Let’s Bridge the Two Cultures

Following a recent campus email sharing a blog post by Jack Miles entitled Why Are We Losing in the Middle East? Too Much STEM, Not Enough Humanities,[1] there were two semi-defensive email responses, but no genuine debate or face-to-face conversation.  The author of the opinion piece, speaking about America's response to Islamist terrorism since 9/11, noted that

American leaders might have avoided a series of horrific mistakes if they had relied a bit more on the humanities and a bit less on the STEM.

I must admit that this post offended me.  But mostly, I was disappointed that there wasn’t time for dialog.

I have sensed a growing tension between the humanities and the sciences on campus for some time.  I suspect that this is due, at least in part, to all the attention and money directed at the sciences (renovations to Collier Hall of Science, the new Health Science programs, the launch of planning for a new Health Science academic building, perceived inequities in the SOAR* endowment distribution of research support, etc.).  Couple this with Congressional attacks on funding for the Arts and the dropping of these disciplines in K-12 public schools, I can understand the growing sense of frustration.  It is part of the reason that we are having the CAT-LinC* workshop entitled Reshaping the LinC Curriculum-Revitalizing the Liberal Arts; one of the discussion questions in the workshop announcement makes this clear:

How might the current LinC curriculum help to alleviate concerns regarding the current push to add profession-oriented programs to our curriculum?  If the current LinC curriculum cannot achieve this goal, how might that curriculum need to be re-shaped to alleviate those concerns? 

Implicit in this question (to me, at least) is a concern that profession-oriented programs cannot embody a liberal education.  Furthermore, since most of these new academic programs have direct ties to the natural and physical sciences, it seems that some on campus view the liberal arts as separate from the sciences, rather than the liberal arts being inclusive of them, as was the case historically for the Artes Liberales.

Personally, I like the definition of a liberal education in the 21st century provided by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)

Liberal Education: An approach to college learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. This approach emphasizes broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g., science, culture, and society) as well as in-depth achievement in a specific field of interest. It helps students develop a sense of social responsibility; strong intellectual and practical skills that span all major fields of study, such as communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills; and the demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings.[2]

Note the inclusion of science and an expectation that the broad knowledge and skills gained during a student’s education actually get applied.  The essential learning outcomes of AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) project includes “Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World through [the] study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences, humanities, histories, languages, and the arts.”[3]  In other words, it isn’t liberal arts and the sciences, but rather a true integration that characterizes liberal education today.

A few years ago, Joyce Hinnefeld (a colleague from the English Department) and I proposed and organized the first Arts and Lectures series on the Intersections between Art, Science, and Nature for which we brought in speakers whose work exemplified the bridging of disciplines.  We concluded another such successful series this year.  Along the way, I have been exploring such bridges in my own teaching and scholarship and have found that historically, there were many connections between the arts and sciences, especially in the “fields” of natural history and medicine.  But over time, the collaborations faded and once symbiotic disciplines have, for the most part, gone their separate ways. 

The Romantic period of the first half of the 19^th century has been characterized as an intellectual movement that integrated the arts and humanities and that was heavily influenced by science and nature.  The period also coincided with the Industrial Revolution, and thus, this has been described as an era of discovery of both the beauty and the terror of science.  Mary Shelley wrote of her concerns of human manipulation of nature in Frankenstein (1818).  In his 1829 Sonnet - To Science, Edgar Allen Poe says that science is the enemy of the poet because it takes away the mysteries of the world. He was concerned about the influx of modern science and social science of the times and how it potentially undermined spiritual beliefs.  The world had entered a period where science was no longer simply trying to understand and describe nature, but was now aiming to improve upon it.  And with 21^st century technological advances in genetic engineering, biomedicine, and even conservation (for instance, the new efforts in de-extinction and re-wilding), the attempts to improve upon nature continue.

Towards the late 1800’s and through the turn of the century, scientists were discovering things at a record pace, unraveling nature’s secrets at the both the scale of the atom and the universe.  As they solved these mysteries, some of the world’ most prominent of scientists of all time remained ever cognizant of the beauty of what they were studying.  Albert Einstein once said

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the source of all true art and science. 

