The Future of Higher Education - 15

Part 4: The Challenge of Climate
Change
from personal motivation. Supporting this
research would require a campus to provide
professional development for faculty and staff
new to the subject and also potentially to protect
them from political pressures. Those political
pressures may be elicited by some research
as academics explore contentious ideas, from
new economic systems to geoengineering.
Bear in mind that climate research is a deeply
interdisciplinary field, with work done in nearly
every academic department from the sciences to
the arts.
Meanwhile, what many people consider to
be academia's core function also bears on
climate. We already teach climate change in
many fields, from Earth science to economics
and the environmental humanities. It seems
likely that climate teaching will expand as the
crisis builds, and younger generations will
demand more instruction on a topic dear to
them. As with research, institutions will have to
support growing teaching through professional
development, along with some political risk.
Additionally, faculty will explore the best
pedagogies for teaching the topic, which might
include project-based learning and simulations.
A final point: over time, some number of
students will enroll who have had climate crisis
experiences. How to support such students,
including those with signs of trauma, is an open
question for higher education.
Overall, climate presents higher education with a
mix of threats and opportunities that may require
some institutional change. The topic cuts across
disciplines but also institutional units, bringing
together facilities and libraries, campus planners
with food services. The potential for political
friction, both from outside a campus as well as
within, should also be accounted for. We could
compare climate to the COVID-19 pandemic: as a
Part 4: The Challenge of Climate Change
12
slow-motion global crisis with a large number of
moving parts.
The Future of Higher Education

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