U.S. Progress Toward Sustainability in Higher Education

This chapter appeared originally in the book Stumbling Toward Sustainability, John C. Dernbach ed., published by the Environmental Law Institute © 2002. All rights reserved Environmental Law Institute.

by Wynn Calder and Richard M. Clugston

(return to Table of Contents)

History and Definitions of Higher Education for Sustainable Development

Since the United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972 there has been growing international interest in the role of higher education in fostering a sustainable future. Agenda 218 and a series of HESD declarations in the 1990s made this agenda explicit. This section looks at the influence of international documents as well as U.S. reports and conferences in shaping and defining what sustainability in higher education means. It then describes a model sustainable institution that embodies sustainability in every aspect of its teaching and practice.

The relationship between education and sustainable development was first recognized on an international level at the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Principle 19 of the Stockholm Declaration calls for environmental education from grade school to adulthood to "broaden the basis for enlightened opinions and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises and communities in protecting and improving the environment in its full human dimension."9 In 1977, the Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education in Tbilisi10 produced the first international declaration on environmental education.11 The Tbilisi Declaration promoted environmental teaching, research and training, as well as technical and vocational education. It also recognized the essential interdisciplinary nature of environmental education:

Environmental education…is necessary for students in all fields, not only natural and technical sciences, but also social sciences and arts, because the relationship between nature, technology and society mark and determine the development of a society. 12

During the Reagan Administration, concern for the environment diminished in the U.S. generally, and in higher education as well. However, various environmental crises in the late 1980's, the call of the Bruntland Report13, and especially preparations for the Rio Summit, gave new international attention to the issue of education for sustainability and the environment in the early 1990s. The term "education for sustainable development" emerged primarily out of the Rio Summit and for many educators is defined more broadly than "environmental education" to include issues of international development, cultural diversity and social and environmental equity.14 The authors of this Article use the term "higher education for sustainable development" both for its broader implications and for its explicit reference to the goals of the Earth Summit.

Agenda 21 and Subsequent International Conferences

Aside from the word "government," "education" appears more often than any other term in Agenda 21. Education underlies and has the potential to reinforce every other priority in this extensive blueprint for a sustainable world. Agenda 21 (and the Rio Declaration)15 calls for integrated decisionmaking based on integrated information to enable individuals, organizations, institutions, businesses and governments to incorporate environmental considerations and goals into social, economic (and even security) decisions. Since higher education to date largely fails to expose students to issues and considerations outside of the narrow confines of their disciplines, it consequently fails to produce integrated decisionmakers.16 Thus HESD primarily involves teaching students to understand ecological, social and economic problems through the many lenses of an interdisciplinary framework. It assumes that integrated decisionmaking is not possible without integrated thinking. How universities effectively and rigorously teach integrated thinking, without becoming soft and watering down the disciplines, is a major intellectual challenge. It is also a profound necessity if we are to create a healthy and sustainable world for future generations.

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21, on "Education, Training and Public Awareness," states that "education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address environment and development issues."17 The chapter makes brief but specific reference to universities18 and their role in building a sustainable future. Directly pertinent to sustainability in higher education are the following statements:

- countries must "broaden the means and scope of education" to support sustainable development.19
- "governments should strive to… prepare strategies aimed at integrating environment and development as a cross-cutting issue into education at all levels."20
-countries must support "cross-disciplinary courses" for all students, "regional networks and activities and national university actions which promote research and common teaching approaches on sustainable development," and "new partnerships… with business and other independent sectors."21
-countries should encourage universities "to contribute more to awareness building… for all audiences."22

These sections of Chapter 36 touch on most of the major priorities of HESD today: cross-disciplinary curriculum development on sustainable development; scientific and other sustainability related research; outreach and multi-stakeholder network formation promoting environmental awareness and sustainability.23

Since 1996, the United Nations (UN) Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)24 and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the task manager for Chapter 36, have promoted HESD in various official documents and conferences. An International Work Programme on Education, Public Awareness and Training for Sustainability was initiated at the fourth session of the CSD in 1996, in order to give added impetus and visibility to the themes of Chapter 36. The Work Programme was further elaborated at the sixth session of the CSD in 1998, which stressed for higher education the reorientation of formal educational systems and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research.25

The CSD Work Programme was reemphasized at the World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) in October 1998. Hosted by UNESCO, the WCHE concluded with the adoption of the World Declaration on Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century: Vision and Action. Though the term "sustainable development" does not appear often in this ambitious 13-page document, it proclaims education to be the "fundamental pillar of human rights, democracy, sustainable development and peace."26 In the first sentence of Article 1, the Declaration affirms that "the core missions and values of higher education, in particular the mission to contribute to the sustainable development and improvement of society as a whole, should be preserved, reinforced and further expanded."27 While these statements are general in nature, they unequivocally declare sustainable development to be the moral duty of higher education.28

The CSD and UNESCO have consistently emphasized an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning in higher education, the reorientation of teacher education to reflect this priority, and networking between universities to share information and promote best practices. Outside of the UN process, major efforts to influence and articulate what Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 implied for higher education occurred through the development of a set of declarations and conferences throughout the 1990s.

