Climate.edu: S2Ep1 Creating the Future Climate University


[Theme Music]

HOST: Dr. Toddi Steelman, thank you for being on climate.edu. 
TODDI STEELMAN (TS): -Thank you so much, Richard, for the invitation. Please call 
me Toddi. 
 HOST: Okay, great. All right, Toddi. So I want to start out. out first by asking what 
exactly in your role at Duke? So your, I guess your title is Vice President of 
Sustainability, what is your full title there?
TS: Vice President and Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability, and so it's a brand 
new position for our university identifying the commitment that we have made to climate 
change and sustainability, and it's vice president because I have oversight of all of our 
operations, including our health system and our remote campuses in China and 
Singapore, as well as athletics, and provost, vice provost, because I also have oversight 
of our educational mission and research and other aspects. which we are trying to focus 
on here at Duke University as we turn our attention to climate change. 
Right, and certainly we will get into that Duke climate commitment, but you're also an 
alum of Duke. 
TS: I am, yes, I am. I graduated from Duke many years ago now, and I came back in 
2018, very fortunately to become the Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment 
and so that was the school where I graduated with my PhD, so it was super fun to come 
back as an alum and lead that school for five years, and then last year transition 
basically into this new role as the President asked me to. 
Yeah, so let's let's talk about this new role and the Duke. climate commitment. I met you 
at the all-in conference back in May, which certainly it's something I want to want to talk 
about, but I learned a lot more about Duke's climate commitment and saw, you know, I 
saw then that this this event that I was at, which I was really kind of grateful to be at, 
was connected to So I think it's really kind of impressive and exciting, and so perhaps 
you can tell us a little bit about, or a lot even, about the Duke Climate Commitment and 
kind of describe what it is and kind of what you guys have taken on at Duke around 
climate. 
TS: Absolutely, and thanks for the question and the opportunity to talk a little bit about it. 
Climate Commitment, we launched it in September 2022, and it's really, you know, a 
comprehensive approach to addressing the climate challenge, and we want to take a 
university wide effort basically to create a more resilient, a more thriving, a more 
flourishing carbon neutral world by focusing our entire mission on climate change. So 
that means our educational mission, our research mission, our operations mission, our 
community partnerships, our external engagement, you know, everything. So when 
you've got a university and you have that, those are the five pillars of your mission. 
We're forcing that through the lens of climate and sustainability. So it's really quite. 
exciting, and I can talk extensively about what we're doing in each of those areas, 
education, research, operations, partnerships, and engagement, but it's probably going 
to get a little lengthy. I think the big point is that we feel very passionately that higher 
education needs to be doing its part when we think about the climate challenge in front 
of us, and this is a way for us to plant a really big flag in the ground. to say, we know 
that we will not make the difference when it comes to climate change, but we are fully 
committed to making a difference. 
HOST: I think this is such a, for me, I mean, I'm somewhat of a critic of higher ed, you 
have to think of higher ed. as a sector in the response to climate change, which I think 
has been pretty anemic. We haven't seen a lot of leadership, and I know there's lots of 
factors involved with just the state of higher ed and there's all sorts of different kinds of 
institutions and politics involved and finances. But how did you get? this done? Like, you 
know, like, even, you know, even with some of the sausage making, which would be 
interesting, but how did this, you know, you were at the Nicholas School, right? And, 
and were you, was this something that was being pushed for amongst the faculty and 
students? Did it come from the president? How did it, how did, how did the idea get 
seeded and then how did you get to the point where you got to the point where you 
[garbled] between boards and presidents and their universities, and we're not seeing a 
lot of that, and everybody is in, you know, agreement that this is something that the 
university has to do. So first and foremost, I would say we have a really strong authority 
signal from the very top, all the way down, and when you have that, that is something 
Richard, I mean, everybody across campus hears that and they start taking all of their 
own action. So I mean I think there was grassroots interest in us doing something 
because we have a lot of assets at Duke. We have the Nicholas School which has been 
around for more than 30 years which I had the privilege of leading. We have the 
Nicholas Institute which is a policy think tank on campus that sort of helps us interface 
in the policy world. sustainable Duke, which has been around for 18 years, right? We 
will be carbon neutral this year because we've been doing this work. We have a marine 
lab, we have a forest, we have Duke in DC, we have our campus in China, Duke 
Kunshan University. So we have enormous assets that we recognize that we could 
harness together because we've been doing some of this work for quite a long time. So- 
Yeah, sure. The question then is, who is going to get up every day, gather all of those 
amazing resources together, and really, you know, push, continue to push, and so 
that's, you know, we started in 2022, President Price appointed me in summer of 2023 
basically to do this and so I've been doing this job for a little bit under a year now. But 
you know, there has to be, I guess from the President and the Board, and I assume you 
too, certainly 
HOST: there's a moral angle to this, right? And this is the right thing to do, but there's a 
business case to be made too. Is that part of this as well? You must think it makes 
sense to do this for students and for 
 TS: Absolutely. No, absolutely, because you know you have to think about, I mean we 
would like to see every major be a climate major, right, and I think that was part of the 
impetus behind the all in, you know, workshop symposium gathering that we had, of 
which you took part, because if you think about the climate change is going I defy that. 
