Sustainability is about much more than recycling or turning off the lights…
While it is, in an important way, certainly about the physical environment, it’s also about the human, social, economic, and cultural environments.
From a systems perspective, sustainability is about all of the components that comprise the system and their interdependence.
In higher education, each institution can be understood as a system in and of itself, and each institution is also part of the larger higher education system. For higher education to function effectively and sustainably, individual institutions and the larger collection of institutions both need to work.
Today, we have challenges at both levels–the individual-institutional and the collective.
Individual institutions are beset by a myriad of problems that coalesce into a financial one–declining enrollments, under-enrolled programs, increasing expenses, etc.
Collectively, those individual-institutional challenges are joined by ebbing societal confidence in the value and authority of higher education, shifting expectations about what higher education is supposed to do and be, and other assorted challenges.
Trying to address a challenge to one part of the system–without recognizing the interconnectedness of all of the parts–risks short term surface fixes at the expense of deeper and more meaningful change.
Collaboration–at both the institutional and inter-institutional levels–offers a way to address the reality that sustainability is now our strategic imperative. If we don’t get this right, we won’t have to worry about turning off the lights…