From Ahead of My Time to Right Place at Right Time: Reflections on Climate, Culture, and the Journey

You know you’ve been at it a while when you reflect on your work from a past decade. I started my university leadership journey fifteen years ago, following nearly two decades as a faculty member. It has been a journey of discovery and learning, home runs and humbling defeats, service and solitude, hope and humility, and so much more. Leadership is a calling. Servant-leadership is a blessing. The opportunity to reflect is a privilege, about which I have written previously.

I recently had the opportunity to examine the trend in higher education toward offering certificates and even majors in climate change, sustainability, and related topics. We can argue whether this rapidly growing trend is the result of student interest, faculty innovation, administrative directive, social pressures, rising temperatures, or the loud cries from our ailing planet. It turns out not to matter. Such academic offerings can now be found at universities around the world, and student interest is soaring. Single courses have given way to undergraduate and graduate certificates, minors, majors, and even academic units. The emergence was swift (by academic standards) but the expansion of offerings has occurred at light speed.

Eight years ago, when serving as provost at UVM, a mid-size public research and land-grant university located in bucolic Burlington, Vermont, I offered what was then perhaps a bold suggestion – a prompt – for consideration by my faculty colleagues. I asked this simple, provocative question in 2016: “What if we were the first major university to require all our undergraduate students to have a minor or certificate in Climate?”

The response was tepid, which was surprising given the institution and its ethos, but in the end, it simply was not the right time for the university. Evidence of (and interest in) true interdisciplinarity was scarce, and resources even scarcer. The latter led to a climate of retrenchment and protection, rather than experimentation or expansion. Faculty governance attentions were on matters other than academic innovation or the rising urgency of something as amorphous as climate change. Even the term “climate-literate” was contentious, meaning very different things to different parts of the campus. The opportunity for the university to be a pioneer and lead the way in this space, ensuring all its graduates were climate-literate, was missed. UVM certainly has such offerings today (and knowing some of the faculty teaching those classes, they are excellent), but it is far from alone. In the end, it was neither a pioneer nor a beacon for other universities to follow.

Today it seems all colleges and universities offer courses related to the study of climate and the impacts of a changing climate on our planet and our lives. Undergraduate and graduate certificates in climate and sustainability are ubiquitous. Minors and even majors are becoming more and more popular as universities race to capture student interest and come to understand the powerful and important role they play in preparing graduates to address the very real (and increasingly urgent) challenges ahead.

Today, I find myself not “ahead of my time” but at the “tip of the spear.” This week, Arizona State University announced that all incoming undergraduate students would be required to take a sustainability-related class. Some degree of climate-literacy and understanding of the broad scope of sustainability would now be assured for every ASU graduate. Sustainability had moved into the realm of general education. But more than that, a gateway had been created through which every undergraduate student would walk as they discovered their own academic interests, their own passions, and their own career paths. ASU has long been a leader in this space, so the options are many. This gateway could lead them into degree programs, minors, certificates, co-curricular programs, undergraduate research, or advanced study in any (one or more) of the following schools:?

• School of Sustainability (College of Global Futures)
• School of Sustainable Engineering & the Built Environment (Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering)
• School of the Future of Innovation in Society (College of Global Futures)
• School of Complex Adaptive Systems (College of Global Futures)
• School of Ocean Futures (College of Global Futures)

Or they may choose pathways in the life sciences, physical sciences, earth sciences, or computing and data sciences programs offered by the other ASU colleges and schools. They can also earn certificates – that complement and extend their undergraduate major(s) – in biomimicry, energy and sustainability, sustainable food systems, environmental science, atmospheric sciences, environmental humanities, planetary science, environmental education, water resources, sustainable tourism and many other climate and sustainability-related topics.??????????????

Through this early exposure to arguably the grandest of the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges and the most all-encompassing of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, students walking through this portal will find their way to a new kind of academic pathway and program set, built around grand challenges of the next century and not the traditional disciplines of the last one. This is all part of ASU’s vision for the New American University.

Coming back to reflection, I believe there is emergent purpose to our lives and our careers. We can’t always see it when we are making decisions, choosing paths, changing course, or taking on new challenges. But upon reflection, we can see intentionality of our path. The collective whole somehow makes sense and seems almost planned, strategic. Of course, we know it rarely is. But if we make more good decisions than bad, take the right risks and allow the right lights to guide us, we may just experience that feeling of emergent purpose. Being ahead of your time or ahead of the curve is just as important as being at the top of your game or tip of the spear. It’s all part of the journey.

David Rosowsky, Ph.D. is senior advisor to the president of Arizona State University. A former dean of engineering, provost and senior vice president, and vice president for research, he has served in his career as chief academic officer, chief research officer, and chief budget officer at major research universities. A regular contributor to Forbes.com, Rosowsky writes about leadership, governance, finances, innovation, and change management in higher ed.