One university’s climate change plan

How might higher education grapple with the climate crisis?

One example recently appeared from Harvard University.* A campus group there issued recommendations for how that institution could approach the problem. I’d like to summarize, then analyze, that document here.

1: SUMMARY

At the top level “The Future of Climate Education at Harvard University” concerns itself with teaching and learning. The tl;dr version: there should be a lot more climate crisis teaching.

The report calls specifically for four institutional changes within their university:

1. Hiring more faculty to fully support rising student interests.
2. Setting up a standing committee on climate education. This might advocate for new climate programs, recommend changes to general education, and support cross-disciplinary collaboration.
3. Creating an internal investment group, or “a climate education accelerator program.” That could fund a lot of work, such as bringing in external speakers, supporting internal collaboration and connections, building a clearinghouse for university climate information, supporting residential learning changes, assessing and supporting new technologies, researching new degree possibilities, and connecting alumni to current students.