During the morning lectures, three speakers were invited. First, Ron Cörvers gave an exciting talk about sustainability in education, focusing on the efforts of Maastricht University. He talked about the ambitions of the SUM2030 Taskforce together with the Maastricht Sustainability Institute. These institutions are working on integrating sustainability in all courses across all faculties. Since this academic year, they have made a major step by incorporating a university-wide Sustainability Minor. Moreover, he stressed the importance for students to develop cognitive competencies in critical thinking and the application of theory to real-life cases that can facilitate behavioural change. The university thus plays a crucial role in building such competencies among the student body.

Following Mr Cörver's talk, Irene van Staveren and Sam de Muijnk presented a more targeted talk about the pluralistic approach to economics, which was the base for the panels later on. Sam specifically presented his book "Economy Studies – A Guide to Rethinking Economics in Education". This book provides a framework and essential building blocks for the training of a modern-day economist while combining the traditional school of economics with pluralistic modules. The authors are part of a network named Rethinking Economics that advocates for an open approach to economics that includes different schools and not only the neoclassical theory mainly taught in business schools.

Based on the lectures, the MORSE committee and the UM Green Office invited speakers for two panels. The first one was to examine the past experiences of alumni of UM. They spoke about their experience at several faculties. To name a few participants and their contributions:

Carolin Matuschke (the alumni of SBE) spoke about how the faculty provided her with a solid base in analytical and critical thinking, working in an international environment, as well as focusing on problem-based learning (PBL). However, she also noted several changes that she would have wished for during her studies, such as integrating sustainability into all courses, having more interdisciplinary approaches, for instance, with other businesses to explore real-life cases, more space and time for extracurricular engagement as well as out of the box thinking in class.

In correspondence to this view, Constantijn van Aartsen, the alumni of the law faculty, mentioned the importance of economics in law and the issue that many lawyers work with neoclassical assumptions copied from economists. However, they have a poor understanding coming from a different profession. Hence, they tend to lack critical contextualizing and instead base their knowledge on "conventional wisdom". He especially stressed that if an individual is critical of neoclassical economics, the person has to justify for not agreeing with this conventional wisdom. Additionally, according to him, it is challenging to dive into the fundamental assumptions and different schools of economics in periods of 7-8 weeks. Thus, he also demands more time and space to discover the discipline.

Other alumni discussed their experience in their current jobs and how they arrived at their positions, stressing the positive influence that UM had in creating strong teamwork skills as well as facilitating the skills for having lively discussions. However, they also highlight the aforementioned issues of not discussing climate change, social responsibility, as well as not critically examining companies that engage in destructive behaviour. A question raised as part of this is that we need to understand what is wrong with society and how and why we can and should fix it. Marketing, for instance, could be focused more on educating consumers about real and societal needs and not just about pure consumer needs.

Therefore, the first panel bridged the discussion towards the second one, which was aimed at discussing the need for pluralism in economics. A study conducted by the Rethinking Economics movement shows that Maastricht University and specifically SBE teaches 95% neoclassical economics in their first year Bachelor courses. This share only declines marginally over the three years. In her third year, Madeleine from the UMGO studied Economics and Business Economics. She provided her view based on two academic years at SBE. According to her, the focus was predominantly on supply and demand as well as profit maximization theory. Hence, aspects going beyond these fundamental theories were missing, and she underlined the need for a course that introduces the different schools in economics to gain a broader overview.

Sam de Muijnk and representatives from Pluralism in Economics (PINE) in Maastricht were also part of the panel. They focused on this need of reforming the curriculum in economics and business Bachelors to tailor the programs to the student's needs and wishes so that they are prepared for careers in our changing world faced with pandemics and climate change. As part of this, Mark Sanders (in the audience) joined the conversation by speaking up about SBE's PBL and how it requires reform. The main points were that there is a need for more perspectives within PBL as it should be about what people can use for their job and not just on knowledge acquisition. Mr Sanders also highlighted the importance of problem-based research in economics.

Wilco Letterie, the vice dean of education at SBE, as well as Mark Vluggen, the vice-chair of the Department of Accounting and Information Management, were invited to represent the staff and education body of SBE. Their response to these requests was very open to dialogue. However, they also noticed the challenges ahead as SBE needs a more flexible curriculum that requires rethinking the education portfolio. Moreover, they mentioned the importance of the course coordinators in changing the literature and the learning approach. A possible solution to this is facilitating a stronger dialogue between students and staff. Their closing statement was that they would like to work more with students on changing the curriculum and working out a more pluralistic approach to preparing students at SBE and other faculties better for their future careers.