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Opinion
Transforming Higher Education: Green Campuses in the 21st Century
7/26/2006
By Terry Calhoun
When the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) began touting its LEED system of ratings for greener, better designed buildings less than a decade ago, almost no one had heard of global warming. The thought of building a large, functional, office-type building or residence hall that was environmentally friendly wasn’t in a lot of heads. The USGBC aimed at “market transformation.” And it has achieved that goal.
A little over ten years ago, my employer, the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) published a small book titled Transforming Higher Education: A Vision for Learning in the 21st Century. It was an easy-to-read “wake-up call” aimed at the top strategic level of management in higher education – many of whom had not yet “gotten” the message about how information technology was about to transform our lives and learning. It sold more than 30,000 copies and was translated into Japanese. Presidents and provosts bought 50 copies at a time and distributed them to top campus leadership.
One of the authors of Transforming Higher Education, Donald M. Norris of Strategic Initiatives, and I got together at the Campus of the Future conference in Hawaii early in July and were talking about what looks like an approaching market transformation that is much wider than just green buildings: green technologies. We’re talking about a possible new book.
Campuses are a source of leaders in the environmental sustainability effort, and related efforts to understand and cope with the effects of global warming. SCUP just published, along with NACUBO (the association of business officers) and APPA (the association of facilities officers) a new book titled, The Business Case for Renewable Energy: A Guide for Colleges and Universities. In the past five years I have heard many people say that the mainstream world – the world of commerce and industry – was crying out for college graduates who were informed, green consumers, as well as MBAs, designers, and engineers trained to think sustainably and to develop new products.
I think that the news of the past few months shows that we’ve reached a “tipping point” and it is evident that industry and society are in fact “getting it” about green. It’s the gadget freak in me – the info tech maven – who is the most excited about some of the commercial products coming onto the market. These products, as well as others, are a bellwether of significant change. I’m going to briefly describe three that excite me:
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