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Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Camp Mystic: A Century of Privilege, Exclusion, and Resilience Along the Guadalupe

Nestled along the banks of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, Camp Mystic has been a summer rite of passage for generations of elite white girls since its founding in 1926. Created by University of Texas coach E.J. “Doc” Stewart, the camp was envisioned as a Christian retreat that mirrored its brother camp, Camp Stewart for boys. With a blend of outdoor adventure, spiritual practice, and deep-rooted tradition, Mystic became one of Texas’s most exclusive—and enduring—summer institutions.

At its core, Camp Mystic was always more than a camp. It functioned as a social filter, reinforcing class, race, and regional identity. Founded during the Jim Crow era, the camp operated within a system of de facto racial segregation. While no known documents explicitly stated that Black, Mexican American, or Indigenous girls were barred, the overwhelmingly white makeup of campers, counselors, and alumni for decades makes its exclusionary nature clear. Like many private institutions in the South, racial exclusion at Mystic was enforced through unspoken rules, legacy admissions, and the economic barriers of wealth and connection.

The legacy of that segregation lingers today. Camp Mystic remains a predominantly white, upper-class space. The cost of attendance alone is prohibitive to most. A single 30-day session now costs more than $4,300—often closer to $5,000 once flood-related infrastructure and safety fees are added. A $300 to $400 deposit is required up front, and most campers are enrolled years in advance, often the children and grandchildren of Mystic alumnae.

Over the decades, the camp has grown to encompass 725 acres of Texas Hill Country, including historic cypress cabins, a blufftop chapel, and a sprawling recreation hall. Campers are divided into two tribes—Kiowa and Tonkawa—borrowing names from Native peoples with no meaningful cultural ties. They compete in games, attend daily devotionals, and participate in long-standing rituals like Sunday fried chicken dinners and end-of-session vespers. Phones and electronic devices are banned, preserving an air of rustic purity and nostalgic Americana.

Mystic’s leadership has passed through generations of wealthy Texas families. After Stewart sold the camp in 1937, the Stacy family took over, maintaining control even during its World War II closure, when it was leased to the U.S. Army Air Corps as a convalescent facility. From 1948 to 1987, Inez and Frank Harrison—“Iney and Frank”—ran the camp with an old-school Christian ethos. The third-generation owners, Dick and Tweety Eastland, continued the tradition of preserving the camp’s conservative values and cultural uniformity.

The camp’s alumni list reads like a who’s who of Texas society. Laura Bush once served as a counselor. Children of governors, oil executives, and business magnates have long walked the same trails and sat at the same river’s edge. For many, Mystic is as much a symbol of legacy and identity as it is a summer destination.

And yet, the question lingers: what does it mean to sustain a place like Camp Mystic in the 21st century?

While many of its practices seem quaint or charming to supporters, others see a more troubling story—of a camp that has functioned as a training ground for white privilege, Christian nationalism, and cultural insulation. Its use of Native American tribal names, its refusal to modernize its traditions beyond symbolic gestures, and its high economic barrier to entry make it a time capsule of exclusion. Even now, diversity at Camp Mystic appears limited, its brochures and social media reflecting the same demographics it always has.

Today, as Texas faces widening inequality, increasing climate risks, and sharp political divides, Camp Mystic remains perched on a precarious edge—both literally and figuratively. It is a camp shaped by floods and fire, faith and legacy, and a deep belief in preserving “the way things used to be.”

For some, Camp Mystic represents a magical place of lifelong friendship, tradition, and spiritual growth. For others, it is a stark reminder of how privilege and exclusion are often disguised as nostalgia.

Sources:

Monday, July 7, 2025

Science-Based Climate Change Denial: Manufacturing Doubt in the Age of Collapse

Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity—especially the burning of fossil fuels—is the primary driver of climate change, a sophisticated form of climate change denial persists, often cloaked in the language and authority of science itself. This “science-based” climate change denial does not simply reject climate science outright but instead cherry-picks data, emphasizes uncertainties, and amplifies marginal scientific viewpoints to cast doubt on established facts. At the center of this strategy are credentialed scientists, industry-funded think tanks, and academic institutions that provide intellectual cover for the continued exploitation of fossil fuels.