you to find a profession that will not be touched by climate change. Everything is going 
to be affected by it, and it's been, you know, pleasantly enlightening for me to learn how 
this is taking place across our university. For instance, I had a conversation with some 
of our nursing staff a couple of weeks ago, and, you know, one of the things they 
brought up was just how medications, if left in a car or in a heated environment, will be 
altered in their efficacy. So it's not something you think about, but heat and climate will 
affect everything. I also had the privilege of participating in a workshop three weeks ago 
called Pastoral Care for Climate Change down at our Marine Lab in Bogota. North 
Carolina where we had 40 plus faith leaders from all over the state and beyond talking 
about how do you preach in the face of the unthinkable and the incredible roles that 
churches in our society play as sanctuaries from all sorts of mental illness to actually 
providing shelter in storms and so you know yes of course and so just an incredible so 
you don't necessarily think about creatures you don't necessarily think about nurses but 
just those two events in the last month have been really resonant with me in terms of 
the salience of why we as an educational institution have an obligation to society at 
large to be infusing climate and sustainability content in what we are doing. I also think 
it's really important because if higher education wants to have impact at scale, then this 
is a way for us to do it. We graduate generations of students every year that go out into 
the world and they are very purpose-driven change agents, those climate change 
makers. 
HOST: Right. What has been the response from students, both current students and 
students who are maybe looking around? 
 TS: Yeah, yeah. 
HOST: You get some of the best students in the world, across the globe. Is this an 
attractive? project for them when they're deciding, and do they tell you that? 
TS: Yeah, certainly for some. I mean, you know, some of them are skeptical. I think, you 
know, you said, you know, you're a little skeptical of higher education, so I think some of 
them are a little bit cynical about whether or not we're really serious about this, to which 
I always say absolutely we are, and, you know, pay attention to our deeds, not our 
words. just watch and see what we're going to do and find a way for you to get involved, 
right? Like be part of this, like join us in what we're doing. But what I'll tell you is that we 
are seeing in the applications that we get at Duke, this is something the Duke Climate 
Commitment increasingly is something that we see students mention in their 
applications. I want to come to Duke because of the commitment to climate and I want 
to be part of that. I think that's really energizing. I did an orientation last year, and I had 
several students come up to me and say, "This is why I wanted to come to Duke," and 
that's very heartening in many different ways. Once we have our students here, they 
become part of our community, and man, they push us in sometimes ways we are not 
ready to be pushed yet, so they become part of a very dynamic community that wants to 
see us do more, and so that is also very exciting, I think. Our faculty as well, similarly, in 
terms of what we can do. So I think we're attracting students, and I would love to see 
Duke become a destination site. Just like Stanford is known for tech and Hopkins is 
known for health, it would be would like to see Duke known for climate and 
sustainability, like this is the reason you want to come here is because it will be infused 
in everything that we do, and I think that's a really exciting proposition for us. So, you 
know, I think there's always room for us to grow and improve and where we are headed 
with all this. It's still very early days, but it is super exciting to be in partnership, I think, 
with the students who want to come and help us build this thing. 
HOST: So, you know, I do want to talk about kind of the larger kind of higher ed 
landscape, but can you give, you know, not only is the commitment impressive, just 
articulating it I think is kind of gratifying, but you're actually weaving in, you know, at the 
conference, the all-in conference, which we mentioned and that we'll talk about. you talk 
about interdisciplinarity, right? And how these things are connected, and if you're in the 
climate movement, you know that's true generally. 
