Posts Tagged “research”

Trump’s Abandonment of Paris Climate Accord is Higher Ed’s Call to Action

On June 1, President Trump announced that he was taking the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, making the U.S., Syria, and Nicaragua (which felt the deal was not sufficiently ambitious), the only nations not to support the agreement.

The Paris Agreement sets a series of goals and is voluntary by design. Its value principally is that the agreement got everyone to the table to work on a pressing global issue that crossed national boundaries and directly impacted the quality of life on the planet.

Predictably, there has been a sharp reaction on both sides. Mr. Trump’s critics object to the use of discredited “doomsday” data to justify the American exit. His supporters argue that it was a job-killing “bad deal.” When asked the generic question about whether they were concerned about climate change, over 70 percent of Americans believe that it is a challenge that Americans must face. But differences in opinion emerge as the implications for the American consumer and taxpayer become clearer.

Higher Ed’s First Climate Leadership Conference was 10 Years Ago

The leadership in American higher education has taken a stand on climate commitment for more than ten years. The American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) emerged when a group of presidents meeting at Arizona State University sent a letter to almost 400 of their colleagues to join them. By June 2007, the ACUPCC, with a signatory group of 284 higher education leaders, went public with the first Climate Leadership Conference. By 2010, there were 697 higher education institutions in all 50 states and the District of Columbia as signatories. Collectively, they represented 5.6 million students.

Higher Education Leaders Encouraged Support of Initiatives to Battle Climate Change

In December 2016, as the transition of national political power began, 235 senior leaders in higher education sent a letter to the new Congressional delegation and incoming presidential transition team. They asked that the Trump Administration continue to support the Paris Agreement, encouraged research based on leading scientific and technical knowledge, and petitioned the Trump Administration to make investments in a low carbon economy.

In letter to Congressional and executive leadership, these college and university leaders noted that they prepare graduates for the American workforce and that their institutions led the country in innovative and ongoing research to address climate challenges, pledging to work with the new administration to meet them.

Decision to Exit Paris Accord is Global Teachable Moment, Beyond Politics

Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris Agreement moves the discussion to a new stage. The question that higher education leadership must now address is what to do next. It’s an ethics and morals question that will likely also emerge as a global teachable moment for America’s colleges and universities.

Whatever the next step, higher education now has an opportunity to align with an issue of global importance rather than a policy emerging from a political platform promise. In fact, the opportunity is so large and significant that whatever higher education puts forward will move immediately beyond politics.

It is also, therefore, the perfect opportunity for higher education leadership to regain some ground as a leading voice of moral authority as America’s bedrock institutions like higher education continue to come under fire and diminish in reputation.

America’s higher education leaders must have the courage to lead. And they must be strategic in how, when, and where they exercise this leadership. Colleges and universities must not become centers of unfocused, if well meaning, protest. Yet they must vigorously protect the First Amendment rights of their stakeholders, including the right to protest.

That having been said, the optics must show that colleges and universities are the sane and reasonable centers of rational thinking about the impact that climate shifts will have on global society. They must be the “go to” authoritative source that will dampen nationalist efforts to ignore global challenges for political gain.

In American society, colleges and universities are the conduit through which society passes on its history, traditions, challenges, and aspirations. They are where theories are tested and research is undertaken.

The outlandish efforts to deny climate change must be met with ongoing advanced research that supports the efforts by the American educational community to act responsibly and globally. Whatever the action that emerges to Mr. Trump’s decision, it has to be more than a political response. The federal government is now too dysfunctional to operate effectively to address higher education’s concerns on climate.

As Economic Engine, Higher Ed Can Join Cities & States in Battling Climate Change

Higher education needs a game plan on climate change. A good opening step may be to align the higher education message on climate change with local and state authorities. If the states work together to develop a kind of alternative national policy on climate change – even if only temporarily – then colleges and universities might be able to use their moral influence and capacity as economic engines to work with regional economies to offset the worst excesses of the abandonment of the Paris Agreement.