This form of denialism has proved highly effective in delaying climate action, muddying public understanding, and influencing policy—especially in the United States, where partisan politics, neoliberal economic ideology, and extractive capitalism intersect.

The Evolution of Denialism

In the 1990s, outright climate change denial was more common, with prominent voices denying that the Earth was warming or that human activity played any role. But as evidence mounted—through rising global temperatures, melting ice caps, and increasingly destructive weather events—climate denial evolved. Rather than deny global warming altogether, many so-called skeptics now argue that climate models are unreliable, that warming is not necessarily dangerous, or that adaptation is more cost-effective than mitigation.

This shift gave rise to a subtler, more insidious strategy: science-based denial. Unlike conspiracy theories or fringe pseudoscience, this form of denial often involves credentialed experts, peer-reviewed articles (sometimes in low-quality or ideologically driven journals), and selective interpretation of data to mislead the public and stall regulatory action.

Scientists for Hire

Think tanks like the Heartland Institute, Cato Institute, and George C. Marshall Institute have employed scientists with impressive resumes to lend credibility to denialist arguments. Figures like Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have received funding from fossil fuel interests like ExxonMobil and Southern Company while publishing papers that downplay human contributions to climate change. These financial ties are often undisclosed or downplayed, even though they present a clear conflict of interest.

In some cases, these scientists present themselves as heroic dissenters—mavericks standing up against a corrupt, alarmist scientific establishment. Their arguments are rarely about disproving the reality of climate change, but instead about inflating uncertainties, misrepresenting data, or offering misleading counter-examples that are unrepresentative of broader trends.

The Role of Higher Education

Elite universities and academic journals have sometimes unwittingly enabled science-based denial by embracing a culture of both-sides-ism and neutrality in the face of coordinated disinformation campaigns. In the name of academic freedom, universities have tolerated or even elevated voices that promote denialist rhetoric under the guise of “healthy skepticism.”

Institutions like George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and Stanford University’s Hoover Institution have provided intellectual homes for scholars funded by fossil fuel interests. These institutions maintain the veneer of academic legitimacy while promoting deregulatory, pro-fossil fuel policy agendas.

Furthermore, federal and state funding for climate research has become increasingly politicized, especially under Republican administrations. Under the Trump administration (2017–2021), federal agencies were directed to scrub climate change from reports and suppress scientific findings. Even now, with the potential return of Trump-style governance, science-based denialists are preparing for a resurgence.

Strategic Misinformation

Climate denial campaigns use sophisticated media strategies to manipulate public opinion. Through platforms like Fox News, right-wing podcasts, and social media channels, science-based denial is disseminated to millions. The denialists often invoke “Climategate”—a 2009 scandal involving hacked emails from climate scientists—as proof of corruption in climate science, despite multiple investigations clearing the scientists of wrongdoing.

The playbook is familiar: exaggerate uncertainty, cherry-pick cold weather events, blame solar activity, and discredit prominent climate scientists like Michael Mann or James Hansen. The public, already overwhelmed with crises, becomes confused, disoriented, or apathetic.

Consequences and Countermeasures

The consequences of science-based climate denial are devastating. Delayed action has led to rising sea levels, record heatwaves, agricultural disruption, and biodiversity collapse. Vulnerable communities, particularly in the Global South and marginalized communities in the U.S., bear the brunt of the damage.

To counter this, scholars and educators must move beyond “debating” denialists and instead expose the ideological and financial underpinnings of their arguments. As Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway showed in Merchants of Doubt, denialism is not a scientific disagreement—it is a political and economic strategy designed to protect powerful interests.