Another nuclear physicist, Marie Curie, noted that

“I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.

Perhaps ironically, both of these individuals were uncovering the fundamental mysteries of atoms and energy that would be used to create the most destructive weapon of mass destruction that has ever been used by humans.  But it was also scientists like Linus Pauling (a Nobel Laureate winner of both the Chemistry and Peace prizes) who in 1958, presented to the United Nations a petition signed by 9,235 scientists from around the world protesting further nuclear testing and published the book entitled No More War!  And today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has a major initiative and journal on Science Diplomacy aimed at building bridges for peace.[4]

There have been several points in history where scientists have realized the social and ethical implications of their research, and consequently brought their concerns to the attention of the public as well as worked to establish ethical boundaries for the applications of the new knowledge.  The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA in 1975 is an important example.  Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, heralded as a great literary piece, was also a critical social commentary and strong warning about the use of synthetic pesticides (a product of science during World War II).  Not surprisingly, some in the scientific community did not welcome the book’s publication, but it led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and some of the first pieces of environmental legislation.  The former director of the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and a renown climate scientist on the faculty of Columbia University, James Hansen, has become a leading climate change activist and authored a book entitled Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity.  There are many more examples.

Yet the fears expressed by Shelley and Poe around two centuries ago have magnified with each technological advance.  In 1959, Charles Percy Snow (or CP Snow) – a scientist and author -- delivered a lecture in the UK Senate House entitled The Two Cultures and subsequently published a book elaborating on his ideas entitled The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.  The thesis of both was that “the intellectual life of the whole of western society” was split into two cultures – namely the sciences and the humanities – and that this division was a major hindrance to solving the world’s problems. In 2008, The Times Literary Supplement included the book in its list of the 100 books that most influenced Western public discourse since the Second World War.  One particular excerpt, despite being written about 56 years ago, seems so relevant to the discussions and divisiveness on campus now:

The separation between the two cultures has been getting deeper under our eyes; there is now precious little communication between them, little but different kinds of incomprehension and dislike. 

Neither culture knows the virtues of the other; often it seems they deliberately do not want to know. The resentment, which the traditional culture feels for the scientific, is shaded with fear; from the other side, the resentment is not shaded so much as brimming with irritation.

Stefan Collini writing in The Guardian in August in 2013[5] observed that

Snow had presented the contrast between the scientific and literary cultures as being in part about different responses to the industrial and technological revolutions.

This contrast was also described by Peter Dizikes writing in the New York Times in 2009[6] on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of Snow’s lecture:

Scientists, he asserts, have “the future in their bones,” while “the traditional culture responds by wishing the future did not exist.”

I hear this idea reflected often: scientists have a tendency to think that science and technology can fix all of the world’s problems.  In contrast, many in the humanities believe that technology has caused many of those problems.

In one additional 2009 essay written by Lawrence Krauss,[7] it was noted that

Snow argued that practitioners in both areas [the humanities or "cultures" and the sciences] should build bridges, to further the progress of human knowledge and to benefit society.

Krauss goes on to say that Snow did not rail against religion, or any of the humanities, but rather against ignorance.

Until we are willing to accept the world the way it is, without miracles that all empirical evidence argues against, without myths that distort our comprehension of nature, we are unlikely to bridge the divide between science and culture and, more important, we are unlikely to be fully ready to address the urgent technical challenges facing humanity.

