CLIMATE CHANGE AND STRATEGIC AND LONG-RANGE PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Article by: Richard Carp, PhD, Registry Member
Climate change is no longer something we know will happen “someday” and that we’ll need to take into account when it does. It is affecting our institutions today and its impacts will accelerate and intensify over time frames covered by our strategic and master plans. Yet, much of higher education leadership seems largely unaware that climate change will affect their institutions within the time-frames for which we are currently planning. Much climate-change data is normed to 2050, so I am imagining a 25-30 year planning horizon.
As a case in point, guidance for College of Charleston’s current strategic and facilities master planning process, “conceptually planning up to 30 years in advance,” does not mention the effects of sea level rise, although the City of Charleson references “the existential threat of rising seas and a changing climate,” as well as the need to prepare for catastrophic flooding, in a plan which runs only through 2030.[i]
I don’t mean to pick on College of Charleston. They are the norm, not the exception. Interims may be able to help leadership acknowledge and respond to climate related threats, partly because we often come into institutions at crucial moments in planning processes, and partly because we often can state uncomfortable truths since we will soon be leaving.
It’s not necessary, or possible, to start out as an expert, either for us or for Boards, Presidents, and other leaders. As a start, I recommend reading Rob Dunn’s short A Natural History of the Future. It’s fact-based, straightforward, and non-ideological. Though not focused on higher education, it will give you a good overview of climate impacts on the contexts in which higher ed functions. In addition, I’d suggest getting in touch with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (https://www.aashe.org/). I don’t believe they have extended their reach to institutional leadership, but they have a wealth of resources and I’m certain they would like to move in this direction.
While sea-level rise is easy to point to, it’s only one climate-related threat facing American colleges and universities. We are now seeing the early edges of phenomena that will affect every aspect of higher education leadership and management between now and 2050. Each will grow in intensity and frequency during the planning period, will have larger impacts in 2050 than today, and will continue to accelerate into the next planning period. They’ll have physical and human impacts everywhere we operate, not just on our home campuses, but everywhere we operate (study abroad, satellite campuses, sister institutions):
- Weather extremes are becoming more frequent and more extreme, and weather is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. This enhances the likelihood of catastrophic weather events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and high winds, but also prolonged drought, flood, wind, extreme heat or cold. Weather will become (much) more extreme and (much) harder to predict. These phenomena will increase throughout the planning period, and our plans need to take this into account. Catastrophes related to extreme weather will also be more frequent and unpredictable, with greater and more frequent risk of loss of life, injury, and property damage.
- Fresh water will be increasingly scarce in many places.
- Wildfires will become more frequent, more intense and more damaging. Their secondary effects, such as smoke, will increase and their effects will be increasingly more remote (e.g. the impact of Canadian forest fires on US cities in summer 2023). Densely populated areas will increasingly be affected.
- Public infrastructure (power, water, sewage, garbage collection, transportation, supply chains, communication) will be less reliable, will break down more often, and will be compromised for longer periods of time.
- Climate driven migration will cause twelve million Americans to migrate internally in the US, while another million or so weather-related refugees will be added to cross-border immigration (Lustgarten 2020a&b; Fan, et al, 2018).
These factors will affect the human as well as the physical aspects of our institutions and we’ll have to focus resources on people and property in response. External social, economic and political stressors are likely to grow and to become less predictable, as well, as climate effects impact the larger social, political, and economic contexts which frame our work. As they respond to increased disruption and unpredictability, we can expect more turbulence and some loss of function.
Each of these has impacts across the institution and they will interact with one another in complex ways across the institution. We can anticipate climate driven change in, e.g.,:
- Facilities
- Enrollment Management and Student Services
- Human Resource Services and employee satisfaction
- Alumni relations
- Study/research on other campuses/in other countries
- Emergency planning
- Business continuity
- Marketing, branding and public relations
- Development and fundraising
There will be complex effects throughout and between each area. For example, facilities impacted will include everything we use, own, rent, anywhere in the world: residence halls & food services; classrooms, studios and laboratories, museums and galleries and offices, as well as landscapes, gardens, lawns, forests, coasts and fisheries owned or used by the institution.
Higher education planning processes need to anticipate and prepare for ongoing and intensified effects of climate change on our institutions. Perhaps one person on the team (not too junior) should be charged to make sure predictable vulnerabilities have been addressed across the plan: what changes can we expect in our immediate physical environment (of course), but also what is the wildfire risk at our study abroad locations? What are the impacts of migration there? How much is our insurance likely to rise depending on different decisions we make? How will the demographics of our students and families change? Can we heat (or cool) our facilities adequately? What if the grid breaks down, e.g. because of great heat or cold; are we looking at that in our disaster planning? How long should we expect to be self-sufficient in an emergency?