The Higher Education Inquirer supports open scientific inquiry, but not at the expense of truth or the planet. Universities, journalists, and the public must hold denialists accountable and challenge the structures that enable them—especially those in academic robes who lend their credentials to oil-funded propaganda.


Reliable Sources and Further Reading:

  • Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. Merchants of Doubt. Bloomsbury Press, 2010.

  • Brulle, Robert J. “Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations.” Climatic Change, vol. 122, no. 4, 2014, pp. 681–694.

  • Dunlap, Riley E., and Aaron M. McCright. “Organized climate change denial.” The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, Oxford University Press, 2011.

  • Mann, Michael E. The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. PublicAffairs, 2021.

  • Union of Concerned Scientists. "The Climate Deception Dossiers." 2015. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/climate-deception-dossiers

  • Inside Climate News. “Exxon: The Road Not Taken.” https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/exxon-the-road-not-taken/

  • Climate Investigations Center. “Tracking the Climate Denial Machine.” https://climateinvestigations.org


For inquiries, reprint permissions, or to contribute your own investigations, contact The Higher Education Inquirer at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu.

Sunday, July 6, 2025

The Real Sin Behind the Texas Floods

Last week a catastrophic flood swept through Central Texas, killing at least 50 people, including at least two dozen girls at a Christian summer camp located near the Guadalupe River.  The water reportedly rose 25 feet in 40 minutes, something of almost Biblical proportions.    

In similar horrifying events, 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina for example, conservative religious voices framed disasters as divine punishment for the sins of modern society. These interpretations, often shared in churches, social media posts, and talk radio segments, portray tragedies like these as acts of God triggered by moral decay: homosexuality, abortion, secularism, or a failure to adhere to traditional values.

This time politicians blamed these deaths on the National Weather Service and NOAA and its antiquated warning system. Part of that is true. And it's mind-boggling that conservative politicians like Homeland Security Chief Christy Noem, who make these assertions, are those who have worked so hard to shortchange federal agencies like this.    

The biggest sin in this case, though, is the refusal by those in power, to confront the mounting crisis of human-caused climate change. What we are witnessing in Texas, and in countless other climate disasters around the globe. It is the direct and measurable result of a planet warming due to greenhouse gas emissions and the systems that sustain them.

Scientific evidence has been clear for decades. As the Earth’s atmosphere warms, it holds more moisture, leading to heavier and more intense rainfall events. A warmer climate also disrupts traditional weather patterns, increasing the likelihood of sudden and extreme downpours. The National Climate Assessment and peer-reviewed studies in journals like Nature Climate Change and Geophysical Research Letters confirm the link between climate change and flash flooding, especially in the U.S. South and Midwest. In Texas specifically, the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events have risen markedly over the past few decades, driven in large part by human activity.

In the case of this month’s flood, nearly a foot of rain fell in just a few hours over the Guadalupe River basin. The river surged more than 26 feet in 45 minutes, submerging campsites, RV parks, and a Christian girls’ summer camp. This level of devastation is not random. It is part of a trend—a predictable, deadly trend that scientists have warned us about repeatedly.

And yet, the political response to climate change, especially among many conservative lawmakers and right-wing institutions, has been one of denial, deflection, and delay. Texas remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels, both economically and politically. Industry-backed campaigns have spread climate misinformation for years, weakening public understanding and blocking meaningful policy reforms. Some Texas leaders continue to cast doubt on climate science even as their constituents drown in record-breaking floods and fry in record-breaking heat.

But if we are to talk about sin, we should do so honestly. The sin is in the silence and inaction. The sin is in ignoring the suffering of the vulnerable—children at summer camps, workers without flood insurance, renters with no way to evacuate—while protecting the profits of polluters. The sin is in cutting funding for emergency management and scientific research while quoting scripture to justify the status quo.

True moral clarity lies in demanding justice from systems that degrade the planet and sacrifice human life for political gain. Repentance, in this sense, means changing course: ending fossil fuel subsidies, embracing climate adaptation, strengthening infrastructure, and respecting the knowledge of scientists and Indigenous communities.