International HESD Declarations

Starting in 1990, university representatives convened several conferences around the world and produced a series of internationally recognized declarations focused on HESD and calling their institutions to action. Of the six major declarations, only the Talloires Declaration has been popular in the U.S. They are all remarkably similar in nature, reflecting an international consensus on priorities for the reform of higher education.

The first attempt by university leaders to define and promote sustainability in higher education was made in October 1990 with the creation of the Talloires Declaration. Jean Mayer, the President of Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts), hosted twenty-two presidents, vice-chancellors, and rectors from universities around the world at a conference in Talloires, France to discuss the role of universities in shaping a sustainable future and to provide input for the Earth Summit.29 Recognizing the shortage of specialists in environmental management and related fields, as well as the lack of comprehension by professionals in all fields of their effect on the environment and public health, the participants defined the role of the university in the following way: "Universities educate most of the people who develop and manage society's institutions. For this reason, universities bear profound responsibilities to increase the awareness, knowledge, technologies, and tools to create an environmentally sustainable future."30 The Talloires Declaration was adopted at the conclusion of the conference and signed by all present.

The Declaration is a 10-point voluntary action plan for building a sustainable university. The following two actions illustrate the level of commitment expected in teaching and research:

-Encourage all universities to engage in education, research, policy formation, and information exchange on population, environment, and development to move toward a sustainable future.
-Establish programs to produce expertise in environmental management, sustainable economic development, population, and related fields to ensure that all university graduates are environmentally literate and responsible citizens.31

Here the critical issue of integrated thinking in research, teaching and policy formation is stressed: "environmentally literate and responsible citizens" are presumably prepared for integrated decisionmaking in the real world. The Talloires Declaration also encourages faculty development for teaching environmental literacy; resource conservation and waste reduction on campus in order to model right behavior; the support of government, foundations, industry and NGOs; and building partnerships with primary and secondary schools.

Of the various international HESD declarations, the Talloires Declaration is the only one signed by a significant number of U.S. college and university presidents. As of September 2001, over 280 university presidents and chancellors at institutions in over 40 countries had signed the declaration. U.S. signatories numbered 73.

Other official declarations from university leaders and organizations around the world followed the Talloires Declaration and contributed to an international consensus on HESD.32 The themes, which nearly all international declarations share, include promoting sustainability in all relevant disciplines; research on sustainable development issues; the 'greening' of university operations; engaging in inter-university cooperation; forming partnerships with government, NGOs and industry; and most consistently, the moral obligation of higher education to work for a sustainable future.33 All of the priorities in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 are reaffirmed in these declarations.

Significant U.S. Statements on HESD

Two conferences in the U.S. in the mid-1990s helped set a tone for responding to the challenge of sustainability in higher education. Each produced a report that further clarified the movement's direction for a small but enthusiastic following. Two other significant reports emerged in 1996, which reinforced and expanded on existing recommendations.

In February 1994, Yale University hosted a major national conference, the Campus Earth Summit, which attracted over 400 faculty, staff and student participants from 22 countries and all 50 U.S. states. The resulting document, Blueprint for a Green Campus, set a standard for how to think about greening the campus in America. Blueprint for a Green Campus recommends incorporating environmental learning into all relevant disciplines; making the campus a model of environmental behavior through waste reduction, energy efficiency and sustainable design; instituting environmentally responsible purchasing policies; and supporting students seeking environmentally responsible careers.34 The emphases on purchasing and careers, in particular, recognized the importance of working with external stakeholders, whether as suppliers of sustainable products for the institution or as environmental leaders and alumni from business, government, media and other sectors.

