President's Forum guest: Higher education must face challenges of climate change

When it comes to solving the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century, higher education must play a leading role, said Bryan Alexander, futurist, author and senior scholar at Georgetown University.

Alexander was the first guest in the inaugural President’s Forum, led by President Philomena V. Mantella and Fatma Mili, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs, on October 16 at the Seidman College of Business.

Mantella said the President’s Forum will continue the format of her Fireside Chat discussions while extending the opportunity to Grand Valley colleagues to "bring forward their network of individuals and colleagues from across the country that will help us to continue to grow and learn."

In an engaging conversation with Mantella, Mili, and an audience of students, faculty and staff, Alexander said climate change is too powerful and too challenging for colleges and universities to sit idly.

“Think of the capacities of higher education,” he said. “We have so much intellectual horsepower that we can bring to bear. We have so much creativity. We have the responsibility of educating students and providing so much research and helping communities that we have to be on top of this.”

Alexander said higher education institutions must assess the breadth of their physical plan from how buildings react to climate change to the sustainability of food served on campus to the sourcing of a campus’ power needs as well as the level of research devoted to climate change’s impact.

“In many ways, we can think of higher education as a kind of passive recipient that global warming does these things to us, but we also have the option to do something back, and that may be adaption,” Alexander said,

Alexander said his first solution would be to improve educational opportunities for women, who are disproportionately affected by climate change. Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicate the need to address inequities and inequalities of the world’s population. 

Alexander added that more women are bearing the responsibilities of taking care of the home, children and older generations. In response, Mili asked Alexander if he could draw a connection between sustainability and equity.  

“Educating more women is a way of empowering women,” he said. “Giving women more choices, more autonomy and more power I think just makes all kinds of sense.” 

In closing, Mantella asked audience members to reflect on Alexander’s opening statement on the capacities and responsibilities of higher education.

“I ask each of you to be thinking about that question that Brian has raised, which is to think about education, the way it can be empowered and the way we need to move and navigate this space into the future,” Mantella said. 

The next President’s Forum features Mantella, Mili and Kara Van Dam, vice provost for Graduate and Lifetime Learning, talking with Bror Saxberg, founder of LearningForge. Saxberg will share insights into the decades of research on learning and motivation and how they can guide new learning techniques.

For more information on the next President’s Forum, visit the Office of the President’s webpage.