There is urgency and opportunity for a new literacy and renewed mission for higher education

1. Surviving and thriving in the changing world of higher education – part one “….the way we have structured research and organized universities is not consistent with how reality works…..the sciences and universities are stuck in the disciplinary status quo they have been in for centuries.” Wijkman & Rockström. Bankrupting Nature 2012 There is urgency and opportunity for a new literacy and renewed mission for higher education Stephen Mulkey, PhD18 April 2019

2. The Mission of Higher Education: The maintenance and renewal of civilization This is a defining era for our species and for higher education It is urgent that we produce practitioners able to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines, and understand tradeoffs among solutions. Higher education has an ethicalobligation to lead the development of the foundation of a sustainable civilization.

3. Integration of environmental and sustainability programming across the curriculum Interdisciplinary Environmental & Sustainability Academic Units There are over 2000 interdisciplinary environmental programs in the US and Canada. These programs have mostly failed to produce holistic practitioners because (1) academic silos limit the development of integrated curricula and (2) many lack autonomy and have unsustainable funding. Many lack autonomy and equal status with traditional disciplinary units. Vincent, Roberts, & Mulkey. 2015. J Environ Stud Sci

4. The political economy of higher education Higher education is no longer funded as a Public Trust. Most public institutions are now funded mostly from tuition. Institutions and their services are becoming increasingly privatized and commercialized. Analytics areused to manage the shared reality of groups. Using such tools, students are managed as consumers and their tuition and loans as financial assets valuable for the lenders and to the universities. Recent projections suggest that access to government funding for science and the humanities will continue to decline. Maintaining independent research and academic freedom will be problematic. Public universities are increasingly dependent on corporate partnerships, revenues from intellectual property, non-academic activities, and philanthropy to support teaching and research. Investments may be burdened with moral hazards. Over the previous 20 years liberal education has been increasingly dismissed as irrelevant and under political assault. Universities have become focused on training students for specific markets and corporate needs. The baccalaureate is becoming a commodity. Student demographics are shifting. Many institutions in the northern tier of the US are failing and have declining freshman enrollments. By 2025, students of color will comprise a majority of high school graduates and soon after 2030 they will be the majority on many college campuses. Students of color are more likely to be first-generation matriculates and come from families with limited means.

5. Building a sustainable civilization must be central to themission of higher education Oxfam - Kate Raworth

6. Sustainability Science Sustainability Science is education and research that seeks to understand the complexity of the interactions among economy, society, and nature in order to propose concrete solutions to complex problems threatening the survival of humanity. cf., Orecchini et al. 2011. Sustainability 3:1855 Sustainability Science = knowledge for mitigation, adaptation, and resilience Endorsed by the US National Academy of Science, NSF, and AAAS.

7. Sustainability Science - a form of disciplinary “Convergence” “Convergence” is a comprehensive synthetic framework for addressing complex problems. It is characterized by deep integrationacross disciplines driven by a compelling problem.

8. Foundation skills from the humanities and social sciences • Humanities and social sciences provide: • Critical thinking • Written and verbal communication fluency • Media literacy • Ethical context • Management skills From ArnimWiek, ASU The Liberal Arts model provides the prosocial foundation that is necessary for Environmental and Sustainability programming.The Wabash Study Pascarella et al. 2010.

9. Realistic expectations for change in higher education • Change in public higher education is overburdened with codependency and is at best incremental. • Attempts at systemic change in established public institutions mostly fail. • For public institutions, the ultimate fiduciary is not the Board, it is the governor and legislature. • The Executive VPs hold the most decision making power over faculty and departments. • To a lesser or greater degree your program will be assessed on the basis of ROI. • Vested academic interests can be extremely resistant to curriculum reform. • Financial mismanagement, unethical personal conduct by faculty, and misconduct of research have made programs vulnerable to administrative intervention.

10. What does success look like? Components of successful programs: • Formally committed and compensated interdisciplinary faculty • Defined tenure and promotion for interdisciplinary scholarship; instructors are full citizens • Interdisciplinary program is fully integrated with institutional structure and decision making • Dedicated and autonomous infrastructure and leadership; key support staff are permanent • Outreach is recognized and compensated - engaged external community • Interdisciplinary curricula that is holistic and integrated; humanities and social sciences play a central role • Teaching is central: Experiential learning; local projects; interdisciplinary student research experiences; effective use of online; clearly defined learning outcomes • Inter-departmental and inter-college courses in essential skills and emerging areas • Securely funded intramural grants program; strong extramural grants support • University Advancement/Development treats the program as a valued asset • Strong branding and marketing, including dedicated programs to increase diversity

11. Characteristics of dysfunctional programs: • Lack secure status and funding within the university – treated as an afterthought • Lack guidelines for tenure and promotion of interdisciplinary faculty • The hiring and funding of new faculty dominated by traditional disciplines • Weak intramural grants program; poor extramural grant support; weak or no donor base • Faculty are committed to traditional programs and lack time and resources to commit to interdisciplinary unit-spanning programs • Lack of effective marketing and branding – weak student recruitment • Curricula are a smorgasbord of existing courses without interdisciplinary synthesis • Curricula lack clear learning outcomes distinct from other programs • Lack of clarity and agreement of what constitutes interdisciplinary research • Program staffed by non-tenure track faculty with heavy teaching loads • Inadequate support staff • Lack of community and infrastructure – programs are often housed in existing disciplinary departments or within colleges dominated by disciplinary agendas • Lack of dedicated programs for increasing diversity of faculty and students

12. Strategic elements for interdisciplinary programs: Proactive adaptation Make your program indispensable for the university and its stakeholders • Establish clarity of purpose and explicit goals for success. • Define and codify the concepts of interdisciplinary and sustainability. • Define the academic community for the program, especially including the arts, humanities, and social sciences. • Develop a flexible matrix of courses and include a template for essential elements of core interdisciplinary courses. • Establish approved guidelines for tenure and promotion of interdisciplinary scholars. • Define the role of instructors and minimize the use of adjuncts. • Become known to executive administration as an asset.Using data, demonstrate the ROI value of your program. • Build an identity that extends beyond the campus and supports your regional and state communities with science-based guidance.

13. Strategic elements for interdisciplinary programs: Proactive adaptation • Recruit the support of faculty leadership and key faculty from existing programs and departments. Planning in isolation from existing structures ensures conflict. • Develop a detailed plan for branding and marketing. The program must be differentiated from existing programs. Identify and target your markets. • Identify sources of funding and develop clear guidelines for allocation of resources. Acquire formal administration agreement on allocation of IDCs. • Insist that University Advancement/Development give your program its fair share of donor development. • Institutionalize frequent and effective publicity emphasizing the collaborative nature of research and teaching and impacts on stakeholders. • Collect ongoing data for recruitment, graduation rates, student debt, grant support, tuition revenue, students serviced from other units, etc. • Create a strong external advisory board populated by key stakeholders and advocates.

14. Funding cuts and mandated restructuring: Reactive adaptation • Make a strong written response with realistic alternatives to the proposed cuts/restructuring. • Administrations often respond to a strong community response. Organize your academic and stakeholder community. Use your advisory board. • Base your arguments on money and data. • Include a public relations aspect to your response. Consider writing op-eds. Include frank discussion in your newsletter and other media. Engage social media. • Recruit alumni and major employers in your response. • Make personal contact with any major donors and ask them to weigh in. • If downsizing is unavoidable, develop explicit plans to preserve the critical elements of the program. Planning must be a community effort. • Identify and facilitate those aspects of restructuring likely to benefit the development of integrative programming. • Assist faculty and staff in finding new placements. Assist students in finding comparable programs at other universities.