Texas is drowning not because of God's wrath but because of human arrogance. To call it anything else is not only dishonest—it is a grave disservice to the dead, the missing, and the millions still at risk.

Sources

  • US Global Change Research Program. Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II (2018). https://nca2018.globalchange.gov

  • Prein, A. F., Rasmussen, R. M., Ikeda, K., et al. "Increased rainfall volume from future convective storms in the US." Nature Climate Change, 7, 880–884 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0007-7

  • Trenberth, K. E. "Changes in precipitation with climate change." Climate Research, 47(1–2), 123–138 (2011). https://doi.org/10.3354/cr00953

  • Hoerling, M., Eischeid, J., Perlwitz, J., et al. "Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2014). https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00021.1

  • Zhang, W., Villarini, G., Scoccimarro, E., & Vecchi, G. A. "Impacts of the Pacific Meridional Mode on U.S. Springtime Tornado Activity." Geophysical Research Letters, 43(3), 1096–1104 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL067193

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Viral Video Shows Franklin Fire Raging Outside Pepperdine University Library Doors (Weather Channel)

Pepperdine University issued a shelter-in-place order just after 1 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Dec. 10, ordering those on campus to seek shelter at either the Tyler Campus Center or Payson Library as the Franklin Fire raged nearby.

Footage shared by the user @ew_its_kat on X appears to show the students’ perspective "from inside the library" of firefighters battling the blaze.

Thursday, December 5, 2024

How might we do climate action in academia under a second Trump administration? (Bryan Alexander)

With the reelection of Donald Trump, a candidate who has flaunted his desire for autocracy—aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress that will not constrain him with guardrails—the United States is now poised to become an authoritarian state ruled by plutocrats and fossil fuel interests. It is now, in short, a petrostate.

professor Michael Mann, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

How can we do climate crisis work within the higher education ecosystem under a second Trump administration?

With today’s post I’d like to explore strategic options in the present and near future. This is for everyone, but I’ll conclude with some self-reflection. My focus here will be on the United States, yet not exclusively so.

(I’ve been tracking possibilities for a Trump return for a while. Here’s the most recent post.)
Climate change under Trump: pressures on higher education

To begin with, the threat is that president Trump will undo federal support for climate action across the board (for evidence of this, see statements in Agenda 47, Project 2025, and elsewhere). Beyond the federal government, Trump can cause spillover effects at state and local levels. This should strengthen red states, counties, and cities in anti-climate policies and stances.

That governmental change will likely have direct impacts on higher education. About two thirds of American colleges and universities are public, meaning state-owned and -directed and therefore quite exposed to political pressures. Academics working in those institutions will be vulnerable to those forces, depending on their situation (institutional type, what a government actually does, the structural supports for units and individuals). How many academics – faculty, staff, students – will be less likely to undertake or support climate action? Will senior administrators be similarly disinclined to take strategic direction for climate purposes?

Beyond governments, how would the return of Trump to national power, complete with Republican control of Congress and the Supreme Court, shape private entities in their academic work? I’m thinking here of non-governmental funders, such as foundations, along with the many businesses which work with post-secondary education (publishers, ed tech companies, food service, etc.). Researchers studying global warming might have a harder time getting grants. Some funders might back off of academics doing climate work of all kinds. This can impact private as well as public academic institutions.

On the international side, Trump’s promised withdrawal from the Paris agreement and his repeated dismissal of climate change might make it harder for American academics to connect with global partners. Without simplifying too much, non-American academics might find Trump 2.0 an extra barrier to partnering with peers in the United States, especially if their national or local governments also took up anti-climate positions. International businesses developing decarbonization goods and services might step back from a newly Trumpified America (here’s one recent example).

Beyond those entities we should expect various forms of cultural resistance to climate work. Leaders from Trump and Vance on down can stir up popular attitudes and actions; the anti-immigrant focus on Springfield, Ohio gives one example. Politically-engaged individuals can challenge, threaten, or attack academics whom they see as doing harmful actions along climate lines.

