Most higher education institutions aiming to embrace sustainability eventually face a common challenge: providing training and support to their faculty. This is challenging because educators, while experts in their area of teaching, may lack expertise in other subjects, like environmental sciences or social sciences, not to mention the solution-based leverage points—which are all a part of the agenda of sustainability education.

One major pitfall in this upskilling is to view the faculty as a relatively homogeneous community that can be addressed with a one-size-fits-all approach. Like the student population it serves, the faculty is highly heterogeneous in its approach to these subjects in terms of interest, knowledge, expertise, and commitment.

Three main profiles can be discerned.*

1. The Obstructionists: This group includes both “Deniers” and “The Never Wrong”. The former is apt to claim that the need to address climate change (or other sustainability topics) is exaggerated or less urgent than stated. Because they are in denial or even drawn towards a conspiratorial mindset, there is little hope in engaging them in such curricular review. The latter group—The Never Wrong—is hard to reach too, because they are set in their ways and convinced that what they’ve taught in the past remains just as relevant for the future. They may represent 10% of the whole population, but you can count on both these groups to obstruct—in principle—whatever initiatives or curricular reforms you might propose. Save your energy for other groups.

2. The Well-Meaning … but: This is a huge group, probably comprising about two-thirds of the total. First, we have “The Disconnected”. While they may be aware of some of the challenges humanity faces and have changed things in their own lives, they are largely oblivious to the connections with the topics they teach in class. The other group—”The Disoriented”—may be aware and troubled by climate change, but they do not know how or where to start. But because this entire group includes the well-meaning hindered only by “ignorance” or “lack of training”, both these impediments can be overcome. There is a huge opportunity to find allies and supporters across this group.

3. The Activists: Three subgroups compose this group:

• Systemic Experts: Highly qualified and experienced in the field of sustainability, this group has a full understanding of the complex systems underlying environmental, social, and economic issues. Their interdisciplinary approach and holistic vision make them powerful allies in getting diverse instructors connected and committed to the common cause.
• Topical Specialists: This group includes established experts (and probably recognised as such) who have comprehensive expertise on specific topics such as climate change or poverty. They are invaluable as a source of knowledge and training for others when they speak about their own topic. And while they likely lack a systemic understanding of the larger system, it’s because they know this that they can more easily help others (particularly the Well-Meaning) recognise and address curricular knowledge gaps in their courses.
• New Enthusiasts: Recently aware and fully dedicated to the cause of curricular reform, this group may—via a “Dunning-Kruger cognitive bias”—overestimate their ability to embed the appropriate dose of sustainability knowledge into the syllabus. But their energy and enthusiasm for reform is contagious. Use it to help convert the Well-Meaning and maybe even some Obstructionists in the cause of curricular revision.

Revitalising higher education: Strategies for a sustainable future

Given the high stakes of addressing global challenges, it is imperative to engage as many instructors as possible in the curricular review process—whatever their profile. Recruiting new faculty who are “sustainability-literate”, unleashing the current faculty already seized by the climate crisis, providing support and training to those struggling to keep up, and ignoring those who refuse to budge—these are strategies that work.
Higher education has the power—and duty—to be a key player in societal change.

If we are to ensure that all our students possess sustainability literacy, understand the challenges facing humanity and society, measure the impact of their actions, and feel compelled to act together in building a sustainable future, then we must promptly work towards ensuring the majority of our faculty also acquires this literacy. It is through faculty action that we best gauge our progress towards sustainability.

*This blog post is based on 20 years of practitionners’ observation. The classification and ranges are based on field observations and the interpretation belong to its author.

For more information from Sulitest on building a sustainable future and improving sustainability knowledge, skills, and mindsets across the globe, please see the The Assessment of Sustainability Knowledge (TASK) position paper. 

For additional insights, trends and perspectives about sustainability, visit the conversation here.