Greening The Minds: Universities, Climate Leadership, and Sustainable Futures

Salzburg Global Seminar Session 463: An International Forum to Explore the Role of Universities as Sites for Comprehensive, Sustainable Futures Education

The Salzburg Global Seminar Sessions are five-day sessions focused on critical challenges confronting the global community and designed to formulate innovative solutions to global problems. Beginning with Session 1 in 1947, the Salzburg Global Seminar has convened global leaders committed to making a difference in the world through candid and informed discussion that can pioneer practical strategies for change.

GREENING THE MINDS CONCEPT

Over the course of the past decade, the tripartite threats of environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, and climate change have given rise to a newly motivated sustainability movement - a movement that has both emerged from and firmly taken root in institutions of higher education. But, while some universities have been on the cutting edge of climate and environmental science, most universities still have a hard time adopting the practice of sustainability education and sustainability management in a broad and comprehensive way. 'Green Campus Initiatives' have proven extremely effective in leading universities toward energy efficiency and sustainable living, but linking these initiatives effectively with advances in sustainability curriculum in ways that address the interdisciplinary and holistic challenges of climate change have proven difficult. There are, however, more and more examples of integrated approaches that cut across disciplines and make sustainability one of the primary objectives of teaching, learning, and living, and it is now clear that the very real pressures of creating more comprehensive, sustainable futures through university education is becoming one of the key components of higher education institutions across the globe.

KEY QUESTIONS

• How can universities more fully integrate sustainability into their institutional strategies and ensure that they achieve concrete results? Where are the barriers? How can they be overcome?
• Where do universities currently fall short in educating students on a holistic approach to climate change and “sustainable futures”? Are universities addressing this through and across the curriculum? How is sustainability addressed in a variety of curricular contexts?
• How can universities initiate comprehensive strategic change with the goal of focusing teaching and learning on sustainable futures?
• What kinds of additional curricular and management opportunities are possible in this area?
Service learning approaches? Systems thinking and international, interdisciplinary projects?  Innovation challenge projects? Faculty incentive programs? International awards programs for sustainability management, green campus initiatives, and innovative curricular approaches?

A PROGRAM FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES

An International Forum for Professors, Educators, Administrators and Professionals to Build Interdisciplinary Curricula and strengthen the role of Universities as Sites for the Advancement of Comprehensive Sustainability Education and Practice.  This session will serve as an opportunity to explore the creation of the "Salzburg Academy on Sustainable Futures", a program that will draw on the outcomes of this session to involve students and faculty from a broad spectrum of international partner universities beginning in 2010.

DETAILS OF THE JULY 2009 MEETING

• July 11 – 16, 2009
• Participants work, live and eat in residence at the world-renowned Schloss Leopoldskron, an 18th-century Rococo palace built by the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, owned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, renovated by Max Reinhardt the co-founder of the Salzburg Music Festival, and used for the von Trapp family home in “The Sound of Music.”
• Presentations and small-group sessions, as well as the workshops and online work are in English.
• Current speakers include Martin Lees, Secretary General, Club of Rome; Brian Keane, President of SmartPower, Washington, DC; Leith Sharp, Director of Harvard Green Campus Initiative, Cambridge, MA; Hermann Scheer, Member of Parliament, Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin; Charles Hopkins, United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Chair at York University, Toronto, Canada; Hans van der Loo, Head of European Union Liason Office, Shell International, Brussels, Belgium (invited)
• The fee €3,300 covers the cost of the program, accommodations, and meals.
• Scholarship funding may be available for those who are unable to pay the full fee, and universities wishing to become partners in the Sustainable Futures Academy will be eligible to send 3 participants for $10,000.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Visit the website & see more about Session 463: www.SalzburgGlobal.org
or contact Benjamin Glahn, Deputy Chief Program Officer, Salzburg Global Seminar
[email protected], tel. +43 (662) 83 9 830