On the other hand, academics might draw support from governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals who resist MAGA and seek to pursue climate goals. We could see governmental climate energies devolve below the federal level to states and below. Hypothetically, a professor in, say, California or Vermont might fare better than peers in Texas or South Carolina.

To be fair, political boundaries might not be cut and dried. Climate disasters might change minds. Republicans who benefit from the surviving pieces of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act might decide not to oppose academics doing climate work. The low costs of solar can trump (as it were) ideology. And insurance companies seem likely to continue their forceful actions of denying coverage and increasing fees in especially endangered areas.

I’ve been speaking of the academic population as a whole, but we should bear in mind the district experience of campus leaders (presidents, chancellors, system administrators, provosts, vice presidents, deans) in this situation. They play a decisive role in supporting climate action through setting strategic directions, developing programs, and, of course, providing funding. In my experience of researching academic climate action and thinking I’ve found this population to be, all too often, resistant to the idea for a variety of reasons: perceived lack of faculty interest; concerns about board/state government politics; anxieties about community response; fears of financial challenges. Then the Gaza protests happened and campus leaders seem to me even more nervous about taking public stances. How will they act under a new Trump administration?

Recall that politicians can bypass those leaders. The recent Texas A&M story is illustrative in this regard. A state politician decided that the university should no longer offer a LGBTQ studies minor. Campus faculty and its president refused to end the program, but the institution’s board unilaterally terminated it. It’s easy to imagine parallel cases for climate activity, from offering a sustainability degree to overhauling buildings to reduce their carbon footprint, only to be met by a politician’s enmity.
Academic options and possibilities

So what can we do now?

One option is for those doing climate work to just keep on doing it, damning the torpedoes. After all, climate action has historically elicited blowback and hostility, so Trump 2.0 is nothing new. Perhaps it’s a difference in kind, not degree. Academics who see themselves having institutional or other backing (tenure, private funding, benefactors) may just continue. Some might relish the prospect of a public fight.

The public/private divide might be a powerful one. Being employed by, or taking classes at, a state university makes climate politics potentially powerful, even dispositive. Blue states might double down on climate action, which could take the form of new regulations forcing campuses to decarbonize more rapidly or to include global warming in general education. Red states, in contrast, can disincentivize faculty, staff, and students from the full range of climate action, making teaching, research, campus operational changes more difficult, even dangerous.

In contrast, academics affiliated with private colleges and universities might enjoy greater political latitude, at least in terms of direct governmental authority. Some might find themselves constrained by their non-governmental institutional affiliations – i.e., by their churches, if they’re a religious school. Economic and cultural pressures can also hit academics in private institutions. That said, we could see private campuses take a leading role compared with their public colleagues.

What new forms might academic climate action take?

We could well see new informal support networks appear, perhaps quietly, perhaps openly. This could take place via a variety of technological frameworks, from Discord to email. People involved will need others working on the same lines. There are already some formal networks, like AASHE and Second Nature. They might serve as bulwarks against hostility. We could also see new nonprofits form to support academic climate action.

Another tactic might be to establish a for-profit company to do climate work. This might sound strange, but businesses often appeal to the famously business-friendly GOP. An LLC or S-corp doing climate work in higher education could look less Green New Deal-y.

Will we see academics become more public in their climate research, perhaps participating in government lobbying, civic demonstrations, or more? After all, four more years of Trump means we will see increased American greenhouse gas emissions. The crisis is worsening, and that fact might engage more faculty, staff, and students to resist. Perhaps campuses will become centers or hubs of all kinds of climate action.

Furthermore, we might see more direct action. American colleges and universities have seen little of this so far, as opposed to European institutions. There have been some initial, tentative signs of this outside of the academy, like Just Stop Oil spray painting an American embassy in the United Kingdom.



