Five moves towards an ecological university

Abstract

The shift towards an ecological university may be the key to achieving greater levels of social justice within higher education. This assumes that we could change the root metaphor of higher education–away from the current industrial model that is infused with neoliberal ideology and towards a more sustainable ecological model. This change involves five key moves that require us to: construct an institutional natural history to understand the network of interactions within the university; to explore the nature of the dominant narratives and move away from a narrative monoculture; to value post-abyssal thinking that includes cultural knowledge as well as academic knowledge; to move away from dependence on heroic leaders towards ecological leadership, and to consider how we can develop sustainable pedagogies that can withstand disturbances to the ecosystem. This paper acknowledges that coordination of these moves presents a considerable challenge to university managers.