David A. Dzombak

David Dzombak is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. The emphasis of his research and teaching is on water and soil quality engineering. Professo Dzombak received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1986, and has been at Carnegie Mellon for 16 years.

Cliff I. Davidson

Cliff Davidson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. His research and teaching interests are in the area of air quality engineering. Professor Davidson received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1977, and has been at Carnegie Mellon for 26 years.

Chapter 15, selection: The Greening of the University
David A. Dzombak and Cliff I. Davidson

Until recently, we had not realized the extent to which human activities could disturb and permanently change natural systems, and we had not thought about the ways in which these changes could affect future generations of people. Thus, education programs prior to the 1970s had little information covering human impact on the environment. Following conventional perspective, resources were viewed as infinite, and natural systems were viewed as completely resilient to abuse. We now know, however, that many of the day to day activities of people around the world are not sustainable. The rising global population, the desire of people worldwide for a better standard of living, and the finite resources of the earth indicate that we simply cannot maintain the status quo. Either we will voluntarily change lifestyles in the coming decades, or future generations will face major shortages, disruptions, and reduced quality of life.

Universities must play a critical role in efforts to make the transition to sustainable lifestyles and economic systems. Indeed, higher education is vital both for conducting research on how to make this transition and for informing people that the transition is necessary. Both of these tasks require great amounts of information about the environment and our relationship with it. In this chapter, we explore ways in which universities can assist efforts to promote sustainability in society. We begin by examining briefly the background of a few current environmental problems that serve as examples of unsustainable practices. We then consider roles that universities can play in developing environmental education programs that can help society avoid such practices, pointing out work at Carnegie Mellon as an example. Next, we consider roles of universities in conducting research to develop solutions to current problems and approaches to avoid future problems, again referring to work at Carnegie Mellon. We then examine how some universities are moving beyond traditional curriculum and research avenues for environmental education. Finally, we conclude with a summary of our main observations about the evolution of environmental education and research in universities, and the important role that universities have for bringing about a more widely distributed sense of responsibility for the environment and effective approaches for its protection.