At least it’s a start. At best it may be a pathway to a sane and seasoned approach to addressing a global problem.

Larry Summers Calls for Investment in Life Sciences, Infrastructure, Education

There is some truth to the saying that those who fail to learn from the past will be doomed to repeat it.

Essentially, this was the message that former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers delivered recently as part of his larger concern that Massachusetts not become complacent despite U.S. unemployment hitting a 10-year low in April.

In an interview with the Boston Globe, Summers compared the problem facing the state — the lure of complacency — to what he found on assuming the Harvard presidency, as Stanford cleaned Harvard’s clock as all things Internet came to dominate the new American economy. The impact locally on Route 128’s hold as “America’s technology highway” was dramatic.

The emergence of biotechnology saved the Boston area from a precipitous decline in economic standing among major innovation regions in a technology-driven global economy.

Mr. Summer’s admits that Massachusetts’ $500 million state deficit might make his call for investment seem a bit odd as Massachusetts’ governor, Charlie Baker, works to close the gap. He argues: “Ironically, sometimes not spending money is taking a much bigger risk than spending money, because it’s gambling with your preeminence.”

Further, Mr. Summers warns that some budget balancing acts, like trying to reign in Medicaid spending (40 percent of the state’s budget) as well as fees on employers and caps on health care might have the opposite effect.

Massachusetts is “Eds and Meds” Capital of the World

Massachusetts stakes a claim as the “eds and meds” capital of the world. Mr. Summers asserts that Medicaid may appear to be a budgetary expense, for example, “but at the margin, it’s coming out of being the place where the smartest scientists want to come and work their miracles.” He suggests that the efforts to end Obamacare and replace it with Trumpcare, moreover, could effectively destabilize the state’s critical health care economy. And Mr. Summers notes that rival technology regions like New York are already making heavy state investments in new life science initiatives.

Mr. Summer’s comments have tremendous implications for the role that American higher education will play in the American economy in the future. When the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of a new health care bill, it legislated changes that impacted one sixth of the American economy. Separate out how and why this was done. Set aside the timing tied to the first 100 days of the new Trump Administration.

The facts are that the American economy is a little like a three-dimensional chessboard. Any move has a dramatic effect that must be comprehended on multiple levels.

Higher Education Is Foundation of U.S. Economic Competitiveness

There’s much at stake for higher education that reaches beyond the different political philosophy, chronic dysfunction, and incremental governmental bureaucratic practices. From an economic perspective, higher education plays two important roles in the American economy:

The first is that it trains an educated workforce through programs that adjust this education to evolving economic needs.
The second is that the “eds and meds” complexes of America largely moved the American economy – and the regions that they support — into a competitive post-industrial global economy. They are the foundation for the future of American competitiveness in a global market.

These centers of innovation and creativity are typically in urban, blue states or in regions where the voters historically vote or are trending blue. They inhabit one side of a cultural divide in an anxious America. They welcome immigrants, many of whom provide the talent and skill sets to keep the “eds and meds” miracle happening. As such, the “eds and meds” community has a great deal at stake as the states and the federal government move the chess pieces around.

Many in the western U.S. repeat a saying that is pertinent to this discussion: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” But, in fact, government at all levels does have the perspective and resources that can move the needle.

What government lacks are the courage and consensus to put an investment strategy in place. Government funding is a rationing tool built on an annual funding cycle. This hardly supports imaginative and enlightened government policy and programs.

We can have the debate over whether higher taxes, deficit funding, or better economic growth will ultimately pay the investment bill. But America must get over its deeply partisan divide to support what drives the American economy.

Mr. Summers was right. Having the vision and confidence to invest strategically — despite the competing pressures on government budgets — makes sense. Combining the social and cultural need to invest in better schools with the economic necessity to make infrastructure and life science investments is a sane path forward.