Might we see American students, staff, faculty letting the air out of SUVs, damaging oil infrastructure, pie-ing fossil fuel company executives, or more?

A very different tactic for academics to consider is to be stealthy in order to avoid hostile attention. Not talking about one’s new climate class on social media, not sharing global warming research on TikTok, not doing a public talk in the community might be appealing tactics. Similarly, scholars might avoid publishing in open access journals in favor of those behind high paywalls. We could organize using private messaging apps, like Signal.

We could also stop. We might judge the moment too dangerous to proceed. Think about the largest population of faculty, adjuncts, who have so little workplace protections. They might deem it safer to go dark for a few years until things are less dangerous. Consider academics in various forms of marginalization – by race, religion, gender, professional position – as well as those with non-academic pressures (financial, familial). How many of us will pause this work for the time being?

Those academics who are committed to climate work are thinking about such choices now. And some may be participating in conversations about these options.

Let me close on a moment of self-reflection.

I’ve been doing climate research for years as part of my overall work on higher education’s future. This has taken many forms, including a scholarly book, blog writing, teaching, and a lot of presentations, both in-person and virtual. I have been participating in several networks of like-minded folks. I’ve hosted and interviewed climate experts in various venues. Overall, I work climate change into nearly everything I do professionally.

Yet I am an independent, as some of you know. I do not have a tenured or full time academic position. I don’t have independent wealth backing me up. Doing climate work is increasingly risky. To the extent that people know my commitment, I might quietly lose work, allies, colleagues, supporters. I have seen some signs of this already. Similarly, the public nature of what I do opens me up to the possibility of public attacks. I have not yet experienced this.

My philosophy of work – heck, of life – is that it’s better when shared with other people, hence my longtime preference for sharing so much of what I do online. This makes my work better, I think. Yet now, with a new and energetic conservative administration in the country where I live and do most of my work, perhaps this is too risky. I’ve already received advice to run dark, to do climate and other work underground.

Or maybe this is me overthinking things, starting at shadows. These are possibilities, each contingent on many factors and developments in a sprawling and complex academic ecosystem. We could see versions of all of the above playing out at the same time. Some presidents may boldly lead their institutions into accelerated climate action, while others forbid faculty and staff from any such activity. Some professors may launch new climate-focused classes while others delay teaching theirs for years. Staff members in a blue state might set up organic farms and push for fossil fuel vehicle parking fees, while others focus on other topics and keep their heads down. Some of us will make content for public view while others head underground.

Everything I know about climate change tells me this is a vast, civilization-wide crisis which humanity is struggling to apprehend, and that academia can play a significant role in addressing it if we choose to do so. Today I do not feel comfortable advising individuals on what each person should best do in this new political era. But I want to place the options before the public for discussion, to the extent people feel they should participate.

I hope I can keep doing this work. It needs to be done.

(thanks to the Hechinger Report and many friends including Karen Costa and Joe Murphy)
 

 
Bryan Alexander is an awardwinning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future. He is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University.  This article was originally published at BryanAlexander.org.

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Austerity and Disruption

With a concerted effort now to reduce government spending, higher education leaders should expect reduced state and federal support in 2025 and beyond, with demographic and climate trends also darkening the clouds. Workers and consumers should also see it all coming

Austerity has already begun. In July 2024, the Pew Foundation reported that state budgets were facing cuts as Covid-era funds ended.  The most notable cuts are coming to the California State University System, which is expected to reduce its budget by hundred of millions of dollars. But several other states are feeling the pinch. 

Austerity for higher education is also likely to increase at the state level as baby boomers reach advanced age and require more medical attention and nursing home care. How this demographic cliff of old age, reduced fertility, and fluctuating populations plays out will vary greatly across the United States. 