Throughout this piece, I’ve stressed that uncertainty will increase. Unpredictability is a climate-change related effect which will intensify between now and 2050 and beyond. We’ll need greater flexibility, in the future, to respond to more and more frequent unanticipated threats. In response, we need to develop substantial uncommitted resources that can be deployed as risks materialize. We all know that raising or setting aside uncommitted funds for future use is one of the most difficult tasks in higher education leadership. Its existential importance for climate-change resilience indicates the challenge to which both development and finance and administration must respond.
Raising these issues, one may hear that, after all, these are “just projections,” so perhaps we needn’t take them too seriously. They are projections, but the models on which they are based have been reality tested for forty years now, and they have proven to be quite accurate. We use other projections routinely when we plan, about technology, student demographics, economic development and employment, workforce needs and worker availability, for example, and many of these projections are rooted in models less well tested and verified than those used to predict climate change and its effects. These effects are real. Failure to plan for them is foolish and puts institutions at risk. Those that plan wisely and effectively for climate-change-related impacts will be much more resilient than those which do not. Interim leaders may play crucial roles in helping leaders and institutions move in these directions.
Dunn, R. (2021). A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species. Basic Books.
Fan, Q., Fisher-Varden, K. and Klaiber, H. A. “Climate Change, Migration, and Regional Economic Impacts in the United States.” 2018. The Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Volume 5, issue 3, 643-671.
Lustgarten, A. 2020a. Photographs by M. Kohut. “The Great Climate Migration?” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html. Accessed 9/24/2020
Lustgarten, A. 2020b. Photographs by M. Kohut. “How Climate Migration Will Reshape America Millions will be displaced. Where will they go?”https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html. Accessed 9/24/2020.
[i]Https://facilitiesplanning.cofc.edu/master-planning/index.php; https://strategic-plan.cofc.edu/).;https://www.charleston-sc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/31227/Final-City-Plan-Adopted-October-12-2021, p.15). NASA estimates an average sea level rise in the US of 1 foot by 2050. You can look at the impacts that would have in Charleston, and elsewhere in the US, at https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/sea-level-rise-map-viewer.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND STRATEGIC AND LONG-RANGE PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Article by: Richard Carp, PhD, Registry Member
Climate change is no longer something we know will happen “someday” and that we’ll need to take into account when it does. It is affecting our institutions today and its impacts will accelerate and intensify over time frames covered by our strategic and master plans. Yet, much of higher education leadership seems largely unaware that climate change will affect their institutions within the time-frames for which we are currently planning. Much climate-change data is normed to 2050, so I am imagining a 25-30 year planning horizon.
As a case in point, guidance for College of Charleston’s current strategic and facilities master planning process, “conceptually planning up to 30 years in advance,” does not mention the effects of sea level rise, although the City of Charleson references “the existential threat of rising seas and a changing climate,” as well as the need to prepare for catastrophic flooding, in a plan which runs only through 2030.[i]
I don’t mean to pick on College of Charleston. They are the norm, not the exception. Interims may be able to help leadership acknowledge and respond to climate related threats, partly because we often come into institutions at crucial moments in planning processes, and partly because we often can state uncomfortable truths since we will soon be leaving.
It’s not necessary, or possible, to start out as an expert, either for us or for Boards, Presidents, and other leaders. As a start, I recommend reading Rob Dunn’s short A Natural History of the Future. It’s fact-based, straightforward, and non-ideological. Though not focused on higher education, it will give you a good overview of climate impacts on the contexts in which higher ed functions. In addition, I’d suggest getting in touch with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (https://www.aashe.org/). I don’t believe they have extended their reach to institutional leadership, but they have a wealth of resources and I’m certain they would like to move in this direction.
While sea-level rise is easy to point to, it’s only one climate-related threat facing American colleges and universities. We are now seeing the early edges of phenomena that will affect every aspect of higher education leadership and management between now and 2050. Each will grow in intensity and frequency during the planning period, will have larger impacts in 2050 than today, and will continue to accelerate into the next planning period. They’ll have physical and human impacts everywhere we operate, not just on our home campuses, but everywhere we operate (study abroad, satellite campuses, sister institutions):
- Weather extremes are becoming more frequent and more extreme, and weather is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. This enhances the likelihood of catastrophic weather events such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and high winds, but also prolonged drought, flood, wind, extreme heat or cold. Weather will become (much) more extreme and (much) harder to predict. These phenomena will increase throughout the planning period, and our plans need to take this into account. Catastrophes related to extreme weather will also be more frequent and unpredictable, with greater and more frequent risk of loss of life, injury, and property damage.