TS: For sure. 
HOST: It's everything. Can you give a couple examples of maybe some things that 
you're working on or prioritizing, certainly around how are you weaving climate into? you 
know, English literature, or, you know, how are you connecting these, you know, 
curriculum programs, which seems like a big challenge, just knowing those domains 
and the protectiveness that we see there. 
TS: Yeah, absolutely. So our goal at Duke is to weave climate and sustainability into 
every school. So we have 10 schools, or colleges, and the way you would want to 
infuse climate and sustainability content is different depending on which school you're 
in. So this is why we've opted not to have one, you know, required course that we want 
everybody to take. Because if you are trying to be a doctor, the way you need to learn 
about climate and sustainability is very different than if you're in the divinity school or if 
you're in engineering or if you're in law. Not only do you have very constrained curricula 
in places like engineering and law, like there are very few places to put more electives 
in because of how constrained those curricula are, so we have to be really bespoke, 
boutique. about how we approach this and the best way we're going to do that is by 
turning it over to the faculty because the faculty will know best how to do this. We've 
been very fortunate to have the support of the deans. The deans are all in on this as 
well. You can't do it if you don't have your that level of leadership involved and so you 
know it's unleashing the creativity in each of the schools for how best this maps onto 
their curriculum and where they want to do it. So in some cases they have courses, you 
know, it's a course on climate and law, or it's a course on climate and medicine. In other 
cases, you've got modules that they're taking that they're infusing in existing courses 
where you don't have a lot of room to add a singular course that they want people to 
take, and so it's a mix and match strategy. that we're seeing, in addition to a variety of 
co-curricular extracurricular activities that students can participate in. So we've got 
certificate programs that we're launching that you can layer on to what your degree is 
already, and then we've got a variety of other programs that you can participate in, 
summer programs, you know, January break programs. programs, weekend programs, 
a variety of other ways. So I often describe it as we're probably going to have three 
levels of participation and ultimately want an immersive experience where you can't 
avoid climate sustainability programming on our campus, but that immersion will happen 
in three different levels. For some students, it'll just be dipping their toe in. the water and 
that may be just taking a course or having a module. For others it'll mean jumping in the 
water and going for a swim so they might end up doing a minor or a certificate program 
and then for others they're going to strap on the scuba gear and like go for the deep 
dive and that's those are the students who will actually major in something that is 
climate and sustainability centerline focused. you know, or come out with a full on 
degree. 
HOST: And this is in gen ed courses as well? 
TS: Well, that's the goal, right? I mean, we've just revised our entire curriculum at Duke 
University, and there's a call out for what we're calling constellation courses where you 
can craft constellations of classes, and so climate and sustainability is one of those 
areas of constellation, and so it's going to be put in that way, not necessarily as a 
requirement of our new curriculum, but we want it to be a little bit more organically 
formed. 
HOST: So this seems to me, and I think to many people, pretty impressive, but also 
kind of of common sense, like we need to, higher education needs to be geared towards 
what's happening and this is an existential challenge where we need at all levels, 
including our higher ed research institutions and students, and why do you think this is 
not happening? fairly unique in this kind of commitment. I mean, obviously you had, you 
know, the lay of the land was such that you were able to, you had a board that 
supported and the president was pushing this, those things are pretty crucial, but, you 
know, it seems like there would be more of this, or at least, and maybe there is talk 
about it, but why do you think that's, it's not happening as, as. as much as maybe it 
should be. 
TS: So we're a private university. So I think that gives us some degree of protection as 
a private institution, not a public institution, and I think climate can still be a polarizing 
topic in some places. So I think we've got that luxury. I think that We also have 
resources, you know, we are a well-resourced institution, so we are able to do things I 
think that you can't do in other places. But I don't want that, I don't want resources to be 
the main thing that is a takeaway here, because actually over the last year, I have 
learned about so much innovation happening in so many places, and even though they 
might not be calling it climate change, commitment or might not be able to be public 
about it. There is so much work actually going on Richard and I think that has been one 
of the most exciting things that I've learned this last year. I've been part of an Aspen 
Institute working group that has brought together an entire group sort of specifying 
what's the game plan for higher education. 
