative names!
Find more details & the current regions & chapters in the House Field Guide (coming soon).
oikos International highly encourages cross-chapter and cross-regional activity. Therefore, we established our thematic layer with the option to form self-organized, theme-centred groups that allow individuals from across and beyond the community to come together and exchange and/or create. The shape of these so-called squads depends on the participants themselves. The squads are coordinated by François, who checks in with the existing squads, updates the website with current developments, ensures frequent communication and officially closes squads after they closed (for more detail see thematic squad field guide).
oiKosmos - Where oikees meet
The purpose of the oiKosmos, our virtual community infrastructure, is to keep the community connected and updated, both concerning oikos International and themselves, so that our impact can thrive in and through relationships. It is about creating access to opportunities and giving way for both formal and informal conversation between the members of the network.
The oiKosmos consists of our public oiKosmos guide, a Miro board (Provides an overview & access to all oiKosmos elements, guidelines and relevant contacts, additionally to the newest information about oikos International and other opportunities, fun to navigate and accessible), a community Discord server (Gives oikos members and friends a chance to interact outside of programs and events, creates a space for exchange, meet and work online - also allows for private servers for chapters not managed by oikos International, chapter space template available), and the oikos Toolbox (all essential documents, guides, forms & marketing material for the daily life in the oikos community and oikos Chapters). The oiKosmos is maintained by the IT Manager and the Community Support/oiKosmos facilitator.
| Let’s meet for an oiCoffee! |
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For more information about the oiKosmos and oiCoffee, please see the oiKosmos Field Guide or the oiKosmos Wiki.
Who said we cannot have coffee breaks online? oiCoffee is a simple way for oikees to connect with other oikees and friends of oikos from all over the world. On a regular basis, oiKosmos Discord server members can decide to sign up in the dedicated #oikoffee-signup channel. A Discord bot will then pair them up with another oikee through a DM, encouraging them to meet for a virtual coffee over video chat with an icebreaker.
On Chapters, Regions, Squads and how the community communicates
Our international community of oikos chapters and oikees worldwide is what makes oikos as an organisation unique. Currently, the community is composed of 50 different chapters in over 27 countries, encompassing around 1000 active members. The impact and development of our local chapters can be traced in the chapter impact dashboards. Our chapters find themselves in different stages, which we quickly describe here:
We frequently welcome new chapters to the oikos community. There is an elaborate process candidates go through which is accompanied by a member of the chapter development team. Working on an international level, we frequently witness that we need to adapt the process and invite generosity to certain elements (eg. who starts the chapter, how is the relationship to the university, what if there are 2 applications in 1 city etc.). Fit to context and culture are critical for long-term evolution and success. Our rule of thumb: generosity over perfection, and growing together as we move. When chapters join, they first become chapters in accession, until they get accepted by the legislative assembly.
| oikos Expedition |
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With the high fluctuation in chapters and the nature of voluntary, intrinsic commitments, maintaining a chapter is a challenge from semester to semester, and highly dependent on context. Continuity refers to our wish for chapters that continue to exist and grow in the future by building on past experiences, and we support this through initiatives (eg. chapter pathways), process support (chapter coaching, LEAP for chapters) and documents. Each chapter has access to their unique chapter workspace and chapter impact dashboard, both being directly connected to the regional workspaces that provide a proper overview of what is currently happening in the regions. Check them to get an insight into the rhythm of the chapters over the term of the semesters, as well!
Despite our students and our team’s best efforts, chapters sometimes face rough times and need to close the local group. Often, this happens in a silent process and we are unable to support them before the chapters fall dormant (no activity onsite, no active contact). Once this is the case and a chapter did not attend 3 legislative meetings in a row, the oikos International board can actively close chapters. Another, more recent path: trying to revive the chapters with the help of their universities and a new generation of motivated students. Read more in the chapter development field guide.
We want to understand and learn more about other region’s approaches and development regarding sustainability in higher education. With oikos expedition, we wish to facilitate academic exchanges, generate new cross regional insights, and learn of new ways of making education more sustainable. In the future, there is the goal to connect our community to other student change agents and offer them a diverse approach to enhance their impact.