Renewing Universities in Our Climate Emergency: Stewarding System Change and Transformation

Abstract

This paper outlines climate emergencies facing universities and, by drawing on research on system transition, provides insights about how change to overcome the challenges might be stewarded. Climate change brings three interconnected and urgent emergencies for universities: (1) Manifest emergencies such as risks to operations and business models; (2) Conceptual emergencies that arise because assumptions, ideologies, systems, and structures cannot match the scale of the manifest challenges; and (3) Existential emergencies where current identities and sense of purpose are incapable of supporting the changes needed to overcome the conceptual challenges. To be viable leaders in the world, universities will need to renew their commitments to serving the public good, be dedicated to an unwavering challenge-orientation, create post-disciplinary structures, and be the change one seeks to see in the world. Importantly, universities will need to overcome the emergencies on the inside if they are to help society address the scale of the challenges on the outside, to which both universities and human capacity are seriously cognitively and emotionally ill-prepared. Fortunately, new insights from research on system transition provide helpful advice on how to steward transformational change. This work highlights that successful transformation requires strong adherence to transformational intent and, in the case of universities, working with all three emergencies simultaneously. Successful transformation will also require harnessing opportunities to disrupt the status quo; supporting an interplay of different forms of management and orientations to the future; developing appropriate infrastructure to support transformation; and rapidly accelerating the development of capacities for transformational change. By actively developing capacities for transformation on the inside universities will then be in a much better position to help and lead others beyond the halls of the academy.

Re-purposing Universities: The Path to Purpose

“…As universities begin to recognise the magnitude and urgency of the coupled socio-ecological crises there are signs of a genuine shift to long-term strategic thinking (e.g., Fazey et al, 2021;Tyndale et al, 2021). According to Sterling (2020), ".…”

Regenerative Collaboration in Higher Education: A Framework for Surpassing Sustainability and Attaining Regeneration

“…Applying the regenerative collaboration framework to higher education assumes a transformative education model that challenges "prevailing myths and assumptions about ourselves and our place in the world" [8,50]. This is a re-evaluation and re-prioritization of education so that it aims, first and foremost, to value and protect the life community and its members of all species, and to promote their flourishing above any other goal.…”

“…so that humanity may learn how to make social progress toward a better, wiser, more civilized, enlightened world" [6], see also [12]. As Fazey et al discuss, higher education has often experienced evolution, and it is now time for its next stage [8,24].…”

“…Many academic disciplines, such as nursing, forestry, education, environmental science, and some fields in engineering, already require students to acquire practical skills as part of their degree program. The value of experiential learning has been studied [69][70][71], and it is being identified as important in transformative sustainability education [6,8]. Requiring the development of regenerative skills across disciplines and majors also might carry the benefit of helping students and their families feel less wary of pursuing degrees in the "impractical" fields of study in the humanities and social sciences, because whether students graduate with an English, philosophy, sociology, history, biology, engineering, or nursing degree, they all can develop two or three practical skills that are applicable both to regenerative action and to finding employment.…”

“…Focusing on higher education, I suggest that colleges and universities define their primary goal as teaching students how to tend the flourishing and regeneration of the life community. This is a way to enact David Orr's recommendation of "a life-centered education" and Nicholas Maxwell's proposal for transitioning from a knowledge emphasis to a wisdom emphasis [5][6][7][8]. This calls for transformation of the purpose and focus of higher education.…”