Op-ed: Universities in the Anthropocene

Tufts hosted a symposium on the role of universities in responding to climate change. The administration’s willingness to engage in this discussion, in light of the divestment debate, is welcome. For an institution that espouses active citizenship, it is a moral responsibility for the university to connect the values it advances with the pressing issues of the day. Through this article, I make three propositions, building on what was discussed the symposium, to reconsider the role of universities in regards to climate change: shifting the discussion from climate change to the Anthropocene, connecting knowledge and action and the values that drive the university.

My first contention is that we need to think more broadly than just climate change and consider what scholars are terming as the Anthropocene — a new geological epoch where the humanity is the largest and most pervasive driving force of global change. Humankind’s disruption of the climate system is only one of the multitude of changes that have been wrought. While Tufts famously signed and went on to beat the Kyoto Protocol’s target of reductions in greenhouse gases, the demands of the Anthropocene require far-reaching changes. Reducing the carbon footprint of the university, of course, is good place to start but the circumstances require far greater ambition. We need to reflect on how we can operationalize the notion of a circular economy at the scale of the university, recognizing that climate change is just one facet of un-sustainability.

Second, knowledge and action need to be recognized as linked and fundamentally inseparable. Faculty have made repeated calls on the university to support more interdisciplinary research across the university. The administration must answer this call and recognize that faculty are more than willing cross boundaries across schools and produce the kind of scholarship needed.

Yet, we cannot forget that knowledge generated through universities is treated in a decontextualized manner, devoid of its connection with action. At most, findings are encouraged to be communicated better. Such a linear notion of knowledge to action requires a major rethink. Until we wrestle with the very questions being asked and how answers are generated, we may be unequipped to handle with the challenges we face.

Furthermore, there also has to be a sense of reckoning that the largely unsustainable paths that we find ourselves in is in no small part due to the kind of knowledge that we have produced. Accepting this responsibility means that the university must encourage reflection on the fundamentally intertwined and interlinked position of the university in society and foster diversity and pluralism in what is studied and researched.

Finally, what values does the university stand for and ultimately impart to its students? Active citizenship is a useful starting point. Universities can foster both broader and deeper agency, in the words of Karen O’Brien. Our ethics derive from a sense of interbeing, going beyond the individual-centric conception of citizenship that is common in liberal thought. Above all, the project remains human emancipation. It is not simply about solving the problem of climate change. It is a plea to view climate change as fundamentally linked to human freedom. It is asking us to rethink what freedom really means in the Anthropocene, and how universities as institutions can play their part in promoting human emancipation.

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