HOST: This is Planted Ed, is that? 
 TS: Yes, exactly, exactly, and so, you know, This is Planted Ed started as K through 12 
and they did the K through 12 work, and then this year has been all about doing the 
higher ed work, and so I've been part of that planning team doing the higher ed work, 
and it has just been super inspiring to hear all the stories and things that are happening 
in many other places. So, stuff that is happening in California is. fully ingrained into 
many of the system approaches, and, you know, I think what's going to be, you know, 
you've got two-year institutions that are doing incredible work, work from tribal colleges 
and HBCUs and, you know, four-year institutions, R1 institutions, like everybody has 
something going on, and I think that's really, really exciting. So I think there are reasons 
that might not want to be as vocal about it as we are. So there might be more work 
going on there than we think. You know I think there's always room for improvement in 
terms of other places and this is part of what we wanted to do is the all-in symposium is 
how do we create a large community of practice of people that want to be doing this 
work and creating those clusters of where we can actually make some progress where 
we all get smarter faster, and, you know, if you're working in an institution or a state that 
is not as supportive as you would like it to be, then we'll create greater resilience in our 
community by creating this network, right? So how do we do that? 
HOST: Yeah, well, that's a perfect segue. Thank you. To the all-in conference, which 
was back May. So where did this idea come from in bringing other colleges? Who was 
invited? And what was the rationale behind this? 
TS: Yeah, it wasn't our idea. Katie Douglas, who was our main planner for this, She and 
I attended a symposium at MIT in 20, spring 2023, and we came out of that, I mean, it 
was terrific. It was just so great. Our colleagues at MIT did a bang up job of that sort of 
bringing folks together, and we walked away from that being completely inspired about 
and energized because we got together with. community right and so that just really 
stuck with me and I felt like well we've got some resources I would like to pick up the 
ball where our colleagues at MIT left it and carry it forward because I think you know I 
like to say that we're engaged in a marathon that is also a relay race so we all have to 
pick up pieces and continue to moving moving it down down the field. So, we contacted 
our friends at MIT, talked to them, they said they'd be, they would love to help us 
continue planning, especially because they could see their idea continue forward and so 
we were fortunate for them that to have buy-in, and so that was really the impetus it was 
from MIT and so when we got together and started thinking about it, it's like okay, what 
would be the right next iteration of this conference in terms of what we wanted to do. 
We wanted to focus on interdisciplinary approaches because we know that you cannot 
solve or address climate or sustainability problems if you don't have multiple disciplines 
at the table, and so, and also the idea that we needed to have in every class, so how do 
you actually do that in every class? Multiple disciplines have to be represented, and 
then we We also wanted it to be a working meeting that would sort of create not just 
community, but also advance some communities of practice around key areas that we 
heard people wanted to have more input and collaboration around. So building a 
network. we built a network. We wanted to make sure that people would leave with the 
opportunity to take something back to their home institution and then create this 
community of practice around specific areas moving forward, and you said those, so 
there was, you know, several themes, areas to the event, and those Those were kind of, 
they were generated from the MIT or just from colleagues or things that you felt were 
what folks wanted to get out of the conference. So the five themes that we came up with 
came from the steering committee that we assembled, and so those were engaging with 
community to teach climate and sustainability, lowering barrier to entry, sort of what are 
the turnkey resources for non-experts to teach something in climate and sustainability, 
teaching climate and sustainability where we work on campus, intersectional education, 
teaching climate sustainability, racial equity, and social justice, and then the last theme 
was training. a green economy workforce. So those were the five areas that the steering 
committees, we had a steering committee of climate and sustainability faculty experts, 
leaders from across North Carolina and beyond that really helped us hone in on those 
areas, sort of just distilling them down, and those were, and so before the, before the 
symposium, we sent out a survey. and ask people where would they like to work? If 
they wanted to work in a working group and we got really interesting buy-in across all 
five areas. So they turned out to be the right five. 
 HOST: So, I think approaching an event like this, it wasn't super big, what was the, how 
many attended? Ð
 TS: 85. - 85, yeah. - 85, 90 probably is where we ended up. 
HOST: Okay, but you know, having a working meeting has its own challenges, right? 
