Physical Campuses

With rents higher than tuition and fees at many California colleges, a growing number of students face housing insecurity, forced to live in hotels or cars. Institutions can’t build dorms fast enough.

Florida State closes its health sciences building after a faculty report details an apparent cancer cluster, black debris falling from air vents, dangerous radon levels and more. Professors say earlier action may have saved lives.

Colleges can’t view it as the end goal to responding effectively to the climate crisis, argue Alex Barron, Aaron Strong and Lucy Metz, who offer five other recommendations for action.

The university’s divestment is powerful, but it must do more to model climate leadership, write Ilana Cohen and Tim Wirth.

Experts say crediting students for their climate advocacy is wise. But institutions tend to minimize the role campus activists may have played in helping them decide to divest from fossil fuels.

It is indeed a physical space, Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt writes, but it also embodies a host of aspirations that lie at the very heart of higher education.

As one university plans to sell or repurpose a million square feet of campus space, experts discuss the role of in-person education as the pandemic recedes.

Colleges have made progress on building climate sustainability. Now they’re looking to build climate resilience.