Reading the reflections of others about C.P. Snow and the “two cultures” has only strengthened my belief that we need to find ways to reconnect these disciplines, to find ways to cross the vocabulary differences and ideological divides, to have dialog in order to better understand each other and address the critical issues of our time.  The STEM disciplines are integral to a liberal education and facets of the humanities must be woven into how we teach in STEM disciplines. Given the role that science and technology must play in addressing the global challenges of the 21^st century (climate change, food and water security, emerging diseases, and biosecurity are just a few examples) and the growing public distrust or denial of science (think climate change, GMOs, and vaccines), it is critically important for all students to be cognizant of the role that they may play – individually and collectively – in these future debates and solutions.  How do we get students to not only think across disciplinary boundaries, but to also gain experience in debating and developing policy, translating technical information to policymakers and the public, and to think about science, not just as something hard or scary, but perhaps as a means of diplomacy?  And how do ensure that future scientists continue to be aware of the moral and societal implications of their discoveries?  These are the curricular discussions about liberal education at Moravian College that I think we should be having.[8]

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I leave you with two other random thoughts on why we need to once again integrate the disciplines in a liberal education:

In a study published last year from Michigan State University, researchers found a positive link between childhood participation in arts – especially music – to patents generated and businesses launched as adults. They studied a group of college graduates who majored in science, technology, engineering or mathematics – theSTEM disciplines – and found that exposure to the arts as children increased the chances of ownership of patents or new businesses by over eight times compared to the general public. Furthermore, in their surveys, “80% of STEM professionals report that arts and crafts deliver skills necessary for innovative work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

“Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science.”
—  Edward O. Wilson
from Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge [1999]

What science-bashers fail to appreciate is that scientists, in their unflagging attraction to the unknown, love what they don't know. It guides and motivates their work; it keeps them up late at night; and it makes that work poetic.
—  Alison Hawthorne Deming  Writing the Sacred into the Real

In much of the poet Alison Hawthorne Deming’s work, she argues that the farther we remove ourselves from wild settings, the farther we are removed from our spiritual center. She believes the arts allow us to fall again “into harmony with place and each other.” We live in a world that is out of balance (environmentally, and socio-economically).  Artists sense this emotionally.  Scientists know this through data, but need to find ways to express this that doesn’t turn the public off through fear or distrust.  Working together, humanists and scientists can find those words and the rebalancing that we need in our personal and collective lives.

*SOAR = Student Opportunities for Academic Research (an endowment for undergraduate research)
CAT = Center for the Advancement of Teaching
LinC = Learning in Common, the general education program at Moravian College

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[1] See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-miles/middle-east-stem-humanities_b_7109536.html?utm_hp_ref=world (4/30/15); accessed May 15, 2015.

[2] See: https://www.aacu.org/leap/what-is-a-liberal-education: accessed May 15, 2015.

[3] See: https://www.aacu.org/leap/essential-learning-outcomes; accessed May 15, 2015.

[4] See http://www.sciencediplomacy.org; accessed May 15, 2015.

[5] Collini, S.,  “Leavis v Snow: the two-cultures bust-up 50 years on”, The Guardian (8/16/13); available at; http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/16/leavis-snow-two-cultures-bust; accessed May 15, 2015.

[6] Dizikes, P. Our Two Cultures, The New York Times (3/19/09); available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Dizikes-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0; accessed May 15, 2015.

[7] Krauss, L.M. “An Update on C. P. Snow's ‘Two Cultures’ " Scientific American (8/17/09); available at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-update-on-cp-snows-two-cultures/; accessed on May 15, 2015.

[8] I have written on these ideas before in a 2004 blog post (http://anewprosperity.blogspot.com/2014/03/what-fires-should-educators-light.html) and excerpt of which was published by AAC&U in their magazine Liberal Education: http://aacu.org/liberaleducation/2014/winter/husic.

[9]Michigan State University ArtSmarts Among Innovatorsin Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) March, 2001; available at http://ippsr.msu.edu/publications/ARArtSmarts.pdf; accessed on May 15, 2015.

What Fires Should Educators Light?

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Good educators really “get” the first half of this quote from Yeats.  Rote memorization of facts does little to inspire students.  We doubt that it does much for learning either, preferring to focus instead on developing critical thinking skills and tools for life-long independent learning.  But while few would question the value of a focus on critical thinking, we do debate our role as educators in lighting fires. 

Throughout my teaching career, I have been a proponent of providing opportunities for students to engage in undergraduate research – intense experiences in which students are co-creators of knowledge, rather than simply vessels to be filled with facts and ideas that others have already published.  It was the transformative opportunity of doing independent research that lit my own fire as a first-generation student, so much so that I went on to graduate school to pursue a research-focused career.