You're like, "Hey, let's go in." But then you're continuing that work, and so, I was part of 
the green workforce group, and so we, as part of the conference, came up with kind of a 
project. We'll call it that. and the expectation is there'll be some engagement with that 
over the coming year. What is your hope for that? What is your hope for that? And how 
are you supporting that work as it moves forward over the year? 
TS: Absolutely. So I think we've done a couple of things. One is we had kind of a, social 
contract as we all left the symposium to say that we would continue to get together, 
right? And so I think we're trying to hold each other accountable in these working groups 
and we are going to establish sort of bringing everybody back together again in a Zoom 
meeting and then the working groups will meet at three specified times of the year. So, 
Katie Douglas-- who I'm very fortunate to have as our associate director for programs 
and administration, has taken the lead on scheduling all that and organizing. So that's 
the first thing. Like you have to have somebody who's willing to do the organizing and 
send out the calendar invite and make sure it all happens, right? Then second, we've 
got folders and workspace. I can't remember if we're on Google Docs or Box or 
whatever it is, but we're in some sort of space that's open access for everybody, and 
we've put together, you know, short two-pagers of the resources that are available that 
have been crowdsourced. So I think, one, there's something that everybody can draw 
on, and then second, you know, there's a working agenda that was sketched out while 
we were still in the symposium to say, "We're these things, and so, for instance, you 
said you were part of the Green Economy Workforce Group. So, you know, the goal 
there is to share stories among each other over this next year for multi-modal media 
formats to build what I understood to be a library of examples that we can tell others 
about what are the jobs, how do people get jobs, what are those jobs, what are those 
jobs like in this new economy and then maybe do a future, I think a future trends forum 
about where these jobs are going. So I think those are the two action items that came 
out of that and so now you know now you've got three, if people still are energized to 
work on that we now have some workspace. in terms of time and workspace in terms of 
virtual space to put those ideas. So, you know, it's the basic social infrastructure that 
you need to maintain some degree of momentum. 
HOST:  Is there an idea to do another round of this next year? 
TS: I don't know. - I mean, it's got, you got two under your belt now, right? MIT and 
Duke, I don't know if it's gonna pick up. Yeah, I don't know. I think part of it depends on 
the progress that is made over this next year with these working groups. Like, does it 
merit us getting back together again? I am not sure, and so, you know, then I think also 
the question is, is there somebody else out there that might want to pick this up and 
carry it forward? Because I think we're stronger when you've got different places. is sort 
of committing to these ideas and carrying them forward. So maybe I would love to 
continue to be involved in this work, but I think I would want to see like, what's the value 
out of getting everybody back together again? 'Cause that's part of the proposition of 
this meeting was, I don't want us just to meet to meet. We've got too many of those 
things. We have to actually meet and see. - Let's see if there's a big lesson to be 
learned. Drive the work forward, right? So let's not just talk, let's do, and let's see if that 
actually happens. 
HOST: Yeah. So what is your, I guess, what do you see, I don't know, five, 10 years 
from now, both with Duke? what you want to accomplish with the climate commitment 
and where you see things like in the direction, like, what would you like to see? I mean, 
you want Duke to become the climate college, right? 
 TS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 
HOST: But any other thoughts about how you see that, what you see that looks like, 
and also if you can say, or if you want to say. broadly higher ed, what does that look 
like, you know, given the challenges and given the current status of higher ed? 
TS: Absolutely. So, you know, on the education, so I'll talk about Duke first. On the 
education front, you know, if I, we could say five years, but if we say six years, that 
takes us to 2030 which is a really important year when we think about the climate 
challenge right because by 2030 we have to have reduced our emissions by 45% we're 
going to stay within the 1.5 degree envelope. So I really like to be thinking about what 
can we achieve by 2030 that's a deadline I've given myself. So we want to educate a 
climate and sustainability flux fluent student body, and so by that time, every student 
graduating from Duke should be fluent in some degree, right? We're working on 
something we call the fluency framework right now that will sort of allow us to evaluate 
what we mean by that, and by then, you know, climate sustainability content will be 
infused across our entire curriculum, and, you know, we'll see. more programs that 
specialize in climate like our climate sustainability engineering concentration or the 
climate design climate program that we you know we have a whole variety of different 
programs like that. On the research front you know we have identified four key areas 
transforming energy, communities, environmental and climate justice, and data-driven 
climate solutions. So those are four big areas, and so we're supporting interdisciplinary 
research and collaborative projects across those areas, and I would like us to be a 
destination point for faculty and students who want, you know, who see us building 
communities in the, you know, scholarly intellectual communities in these areas and 
want to come and be part of being being in that intellectual community and Out of that 
we are driving incredibly innovative ideas both through basic and applied sciences that 
are having real-world impacts on the operations front, you know, we have we will 
achieve carbon neutrality in 2024. 