- Fresh water will be increasingly scarce in many places.
- Wildfires will become more frequent, more intense and more damaging. Their secondary effects, such as smoke, will increase and their effects will be increasingly more remote (e.g. the impact of Canadian forest fires on US cities in summer 2023). Densely populated areas will increasingly be affected.
- Public infrastructure (power, water, sewage, garbage collection, transportation, supply chains, communication) will be less reliable, will break down more often, and will be compromised for longer periods of time.
- Climate driven migration will cause twelve million Americans to migrate internally in the US, while another million or so weather-related refugees will be added to cross-border immigration (Lustgarten 2020a&b; Fan, et al, 2018).
These factors will affect the human as well as the physical aspects of our institutions and we’ll have to focus resources on people and property in response. External social, economic and political stressors are likely to grow and to become less predictable, as well, as climate effects impact the larger social, political, and economic contexts which frame our work. As they respond to increased disruption and unpredictability, we can expect more turbulence and some loss of function.
Each of these has impacts across the institution and they will interact with one another in complex ways across the institution. We can anticipate climate driven change in, e.g.,:
- Facilities
- Enrollment Management and Student Services
- Human Resource Services and employee satisfaction
- Alumni relations
- Study/research on other campuses/in other countries
- Emergency planning
- Business continuity
- Marketing, branding and public relations
- Development and fundraising
There will be complex effects throughout and between each area. For example, facilities impacted will include everything we use, own, rent, anywhere in the world: residence halls & food services; classrooms, studios and laboratories, museums and galleries and offices, as well as landscapes, gardens, lawns, forests, coasts and fisheries owned or used by the institution.
Higher education planning processes need to anticipate and prepare for ongoing and intensified effects of climate change on our institutions. Perhaps one person on the team (not too junior) should be charged to make sure predictable vulnerabilities have been addressed across the plan: what changes can we expect in our immediate physical environment (of course), but also what is the wildfire risk at our study abroad locations? What are the impacts of migration there? How much is our insurance likely to rise depending on different decisions we make? How will the demographics of our students and families change? Can we heat (or cool) our facilities adequately? What if the grid breaks down, e.g. because of great heat or cold; are we looking at that in our disaster planning? How long should we expect to be self-sufficient in an emergency?
Throughout this piece, I’ve stressed that uncertainty will increase. Unpredictability is a climate-change related effect which will intensify between now and 2050 and beyond. We’ll need greater flexibility, in the future, to respond to more and more frequent unanticipated threats. In response, we need to develop substantial uncommitted resources that can be deployed as risks materialize. We all know that raising or setting aside uncommitted funds for future use is one of the most difficult tasks in higher education leadership. Its existential importance for climate-change resilience indicates the challenge to which both development and finance and administration must respond.
Raising these issues, one may hear that, after all, these are “just projections,” so perhaps we needn’t take them too seriously. They are projections, but the models on which they are based have been reality tested for forty years now, and they have proven to be quite accurate. We use other projections routinely when we plan, about technology, student demographics, economic development and employment, workforce needs and worker availability, for example, and many of these projections are rooted in models less well tested and verified than those used to predict climate change and its effects. These effects are real. Failure to plan for them is foolish and puts institutions at risk. Those that plan wisely and effectively for climate-change-related impacts will be much more resilient than those which do not. Interim leaders may play crucial roles in helping leaders and institutions move in these directions.
Dunn, R. (2021). A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species. Basic Books.
Fan, Q., Fisher-Varden, K. and Klaiber, H. A. “Climate Change, Migration, and Regional Economic Impacts in the United States.” 2018. The Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Volume 5, issue 3, 643-671.
Lustgarten, A. 2020a. Photographs by M. Kohut. “The Great Climate Migration?” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html. Accessed 9/24/2020
Lustgarten, A. 2020b. Photographs by M. Kohut. “How Climate Migration Will Reshape America Millions will be displaced. Where will they go?”https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html. Accessed 9/24/2020.
[i]Https://facilitiesplanning.cofc.edu/master-planning/index.php; https://strategic-plan.cofc.edu/).;https://www.charleston-sc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/31227/Final-City-Plan-Adopted-October-12-2021, p.15). NASA estimates an average sea level rise in the US of 1 foot by 2050. You can look at the impacts that would have in Charleston, and elsewhere in the US, at https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/dataset/sea-level-rise-map-viewer.
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