My address on what climate change means for higher education, aimed at campus planners and architects.

1. Higher Education in the
Age of Climate Crisis

2. https://futuristpaul.com/2012/09/27/how-to-make-strategy-sexy/

5. Learning Outcomes:
1 Discuss the implications for academic research
and teaching as well as how institutions might
change plans if global warming becomes better
or worse than projected.
2 Consider how the campus’s physical
environment changes, from creating new
buildings and renovating current ones to
generating local power, rethinking grounds,
changing food service, and revolutionizing
transportation, and more.

6. Learning Outcomes:
3 Discuss the ways campus-
community relations can develop for
good or ill in an era of escalating
climate crises and what opportunities it
presents for all parties.
4 Consider the role higher education
plays in the world as civilization
rethinks its fundamental operations
and purpose.

7. The plan
1.Short-medium term
2.Long term

8. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/

9. Climate hits academia:
1.Direct impact
2.Secondary natural
effects
3.Human responses

14. https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-desertification-and-the-role-of-climate-change/

16. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/lyme-disease-maps.html

17. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10
.1080/10398560701701288

18. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/trump-vs-greta-thunberg-davos-prepares-for-climate-crisis-
showdown.html

19. https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics

20. Multiple engagement levels

21. 5-10 YEARS
OUT

22. Climate change on campus
●Buildings
●Power
●Transportation
●Green IT?
●Food
systems
●Basic needs

23. Climate change on campus
●Relocation from water,
desert

24. Climate change impacts
Research:
●Fields expand
●New domains, disciplines
●Fields contract

25. Climate change impacts
Support?
• How to preserve
endangered sites,
materials
• Political pressures

26. Academic travel?

27. • All
webinars?
• HyFlex
meetings?
But:
• Inequalities
• Resistance

28. Climate change impacts
Teaching: curricula
●Expand current work
●Add new microcredentials,
programs, centers

29. Climate change impacts
Teaching: pedagogies:
●Project based
●Inquiry based
●Simulations/gaming

30. Climate change impacts
Teaching: careers
●Green jobs
●Climate crisis jobs

32. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/12/barcelona-students-to-take-mandatory-climate-
crisis-module-from-2024

33. Climate change impacts
Role of academia in the
crisis
●Work with local efforts?
●Collaboration/friction

34. Town-gown examples

35. Climate change impacts
Role of academia in the crisis
●Public intellectuals?
●Lead mitigation?
●Support climate migrants?
●Global alliances?

36. Multiple engagement levels

38. A simpler choice

39. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/learning-innovation/2023/07/26/what-has-
happen-academic-leaders-prioritize-climate

40. Why is so much of academia
stalling?
● Fear of political risks
● Overwhelmed by other causes
● Drained, exhausted by last 4, 8
years
● In defense mode
● Not seeing available, effective
actions

41. 11-40 YEARS
OUT

42. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-
i/

43. World has changed
● Natural differences
● 2nd and 3rd tier
impacts.

44. All play out on campuses
● Nature: different flora
● Weather crises
● Some damage
● More online - or retro
● 3rd tier active

45. Politics and culture
● States of emergency
● Local, regional situations
● Increasing political
instability
● Migration of 10s of
millions

46. Geoengineering efforts

47. (To glimpse ahead, climate fiction)

48. Our academic communities are part of this
world.
Gen z are faculty. Staff. What will they want
academia to do?
Back to domains slide
To what extent do they want institutions to play
an active role in the world crisis?

49. Longer: Gen z are leaders, trustees.
● Everyone younger already experienced
● How will they look back on our actions
today?

50. https://openvalley.org/items/show/1452

53. Sense of urgency can flag
●Fortunate earth system
events
●Stunning innovation
●Distractions

54. The dice are already loaded.
● The crisis is baked in past the
end of the century.
● Things will keep getting hard.
● Now is the time for innovation
and creativity.
● Now for collaboration.

55. http://www.universitiesonfire.co
m