 HOST: But this year? 
 TS: That's this year, yes, and that was work we started in 2007. So we will achieve that 
on our campus, but now we need to expand our footprint. We didn't include our health 
system originally or international campuses 'cause they didn't exist. - Okay, yeah. Now 
we need to widen our aperture, expand the umbrella, and we're going to do it all over 
again. We've made probably upwards of $400 million worth of investments to achieve 
carbon neutrality on our campus. That also includes carbon offsets, so I don't want to 
leave the impression that we haven't done it without offsets, because offsets will always 
be important, because you have a certain irreducibility of carbon. given your campus 
activities. So carbon offsets are an important part of that. But we're going to redo that. 
But I also want Duke to be a campus where the moment you step on the campus, you 
can see, taste, feel here that we are doing something different. We've got a lot of work 
to do on this front, on the waste front, on our food systems front, on our transportation. 
front. So this is a challenge. By 2030, we will have a circular waste system on our 
campus, fully functioning. We will have inculcated an entire culture that is more driven 
by this idea of circular economy, and we want every student, faculty, staff member sort 
of participating in it. thinking about what does it mean to be a post-consumerist society. 
We want to have a transportation system that is much more user-friendly for a variety of 
modalities, and we wanna have a food system that is integrated into our local 
agricultural where we are a full participant and purchasing from the local economy, 
supporting a robust food ecosystem around us, and having more healthful foods 
because of that. So, you know, and again the food system has to be integrated into our 
waste system because we don't have a fully composting system as part of our circular 
economy. which means integrating into Durham and Durham County's waste systems 
as well, building out an entire system. So you know that's what I have in mind for 
operations. 
HOST: Before you talk about, with some of that work or some of the challenges of the 
circular kind of economy and the work that you're doing on Are there, are students 
involved as far as learning activities and some of those things? Do you have any 
examples of how students are kind of helping accomplish? 
TS: Absolutely. Like a really great example, I'll use athletics. Athletics is a really big part 
of Duke's culture. You may have heard we have a basketball team. My son has heard. 
So, you know, how do we make our athletic events waste-free? Because that's a really 
amazing opportunity to reach a segment of the population that normally we don't 
interface with, because so many different people from all sorts of walks of life attend 
our, you know, basketball, football... football, softball, you name it, events. So how do 
we create waste-free environments? So we have a cadre of student athletes who are 
really passionate about this work, that want to help us drive that work. So we have 
interns who come from the athletics world, basically, student athletes who are helping 
because they know how to get some of this work done. They're on the inside, right? 
They understand not only the student mentality. but the athlete mentality and then 
working with our entire athletics team, our athletics director, Nina King, and her whole 
group on how do we have, how do we create waste-free events here at Duke. 
HOST: Wow, that's great. Okay, so you're, you talked about operations. 
TS: Operations, and then community partnerships is another pillar in what we're doing, 
community partnerships, you know, we want to engage with our local to global 
communities to identify equitable climate solutions and be a responsible, authentic 
partner in the process of doing that, and so we are working with the public sector, 
working with the private sector, non-profit sector to promote regional sustainability 
options. Durham and the Triangle region is a very vibrant and growing climate tech hub, 
and we want to be part of that, sort of how do we infuse the work that they are doing 
into our classrooms and how do our classrooms feed into that innovation ecosystem, 
and then we also just want to be a good partner to Durham and, you know, the city. and 
the county in terms of where we are and be part of that. So food security is one area. 
We have a very robust partnership that we're developing with Durham and Durham 
County. 
 HOST: Great. You know, not a whole, not a lot of work for you to do there. (laughing) 
TS: Well, there's also external partnerships. I didn't mention that. I have to say that. 
HOST: Oh, okay. 
TS: ...for external engagement, right? So, you know, we... want to have impact with 
policy makers, industry leaders, global networks as a convener of note, of a convener of 
record, like how do we pull together what I would call, you know, folks from different 
backgrounds, like how do we make sure we're working across the aisle with both 
Democrats and Republicans on key issues? where we have commonly understood 
progress that we can make together. So that's a real advantage, I think, of being in a 
place like North Carolina, which is a purple state, and we are interested in seeing our 
state thrive and being a convener of note here. We also have our offices in Duke and 
DC. We do interesting convenings up there as well. I did one earlier. this semester on 
extreme weather in North Carolina where we pulled in members of our North Carolina 
congressional delegation as well as experts from you know across you know 
policymakers and beyond. It's like what can we all be doing to prepare for extreme 
weather and everybody has an interest in doing that. 
HOST: Yeah so any any opinion broadly about higher ed let's say 2030? 
TS: Yes. Thank you for reminding me of that. Yeah, so I think everybody can do 
something, right? And so I think the question is, what is that thing that you want to lean 
into and do? I would love to see every university have some sort of leadership position 
that allows them to focus on-- climate and sustainability, similar to what I have the 
privilege of doing. I have colleagues at Harvard, at NYU, at MIT, at Yale. Berkeley is 
hiring a position like this. Michigan is hiring a position like this. Columbia is finding a 
position like this. Georgetown is hiring a position like this. So we're starting to see it 
spread, which I think is really energizing. I think that's very exciting news. I think by 
letting people know that we've got this position and telling people about how we're doing 
it, it's getting picked up and moved into other places, which I think is very exciting. You 
can see it starting to grow. I think that's very exciting. Every place can do something, 
and I think that's just it, just what is the thing that you can start doing now that gives you 
a sense of agency, a sense of hope, that you can make a difference in this, however 
small, however big, so that we all have a sense that we're pulling together as a sector. 
HOST: You talked before that, you know, it's not all about resources. My background is 
community colleges. Do you work with your local community college and what do you 
see as a, I don't know, in that work, maybe a good partnership model or is, is, yeah, tell 
us a little bit about that relationship. 
TS: Absolutely, and we are very interested in continuing to develop that work. So, you 
know, at this, at the all in symposium. We had Durham Tech, we had Wake Tech, we 
had several other representatives from other smaller colleges, liberal arts institutions 
from around the state, right, because that's why it's called All In, right? We all have to be 
doing the work. So it's a matter of finding the right areas of intersection. So for instance, 
with Durham Tech, who's very close to us, at least right now, they are in, you know, 
sustainable operations and they are actually building new buildings and we are getting 
together with them, with our sustainability staff to share the lessons we've learned and 
to learn more about what they are doing. So you know, that's a meeting that's taking 
place over the summer. I think there are many other opportunities for us to be in 
collaboration and part of figure out where the authentic areas of integration and work 
are. You can't force it. We're all too busy just to try to force it. So then the question is, 
where is the area of sort of authentic engagement? And like, this is one of them, where 
they're building something in terms of, and they want to figure out how to do it with 
sustainable design. That's not something where they really have expertise. I am really 
keen for us to learn more about what's happening at Durham Tech, so let's go and do 
that, right, and start to form that partnership. Because once that's there, once that 
nucleus is there, it will start to grow.
HOST: Is there any talk of, you know, you've got this kind of integrating climate into your 
courses and programs. Is there, you know, I assume you have a significant percentage. 
of Durham Techmtech, or maybe not significant, but some transfers into Duke? Is there 
a, is there a large
TS: That has not been something that has been a robust pipeline for us for a whole 
variety of reasons. I believe our, you know, I think that we have folks here at Duke that 
are looking at that. That's a little bit beyond my purview in terms of what I'm doing. But I 
mean, I think that there are folks that are working on that. That's just not something that 
I've beenÑ
 HOST: Okay, all right. So what is your, as a professional in this field as well, are your, 
sustainability conferences and meet with your colleagues. What is the, you know, are 
your colleagues saying, you know, how do we do this? How can we get our college or 
university to do this? And what do you tell them? 