In February 1995, a "Workshop on the Principles of Sustainability in Higher Education" was held in Essex, Massachusetts. Thirty-two educators and professionals with environmental expertise gathered to discuss the role of higher education in achieving a sustainable society, the problems with current education, and strategies for change building on those contained in the Talloires Declaration.35 The resulting Essex Report provides a succinct and comprehensive U.S.-based expression of what fully implementing Chapter 36 for higher education would mean. It emphasizes the importance of new pedagogical approaches, including systems thinking; exposure to issues of equity and justice; and optimal strategies such as interdisciplinary learning and hands-on activities. It also discusses strategies for change, which include actions by universities, and more significantly, actions by stakeholders in higher education.36 The Essex Report is unique in that it goes beyond Blueprint for a Green Campus and many of the international declarations to embrace a more comprehensive vision of sustainability in its social, economic and environmental dimensions.

In 1996, the Nathan Cummings Foundation commissioned The Class of 2000 Report: Environmental Education, Practices and Activism on Campus, which reflected both the Foundation's deep commitment to these issues and some of the dominant themes of the movement. The report recommends that higher education leaders and stakeholders (1) expand environmental education at colleges and universities, (2) improve campus environmental practices, and (3) strengthen student environmental activism. These recommendations are very similar to Yale's Blueprint for a Green Campus, though The Class of 2000 Report puts special emphasis on student activism beyond the campus.37

Also in 1996, the President's Council on Sustainable Development produced an ambitious report entitled Education for Sustainability: An Agenda for Action, which presents a series of initiatives and recommendations for all education based on the core themes of lifelong learning within formal and nonformal educational settings; interdisciplinary approaches; systems thinking; partnerships between educational institutions and the broader community; and multicultural perspectives. This document, the result of extensive research and collaboration among hundreds of representatives from the education, business, governmental and non-profit sectors, certainly did not change the face of education in the U.S. Yet it remains a significant federally sponsored document on the actions and policies needed to educate America for sustainability.38

A Model Sustainable Institution

Agenda 21, the various international and national conferences,39 and the numerous reports and declarations they produced reflect the analysis and concerns of many constituencies in different regions of the world over the last nine years. Their understandings of the agenda for higher education to support sustainable development are remarkably similar, and they point toward a basic framework for seeing sustainability in practice. Some of these reports recognize that colleges and universities will not change without significant outside pressure-Bok's social consensus, significant (government) funding, and disciplinary prestige. Furthermore, they agree, with only few exceptions, upon a very similar ideal type of college or university, which transforms its research, teaching, outreach and operations to support sustainable development.

While the manner in which academic institutions define and approach sustainability is very divergent, reflecting cultural, bioregional, economic and political diversity, we would expect a genuine commitment to creating a sustainable future to be evidenced in most of the following critical dimensions of institutional life:

1. Disciplinary, professional, liberal arts and general education requirements at the university would focus on interdisciplinary decisionmaking and reflect a fundamental concern for sustainability. The institution would impart a basic understanding of (a) the complex environmental, social, and ethical issues that must be addressed to create a sustainable future, and (b) the nature of the political, organizational and individual responses needed-particularly emphasizing the interconnected, multisectoral response that Agenda 21 expresses.40 Thus courses throughout the curriculum would feature sustainability topics (e.g., Globalization and Sustainable Development; Urban Ecology and Social Justice; Population, Women and Development; Sustainable Production and Consumption; and many others). Students would also learn about how their own campus functions in the ecosystem (e.g., its sources of food, water and energy, and the endpoint of waste).

2. The research of the institution would significantly focus on sustainable development (e.g., renewable energy, sustainable building design, ecological economics, population and development, environmental justice, etc.)

3. Faculty and staff development and rewards at the institution would cultivate understanding of sustainable development and criteria for hiring, tenure and promotion would recognize faculty contributions to sustainability in scholarship, teaching, or campus and community activities.

4. Campus operations at the college or university would be fundamentally oriented toward reducing the institution's "ecological footprint."41 Thus one would see examples of water and energy conservation, carbon dioxide reduction practices, sustainable building construction and renovation, environmentally responsible purchasing of food, paper and other products, etc. Furthermore, these operational practices would be integrated into the educational and scholarly activities of the school.

5. Student opportunities and engagement on campus would reflect a deep commitment to sustainability through such institutional practices as new student orientation, scholarships, internships and job placement counseling related to community service, sustainability and/or justice issues. Students groups and activities focused on environmental or sustainability issues would be visibly present.

6. The institution's outreach and service would support local, regional and global partnerships to enhance sustainability (e.g., collaborating with other higher education institutions, with local primary and secondary schools and with businesses to foster sustainable practices, as well as seeking international cooperation in solving global environmental justice and sustainability challenges through conferences and student/faculty exchanges).