As both an undergraduate and graduate student in science, I was trained to believe that the process of doing science is an objective one.  But this never totally made sense to me.  Science performed in a vacuum does little other than to satisfy one’s curiosity about the world around us or about the secrets of life at the molecular level.  What makes science so exciting and so important is that it provides us with the ability to solve complex problems or to create technology which can be used to improve the quality of life.  However, as we learn those secrets of nature and transform them into tools to manipulate elements of our natural world, including humans, we are faced with tremendous ethical dilemmas and a realization that the information we learn can be exploited and used in ways never intended.  Knowledge comes with power, something that is rarely objective.

So as educators of science, do we stick to the facts and theories and “the” scientific method (as if it is a single linear process)?  Do we continue to perpetuate the myth that science is not subjective at times or could never be used for questionable purposes?  I think not.  It is important to teach about the social context of science and to critically evaluate the outcomes of scientific research.  Would this crush an aspiring young scientist?  I certainly hope not.

My personal career path in science and education has certainly not been a linear one.  I was fortunate to have one of those early research experiences – working on a project that had an environmental chemistry focus.  I had, after all, grown up during the first environmental movement of the 1970s and was clearly influenced by it and by the wilderness-like settings I lived in. I then went on to graduate school in plant at a time when genetic engineering of plants was a new field.  Because I understand the science behind the technology, and probably also because I know personally some of the individuals who created the first genetically modified plants, I tend to have more positive views about GMOs than many of my friends, despite my ongoing love for wild places. 

Graduate school was followed by a stint in cancer research when HIV/AIDs first emerged as a new disease within the gay community.  How can you stay objective when you attend a conference in San Francisco and walk to the venue through crowds of terrified men – many the same age that I was – facing an early death and begging you for information on what advances in science will help them?

To this day, I show my students the film “And the Band Played On” so that they might know the early and ugly history of this disease – the science, the cultural context, the politics, the religious fanaticism, and the fear.  This fear was not only experienced by those dying of HIV infection, but also by the public who was afraid they might catch this dreadful disease for which there is still no cure over three decades later.  I share my stories of those days in San Francisco – both the horrors I witnessed and the egos of scientists who cared more about their future fame than the lives of so many.  I find that I can’t simply stick to the facts about the biochemistry of this disease.

As fate would have it, I eventually returned to my environmental roots and now work in the areas of ecological restoration (which involves value judgments about what to “restore to”) and climate change.  Today, it is the scientists who are fearful – this time not about a disease, but about the fate of the planet.  They find themselves caught up in a bizarre social frenzy which is fraught with controversy, public distrust, media manipulation, and politics.  Top climate scientists are the ones facing the threats of death – simply because of their area of research.  There are many who aim to silence the voices of researchers like Michael Mann and James Hansen, attempts that go way beyond those who tried to silence and discredit Rachel Carson as a “hysterical female” who set aside her science and, in a “tragic turn” in career began to write fables that encouraged “some of the most destructive strains within environmentalism: alarmism, technophobia, failure to consider the costs and benefits of alternatives, and the discounting of human well-being around the world.”[1]

Science textbooks don’t tell stories about the character assassinations and death threats.  And nowhere in my science training was I told that these sorts of things might happen, perhaps because it didn’t happen in the past.  But today, be it climate change, evolution, nutrition, or genetic engineering, science has been flung into the throes of political battlegrounds.  Should I ignore this in my teaching?

At a time when society is faced with tremendous challenges of poverty and growing inequality, global environmental problems, food security, new and emerging diseases, scarcity of resources, and conflict, more than ever we need not only science and technology, but also innovative thinkers, advocates and activists.  We need educated people who aren’t content with simply finding a job, but are still idealistic enough to want to change the world for the better.  In other words, we need higher education to lead the charge in lighting fires, to be inspiring the next generation of problem solvers who will work at the front lines of these grand challenges of the 21^st century.