Some Southern states, like Florida, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, have improved financially despite threats from climate change. Anti-tax, anti-regulation, and anti-union laws make them friendly to corporations in search of relocation and a better deal. States in the West, like Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, are are also likely to continue thriving. Besides climate change, which is profoundly disruptive but takes generations to notice, mass deportations could affect their economies quickly--if the Trump Administration's threats can be carried out

Alaska, New Mexico, Oregon, and several states in the Midwest and Atlantic regions will face more austerity as their populations remain stagnant or decline and folks move to states with lower housing costs and less taxes, leaving others to die. Deaths of despair among youth will continue to ravage them. What happens with these failing states in the future is anyone's guess. One would hope higher education leaders would have solutions and be courageous enough to act, or at the very least allow those with solutions to talk

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Universities on Fire wins AAC&U book award (Bryan Alexander)

For the past several years I’d focused much of my research capacity on forecasting how the climate crisis might impact higher education, and what academics might do in response. That work appeared in many blog posts, presentations, meetings, Future Trends Forum sessions, and my 2023 book, Universities on Fire.

Today I’m delighted to announce that this work has received some splendid recognition. The American Association of Colleges and Universities is a 109-year-old organization devoted to liberal education, with more than 1,000 campuses as members. AAC&U has just chosen Universities on Fire for its Frederic W. Ness Book Award. The award goes to books which make “outstanding contributions to the understanding and improvement of liberal education.”

Ness-Book-Award-Winner UoF-2024-Final

I am both humbled and ecstatic to learn of this. As someone who has worked in liberal education for decades, this is a signal honor, a career highlight. This award also feels like a validation of years of work on climate change. It’s especially delightful coming from a group I’ve followed and worked with for decades.

More important than my own self and career, by choosing to give the Ness award to Universities on Fire the AAC&U indicates that climate change should be a major concern for colleges and universities. It connects global warming to liberal education by virtue of the award’s emphasis “on liberal education as an evolving tradition,” as well as by signaling climate as “an issue or topic in postsecondary education that is discussed substantially in relation to liberal education.”

This is how they describe climate change as the very point of this year’s award:

“Among an exceptionally strong pool of nominees, Universities on Fire stood out because of how effectively and constructively it speaks to the urgency of the moment—its subject matter, interdisciplinarity, creativity, continual grounding in learning, and focus on the future,” said [Lynn] Pasquerella [president of AAC&U].

I’m so glad they recognized the interdisciplinary nature of the topic. I raised the idea that responding to climate change might be the new liberal arts.

AAC&U has long been a leader in encouraging higher education to address a series of key topics. The organization created the high impact learning practices (HIP) model, which helped institutions implement those teaching and student support ideas. Similarly, AAC&U advanced the concept of liberal education preparing students for active civic life, as well as supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion . They also introduced eportfolios to campus assessment and curricular strategies. My hope is that the group now adds climate thought and action to that list of major, good ideas… and that colleges and universities are inspired to think and act accordingly.

I’m deeply grateful to AAC&U for this award and excited about what comes next.

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Shall we all pretend we didn't see it coming, again?: higher education, climate change, climate refugees, and climate denial by elites

Can US higher education do much to reduce climate change, either as a leader or as a teacher?  The answer so far is no. That's not to say that there aren't universities (like Rutgers) doing outstanding climate change research or students concerned about the planet's future. There are. But that research and resistance is outweighed by those who control higher education, trustees and endowment managers, and their financial interests. 

While devastating occurrences like Hurricane Helene (and possibly Hurricane Milton) serve as high-rated entertainment, news coverage also makes the stakes seemingly more visible to those who are not directly affected. 

For many, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and heat waves are quickly forgotten or remembered merely as single acts of god or seasonal anomalies, not as ongoing acts of greedy rich men. And melting icebergs and disappearing islands are something most Americans don't see, at least firsthand. Generations of data and information are ignored by those who are poorly educated and those who claim to be educated, but uneducated morally. 

Predictions of more global conflicts and an estimated 1.2 billion climate chaos refugees are barely mentioned in the news, but they are looming.   


