Campus Sustainability

One of the most prevalent discussions taking place on campuses around the country is the one about sustainability. But the discussion is not whether or not sustainability movements are actually sustainable. Rather, the discussions are simply how to integrate more sustainability actions and education into every aspect of college life. From vehicles and textbooks to lights and English classes, there is hardly an area around college campuses that has not been impacted by the sustainability movement. But if we step back from good intentions, we find that the explosive growth of sustainability initiatives on campuses may not always produce positive outcomes. Specifically, my thesis will express that campus sustainability movements have resulted
in higher costs to universities and students causing an increase in financial debt for both the institution and the individual. This rapid growth of the sustainability movement actually results in less academic freedom by assuming that the earth is experiencing catastrophic damage at the hands of human action.
To provide the appropriate background I will first survey the history and rapid growth of sustainability efforts at colleges in order to provide a context for understanding the unprecedented shift in educational focus that has largely lacked an objective analysis. Second, I will examine the high cost of these initiatives both in campus driven environmental efforts and a dramatic increase in sustainability related campus positions. The result of these efforts have produced large deficits for the college and an increase in student tuition. Third, I will show how the sustainability movement has affected classic liberal arts education by becoming the primary topic in almost every class. Finally, I will conclude that in order to resolve this academic imbalance, colleges need to make the pursuit of sustainability efforts financially transparent so that these investments can be properly assessed for their value and that colleges needs to return to a position of neutrality, encouraging an open dialog about true environmental stewardship.
My background information will pertain to facts and statistics related to the growth of sustainability movements on college campuses.
From Peterson and Wood, “According to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, 475 college campuses in 65 states or provinces offer a total of 1,438 academic sustainability programs, ranging from certificates to undergraduate degrees to master’s and doctorate degrees” (2015). Sustainability in education has grown from a simple desire to care for and maintain our natural resources to a full-scale “discipline.” Colleges must return to viewing sustainability as an ideology in order to maintain and encourage an open dialog about environmental stewardship. As Jim Manzi, notable writer on science and technology affirms, “The best available science and the best available economic analysis show that the proposed programs to radically reduce carbon emissions through taxes or regulation are very likely to cost much more than the benefits they provide” (2008). The final background information I will discuss will be the infiltration of sustainability into almost every class, from science to English, undermining the ideals of liberal arts education and replacing it with an emphasis on environmentalism. “Many colleges are embracing something called ‘the environmental humanities,’ which pushes aside the traditional humanities curriculum” (Peterson and Wood, 2015). Sustainability on college campuses may have been envisioned to benefit the environment, but it can often undermine other core
curriculums.
All of my sources will be from scholarly sites, articles, or documents. I will not be using blogs, news sources, or any other resource that is not backed up with sufficient evidence. My primary source will be a comprehensive work by the National Association of Scholars studying the impact of sustainability on college campuses. I will be citing my sources in APA format. This paper will present an objective analysis of the campus sustainability movement based not on personal opinions but on scholarly research originating largely from within the educational community. I plan to organize this paper with an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. In the end, it is imperative that we examine the impact of a quickly escalated movement that has reshaped the higher educational experience. We must strive for balance and objectivity to ensure education is not driven by agendas but rather the pursuit of higher learning.