So is this happening?  Today, there is pervasive criticism of higher education on many fronts ranging from tax payers to the White House.  Administrators don’t want to rock the boat, or more precisely, are begging faculty not to rock the boat.  They implore us to be more balanced in what we teach or in who we invite as speakers to campus – so as not to offend or discourage potential donors or prospective students.  Public institutions fall into line of submission for fear of losing state and federal funding.  The modus operandi is to keep the faculty busy learning new technology which supposedly will enhance learning or filling out assessment reports to appease Washington, so they say.  But perhaps it is really just to keep faculty busy so that we don’t have time to incite a movement or write a provocative op-ed.  We wouldn’t want to tarnish the image of the institution. 

What happened to the times when college campuses were at the forefront of calling for social change – be it during the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, or calling for divestment during the times of apartheid?  I applaud the handful of students who are now calling for divestment of another sort – aimed at shifting investment funds from fossil fuel-related corporations and calling attention to global climate change.  And kudos to the almost 400 students who were arrested in Washington, D.C. this past weekend.  They, along with busloads of others were protesting the Keystone XL pipeline project. 

A few years ago, during the fall of the Occupy Movement, I participated in a march in Washington about the same pipeline project.  When I came back to campus and told students in my Introduction to Environmental Science course about the experience, it was obvious that they were a) shocked that I would do something like this (it isn’t what scientists do), and b) fearful that it was my expectation of them to do sometime similar (it wasn’t).  But, we talked about their obvious aversion to political activism.  Some noted that such activity would be a black mark on their record, thus hurting their chances for securing a job in the future.  Most didn’t have a clue as to what the Keystone Pipeline XL project was.  My bad.  I hadn’t yet gotten to the chapters on energy or climate change.  But surely they must have seen something via social media from 350.org or other organizations?  Nope, they had no idea who Bill McKibben is.  I witnessed, with some sadness, the same reaction and lack of awareness of current events from students in my first year seminar which had the title of The Future of Nature and Humans: 21^st Century Environmentalism.  My fault I guess.  I hadn’t yet added those details into their pails. 

Since that incident, I have been thinking a lot about these messy issues.  My work with the United Nations on climate change has taught me that while science might get countries to the negotiations table, policy and multilateral agreements will ultimately be battles about economics, cultural differences, national priorities, and politics.  Nothing about the process is objective or logical.  But the process is filled with passionate people who care about the future of the planet, or at least their countries, and about protecting their people and national interests.  In too many of my students, I see apathy, disconnect with current events, and a lack of awareness of historical context.

Over the past few years, we have brought some fascinating speakers to campus.  Some were involved in the civil rights movement (Jesse Jackson and John Lewis).  Winona LaDuke talked about environmental and cultural sustainability initiatives on reservations.  Students wanted to know how she dealt with the label of “activist’.  Her response:  “I don’t consider myself an activist, just a responsible citizen.”  Perfect.  Ph.D. biologist and author Sandra Steingraber spoke of the need for a liberal arts education to understand issues like natural gas extraction (fracking), to be able to formulate educated positions about whether it is a good idea or not.  Yes, she is an activist, but that wasn’t her message on our campus.  Each of these speakers illustrated to students what it means to be engaged in a cause, to care about something. 

What has been the response?  Students texted during the talks, and administrators ask us to be more balanced in our choice of speakers (reportedly because some donors and board members were upset).  Aren’t issues like inequality, the impact of the forces of capitalism, the consequences of past and present exploitations, social and environmental justice, clean energy (or energy independence), and climate change the very ones that we should be lighting fires over?  If not us in higher education, then who?  Many colleges and universities have somewhere in their mission statement a line about preparing students for “service for the common good.”  If we aren’t tackling the big questions of our time, what “common good” are we working towards?  And who decides?  These aren’t questions that are objective, or ones that any science I know can answer.