Related links: 

Thinking about climate change and international study (Bryan Alexander)

Monday, September 23, 2024

Wealth and Want Part 1: Multi-Billion Dollar Endowments

US higher education reflects and reinforces a world of increasing inequality, injustice, and inhumanity. This system (or some would call it an industry) should function as a conduit between good K-12 education, good jobs, and the wellness of all its citizens, whether they attend or not. But increasingly, it does not. 

The first installments of the Wealth and Want series examine the concentration of wealth in the US higher education system.  And this article focuses on loosely regulated university endowments. While many American schools struggle to provide basic amenities and academic resources, elite universities boast endowments that rival the GDPs of small nations. And they pay little in taxes

The Endowment Elite and Ill-Gotten Gains

At the pinnacle of higher education wealth are Harvard ($49B), The University of Texas System ($44B), Yale ($40B), Stanford ($36B), and Princeton ($34B). These institutions have amassed endowments that provide a steady stream of income for investments, scholarships, and research initiatives. How their money is invested is rarely known.  

Endowment managers at elite schools typically make more than a million dollars a year. The most elite schools pay their managers $5M-$10M a year, with compensation largely based on returns. But those managers still get hefty salaries even when they lose money.

There are more than 120 schools with endowments greater than a billion dollars. But the 20 richest university endowments together hold more wealth than the other 5000 or so other higher education institutions combined. 

Elite endowments are often the result of centuries of fundraising, donations, and strategic (sometimes shady) investments. For many of the most prestigious schools, it began with land theft and generations of forced labor

For other wealthy schools, it was the result of philanthropic robber barons like Johns Hopkins (who also held captives), Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and James Buchanan Duke who made their wealth through mass exploitation of people and the planet. 

For wealthy flagship state universities, it also came from land theft. In the case of the University of Texas, its wealth largely came from, and to some degree still comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels that jeopardize the planet.


Historical Context and Structural Inequality

  • Land Theft and the Founding of Institutions: The establishment of many American universities, including Ivy League institutions and those founded under the Morrill Act, was often intertwined with land theft from Native American tribes. This practice, often referred to as "land dispossession" or "Indian removal," was a key component of Manifest Destiny and the expansion of European settlement across the continent.
  • Ivy League Universities: Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia were granted land by colonial governments, which often acquired these lands through treaties that were coerced or violated. They also used enslaved labor to build and maintain their wealth.  
  • Funding Models: The funding models for public higher education often favor larger, research-intensive universities. This can lead to underfunding for smaller, less prestigious institutions, particularly those serving marginalized communities.
  • Endowment Inequality and Profits Over People and Planet: Endowments are a powerful tool for wealth accumulation and institutional advantage. The concentration of endowments in a few elite universities can exacerbate existing inequalities and create a self-perpetuating cycle of privilege.  These endowments have also engaged in shady investments that perpetuated worker oppression, genocide, and environmental destruction. 

Related links:
Tax Wealthy Private Universities Now (Paul Prescod, Jacobin)

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Higher Education Uncensored

The Higher Education Inquirer is a rare space for students (consumers), workers, debtors, and community members to speak the truth about higher education and its most important issues, including the truth related to climate change and environmental destruction, human rights, student rights and worker rights, mass surveillance and policing, sexual assault and rape culture, racism and bullying, mental illness and suicide prevention, hypercredentialism, student loan debt and underemployment, NCAA money sports, higher education scams, cheating, and AI, university endowments, land theft and gentrification by universities, and any issues that are too politically charged for other news outlets to consider.


HEI fills this role because many student newspapers cannot perform that service. No mainstream media outlet (large or industry niche) or nonprofit can do that either. In those cases, the purse strings affect what is published and what isn't. Writers and editors are censored, and sometimes they censor themselves to avoid retribution or the possibility of retribution. If you are a student journalist, whistleblower, or concerned citizen, we invite you to submit your work to us. If you have a petition or an event, or want to leak documents anonymously, please let us know.  

Related links: