University of Michigan Provost hosts seminar on climate change - The Michigan Daily

University of Michigan Provost hosts seminar on climate change

The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching held a two-day seminar March 20 and 21 on advancing climate education, filling the Rogel Ballroom with posters, artwork and tables centered around sustainability. The CRLT aimed to provide engaging opportunities for University of Michigan community members to learn about climate education through group activities.

The first-day seminar featured a percussive performance from Alexis C. Lamb, along with a scavenger hunt, other musical performances and activities in student breakout groups. In collaboration with Michigan Dining, a food table was provided featuring labels explaining the environmental impact of each dish.

Michaela Zint, associate dean for academic affairs at the School for Environment and Sustainability, was one of the event organizers and spoke on the importance of uniting U-M student organizations to make sustainable changes both in the Ann Arbor community and the world. In an interview with The Michigan Daily at the event, Zint said there would be more progress on campus if the University were to take a more interconnected approach to the climate crisis.

“There needs to be coordination between organizations in order to make real change within the University,” Zint said. “Other universities around the world have accomplished this (progress within the climate education field). For example, the University of British Columbia, a university in which (U-M) President (Santa) Ono had been in office, has approached the climate change crisis more holistically. There was more of a connection between the student organizations and the University climate implementations.”

CRLT Managing Director Malinda Matney collaborated with Zint to organize the event and discussed what she hoped the provost seminars would accomplish.

“Our general purpose of these (provost seminars) is to bring people together around a random topic that affects teaching,” Matney said. “Usually at the end of that people are then racing off to apply those ideas, or really dive into their new connections.”

Taubman graduate student Lanika Sanders, contributed to the organization of the seminar, spoke with The Daily at the event about expanding climate-related courses at the University.

“We are hoping to get the topic of climate change to be all over the University, not just in sustainability or environmental classes,” Sanders said. “And the professors laid the groundwork for this class to happen so students can really get involved in the works of this seminar.”

The second day of the conference included a panel discussion, concurrent sessions and student breakout groups to formulate ideas on advancing climate education, followed by a gallery walk displaying these ideas.

CRLT facilitated the event alongside Zint’s class, who analyzed climate change reports detailing requests on how higher education settings should address climate change. From those reports, the students created a set of themes to explore during the seminar.

The four themes, student success, faculty development, staff development and curriculum, were discussed in each session before groups were able to come up next steps they hope to achieve.

Valeria Bertacco, vice provost for engaged learning and computer science professor, financed and supported the formation of the seminar. Bertacco spoke on what the Provost Office hopes to accomplish from this seminar.

“Within the bigger picture of the Provost Office, we are really trying to move forward the mission of being more sustainable,” Bertacco said. “As a University, we can take sustainability education as our core competency. It’s the most important impact that we can have because we are all about educating people about many different topics.”

Bertacco said incorporating mental health issues into climate education is the goal she is the most excited about. To achieve this, she said the University would need to implement more solution-oriented discussions.

“There is a very strong theme across multiple breakouts (and concurrent sessions) about connecting sustainability with mental health, diversity, equity and inclusion,” Bertacco said.

Environment and Sustainability graduate student Taylor Valentine attended the seminar and helped organize the event as a part of Zint’s class this semester. Valentine spoke on her experiences in an interview with The Daily.

“This has been a long time in the making,” Valentine said. “There’s about 300 (reports), so we went through those and tried to put them into themes, which is how we ended up with our four recommendations of supporting faculty development and integrating curriculum with student success.”

Daily News Reporters Emma Lapp and Talia Belowich can be reached at emmalapp@umich.edu and taliabel@umich.edu