Recently, I was reading a blog post that pointed out that more than twenty years ago the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS 1990) concluded that scientific goals to solve society’s problems are fostered by a greater emphasis on liberal education.[2]  In other words, it is the liberal education of students that will help move science out of the laboratory and into practice for the common good.  To create those responsible citizens that Ms. LaDuke spoke of.  Along these lines, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has a major initiative known as LEAP:

Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is an initiative that champions the value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality.[3]

In making a “Civic Case” for a liberal education, AAC&U has a slide presentation on their LEAP website (see reference 3) that is really worth all of us on college campuses to peruse.  Two slides in particular that caught my attention contained excerpts on “Education and Citizenship” from Ben Barber in An Aristocracy of Everyone[4]:

 

The fundamental task of education in a democracy is the apprenticeship of liberty—learning to be free... The literacy required to live in civil society, the competence to participate in democratic communities, the ability to think critically and act deliberately in a pluralistic world, the empathy that permits us to hear and thus accommodate others, all involve skills that must be acquired..

“Democracy is not a natural form...; it is an extraordinary and rare contrivance of cultivated imagination... [E]ndow the uneducated with a right to make collective decisions and what results is not democracy but...the government of private prejudice and the tyranny of opinion...”

Reviews of this book indicate that Barber’s perspectives are controversial, critical of conservative views, and exciting.  Exactly the types of topics we should be debating on campuses over twenty years later.

In 2010, I wrote a chapter for a monograph published by the Council on Undergraduate Research entitled “The Role of Department Chairs in Promoting and Supporting Transformative Research.”[5]  In that chapter, I noted that

 

In defining liberal education, the AAC&U LEAP initiative speaks of preparing individuals to deal with complexity—to “develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings.”

The goal of creating an academic environment that could lead to transformative research is certainly not contrary to the institutional goals of liberally educating students and preparing them for making a positive impact on society. Indeed, students who are being taught in an environment that promotes critical thinking, a sense of social responsibility, and the application of knowledge gained to solve real-world problems are precisely the type of students who will likely be the next generation of innovators.

In rereading this now, I realize that the experiences of my non-linear career path were starting to converge in those words.  My role as educator, was to not only teach students about science and to give them experiences in research, but also to inspire in them a desire to be socially responsible and use their knowledge and experience to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems.  A lofty ambition, perhaps, but in my mind, an essential one.

I take students to the United Nation climate change conferences so that they can see the many world views on this topic that differ from the official position of the U.S.  We grapple over environmental and social justice issues when we are in the field of the largest Superfund site east of the Mississippi River, trying to figure out how to revegetate a mountain.  We even read excerpts from those who started the environmental movement and maintain it today.  Some of those famous scientists, writers, and activists have radical views, but they have changed public policy in this country, and some have had global impacts.  Certainly not the stuff of objective science, the type that is safely done in laboratories, hidden amongst the beakers and solutions and equipment.  If my students and I simply stayed in the labs and focused only on reciting the facts, would we be working on problems that really matter?  And if so, we would be doing so without really understanding the social and political context of the problems or any solution that we might come up with. 

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If you are still following this rambling, you may be wondering what prompted this diatribe.  Several times in the past few months, I have found myself at conferences where the question of whether scientists should be engaged in advocacy on issues such as climate change.  I have been approached by some who fear that my climate change work is too liberal.  And recently, our college president chose to publicly admonish a colleague who wrote a thought-provoking, well-written opinion piece that was published in a local paper.

 What is this left-leaning work of mine that has some concerned?  I lead a project that involves ecological monitoring of eastern Pennsylvania, to see if there are signs of the impacts of a changing climate and whether we can predict vulnerability of species and habitats.  I serve on both state and international committees trying to advocate for science to be used in developing policy related to climate change.  My students, colleagues, and I blog from the U.N. meetings to report on what we are hearing and learning, since most of this is not covered by the U.S. media.  I even occasionally have an op-ed published, some of which are subjective, non-scientific pieces.[6]  Others are carefully crafted responses (retorts) to some really uneducated letters-to-the-editor that are filled with all sorts of factual errors, especially ones on the topic of climate change.  All radical stuff, I suppose, at least for a scientist and an educator.

I have a number of colleagues from other institutions who believe that it is an ethical obligation of higher education to deal with climate change – through curriculum, research, modeling best practices of sustainable practices, and public outreach.  I was recently reading a blog post on this topic and realized that Dr. John Lemons from the School of Law at Widener University captured the very essence of what I have been thinking in a much more articulate way that I could have written.  So to conclude, I share four excerpts from Dr. Lemons’ essay with emphasis added.[7] 

Why should universities deal with global climate change in a more wide-spread and comprehensive manner? The reason lies within university responsibilities to educate about important societal issues across all disciplines, including the benefits of liberal education for all students. Recent quantifiable scientific evidence concludes that mitigation of serious and irreversible consequences of global climate change are plausible but only if urgent action is taken within about a decade or so. Drawing on assessments about the efficacy of environmental and sustainability programs, it seems clear that “piecemeal” approaches to addressing the complicated root causes and possible solutions to global climate change will not work. Because of the pervasive influences that have caused global climate change, its solution needs to include all disciplines and programs.

In order to foster comprehensive education about global climate change, it will be necessary for educators and environmental scientists and managers, and high-level university administrators to advocate for university reform. One might not relish being involved in advocacy, but the stark choice is this: Either engage in advocacy or not. But if not, understand that this is a decision, intentional or unwitting, to support the status quo that is responsible for global climate change. Scientists or other educators who might be reticent to engage in advocacy because of fear that it might compromise real or perceived objectivity would be well advised to read Lemons (1987), Nelson and Vucetich (2009), and Moore and Nelson (2010) which dispel myths about the legitimacy of such reticence.

 

Seth (2008) makes explicit the failure of higher education to address the strong ties between capitalism and ever-increasing consumerism which, of course, increases the problems of global climate change. Vucetich and Nelson (2010) demonstrate how the lack of inclusion of ethics into sustainability programs, and by extension those with a focus on global climate change, is stifling progress. Nussbaum (2010) also lends her voice to how universities have neglected liberal and civic education and by doing so contribute to the root causes of problems such as global climate change.  

The failure of universities to develop comprehensive global climate change programs might also stem from a lack of attention to responsibilities that come with the protection of academic freedom, which not only allows faculty to conduct their own teaching and research, but also entails the responsibility to enable all students through university-wide programs of study to acquire learning to make significant contributions to society (AACU 2006). Academic freedom therefore requires faculty to advocate for the inclusion of comprehensive global climate change programs. Surely, global climate is a huge societal problem. Further, if faculty members avoid taking action this implicitly or unwittingly represents a form of advocacy because it is tantamount to supporting continuation of the status quo that is responsible for global climate change.

 

These excerpts include citations that can be found at the link that I provide; I highly encourage you to read the entire piece by Dr. Lemons.  And thanks for reading mine.

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[1] Roger Meiners and Andrew Morriss, Silent Spring at 50: Reflections on an Environmental Classic, PERC Policy Series #51, 2012, available at http://perc.org/articles/silent-spring-50.  Or, see Miller, H.I. and Conko, G. “Rachel Carson’s Deadly Fantasies”, an op-ed in Forbes (9/5/12) available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/09/05/rachel-carsons-deadly-fantasies/.

[2] AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1990) The Liberal Arts of Science: Agenda for Action. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.

[3] See: https://www.aacu.org/leap/ 

[4] Benjamin R. Barber, An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of Education and the Future of America, Oxford University Press, 1992.

[5] In Kerry K. Karukstis and Nancy Hensel, eds., Transformative Research at Predominately Undergraduate Institutions, CUR Publications, 2010, available at: http://www.cur.org/assets/1/7/TRFull.pdf 

[6] My most recent op-ed can be found at http://articles.mcall.com/2013-12-06/opinion/mc-nelson-mandela-tribute-husic-yv-1207-20131206_1_nelson-mandela-u-n-climate-conference-apartheid

[7] John Lemons, Universities And The Need To Address Global Climate Change Across Disciplines and Programs, See: http://blogs.law.widener.edu/climate/2011/03/26/universities_and_the_need_to_address_global_climate_change_across_disciplines_and_programs/#more-120