TS: Well, I think it depends on where you've got the nucleus of energy to try to get 
something started, and the question is, Where is that located and can you, does it rest 
with the faculty? Does it rest with the staff? Does it rest with the dean? Does it rest at 
another level? Where is the energy coming from? Because you have to, if your 
president is not on board, there's still ways to get things done. Lots of ways. Colleges 
usually have a lot of discretion in terms of how they can get things done. Students have 
a lot of power in terms of how they can get things done. So I think it really starts with 
where you've got interest and capitalizing on that, generating some interest in it. So 
there are ways to get courses off the ground, and if a course is too heavy of a list, 
there's a way to get co-curricular activities off the ground. There are ways to get 
certificates. get started if you know a full curriculum is something that is just not going to 
happen. There are ways for students to be doing work on their own campuses typically 
in terms of you know we were talking before about transportation around food around 
energy around waste. So there are many ways for students to get involved, whether it's 
research, whether it's education, whether it's something that's happening on the 
campus, and what they then need is a faculty member who's going to support them, and 
then if a faculty member can create some interest that way, can they get support from 
their college or their unit around this? So I think universities are usually pretty good 
about having small pots of money available for a variety of elective activities, and then 
it's just a matter of finding those pots of money and helping resource the activities and 
growing those efforts. 
HOST:  Do you see, you've talked about an important piece of this, which is you have a 
president who's supportive, you have administrative leadership that really is crucial to 
making it happen. Is there a, I know you work with Aspen. Is there a way to get more 
presidents engaged in this issue? 
 TS: Well, I think Second Nature has been, is one entity that has really tried to enlist 
presidents at that level, basically, to get them on board with. climate sustainability 
efforts. So I think that is a you know a non-profit organization that has done a good job 
of bringing attention to that. AASHE is another the Association for Advancement of 
Sustainability in Higher Education. AASHE has been another place where I think there's 
been a lot of effort right so they have a pledge presidential pledge. pledge that you can 
sign on to, as does second nature. So I think there's some cachet for university 
presidents to have signed on to these, and if they have, they have become signatories, 
then that's another way for faculty and others to hold them accountable. Like, well, we 
signed this. Does it really mean something? What are we going to do around it? And so 
I think through these organizations, I think there are ways to raise. the issues up and 
demonstrate the enlightened self-interest of being involved in this work. You know, you 
asked me before what's the business case, like I think all of our students are gonna 
need to know this. I think it's gonna make them more competitive in the marketplace 
ultimately in terms of knowing this kind of work. It's a nice add-on if it's something that's 
not your primary area in terms of what you do, and I think that through more 
collaborative work, where we generate, again, how do we all get smarter faster, the All-
In Symposium was a way of bringing together these different communities so that we 
can learn how this work is done in different places. So sharing those lessons, allowing 
them to be taken back to your home institutions and sort of growing, you know, I think 
the movement largely. in higher education is something that we just we can all be 
working on but you know the other thing I'll say Richard is that I Have been astounded 
over this last year at the number of places like I really tried to pay attention to the places 
where conversations about climate change in higher education were taking place and 
Initially like I was like, okay to go to these three conferences because that's what's 
going to happen. But like they just proliferated over this year, and so I find that to be a 
very encouraging sign because clearly there's enough interest out there to have multiple 
conferences to attract different people either in regions or nationally or internationally in 
this work. So I'm very encouraged by that. That is a really great sign. I mean, that things 
are blowing up and taking off. 
HOST: Yeah, well, I'm glad to hear that because sometimes it's, and I know this 
podcast was one way that I find out about some of the great work that's happening on 
campuses and the role higher ed has taken. But again, there is that systemic issue 
which you know is much more challenging. 
TS: Absolutely. 
HOST: Well, I wanna thank you for your time. I imagine you don't have much of it given 
what's on your plate. But really, I have a lot of gratitude for you agreeing to be on the 
podcast and thank you for your great work and I appreciate your time. 
TS: Well, thank you so much for all you're doing to raise the flag. I really appreciate the 
work you're doing and thank you for coming to our symposium and learning a little bit 
more about not just what we're doing, but all the great work that's happening in many 
other places too. So thank you. 
HOST: Oh, you're welcome. All right, take care. 
TS:Take care, bye-bye. 

Climate.edu | S2 Ep1 Transcript

1

1