7. The university's mission, structure and planning would communicate and promote sustainability. The descriptions of learning objectives and the public relations materials of the various schools, departments, programs or offices would express prominent and explicit concern for sustainability. That commitment would be further evidenced through administrative positions and committees (e.g., Director of Environmental Programs, Sustainability Task Force, etc.) and practices (e.g., orientation programs, socially responsible investment policies, annual environmental audits, etc.).42

Activities in these seven dimensions are largely supported by the reports and declarations discussed in this section. The first and second dimensions, on teaching, learning and research, are supported by Agenda 21, the CSD Work Programme on Education, and the international declarations, as well as Blueprint for a Green Campus and the Essex Report. Transformation in faculty development and campus operations, though not explicitly noted in Agenda 21, is supported in virtually every other report and declaration. Only student engagement is left out of the international documents and recommendations, while given special attention in Blueprint for a Green Campus and Class of 2000 Report.43 Higher education outreach and partnerships for sustainability are stressed in nearly all reports and declarations, and an emphasis on the university mission shows up forcefully in the World Declaration on Higher Education, as well as the international declarations requiring presidential endorsement (Talloires, Copernicus and Halifax). Overall, there is quite clear consensus on the comprehensive actions higher education must take if it is to embrace sustainable development.

Why is it important for higher education in the United States to pursue sustainability in these dimensions? First, as nearly every international HESD declaration claims, it is important from a moral perspective. Since colleges and universities educate and train our future community and business leaders, teachers and policy makers, these institutions bear a moral responsibility to provide the expertise and vision needed to foster a sustainable future.44 Second, universities should pursue this course from a practical perspective: they are uniquely equipped to help solve the challenge of sustainability through innovation in teaching and learning. Sustainable development is not just another category of environmental, social and economic problems we face; it is also a way of thinking about these issues. If we do not learn to think about global environmental degradation and poverty in a more effective way, we will continue to make little progress in reducing them. Part of the intellectual challenge of sustainable development, therefore, is that we must learn how to solve several problems at once. Universities can give students and future leaders the intellectual tools for doing that. Third, a U.S. commitment to HESD matters because U.S. colleges and universities influence the standards for higher education throughout the world. They also serve a larger international student body than in any other country. It is incumbent upon American higher education to contribute to solving the global challenge of sustainable development.
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(8) U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, Agenda 21, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.151.26 (1992) [hereinafter Agenda 21].
(9) Stockholm Declaration, supra note 2. While the Stockholm Declaration is somewhat anthropocentric, making little reference to the rights of nature, it is one of the first international documents to recognize the fundamental interdependency between humanity and the environment. See Tarah Wright, A Review of Definitions and Frameworks for Sustainability in Higher Education, Higher Educ. Pol'y/Int'l J. Sustainability in Higher Educ. (July 2002).
(10) Tbilisi was then capital of the Georgian S.S.R.
(11) Sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), this conference marked the beginning of environmental education initiatives on an international governmental level. See Wright, supra note 6.
(12) UNESCO-UNEP (1977).
(13) The most frequently cited definition of sustainability came from the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), chaired by Gro Harlen Bruntland, then prime minister of Norway. Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." WCED, Our Common Future (1987).
(14) The concept of "environmental education," as expressed at the Tbilisi conference, embraced a comprehensive view of the environment. Controversy over differences between 'environmental education' (EE) and "education for sustainable development" (ESD)-or "education for sustainability"-ensued when the latter term came into use in the early 1990s. Some suggest that environmental education is part of education for sustainable development while others assert the opposite. Participants in a 1999 international on-line debate on ESD explored the implications of a new theoretical and practical definition of EE. Most participants regarded "ESD as the next generation of EE, which includes issues of ethics, equity and new ways of thinking and learning." Many saw ESD as "more future-oriented, critical of the predominant market and consumption driven society… and preoccupied with linking social, economic and environmental equity at the local, regional and global level." For more information on the on-line EE/ESD debate, see Arjen E.J. Wals, ESDebate: on-line discussion of education for sustainable development (ESD), Global F. for Envtl. Educ. (2000), available at http://caretakers.boker.org.il/gldebate.htm (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(15) See supra note 3.
(16) Argued in David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World (1992).
(17) Agenda 21, supra note 6.
(18) "Universities," when used singly, will always refer to both colleges and universities.
(19) Agenda 21, supra note 6, 36.5(a).
(20) Id. 36.5(b).
(21) Id. 36.5(i).
(22) Id. 36.10(d). Chapters 31 (Science and Technology) and 35 (Science for Sustainable Development) make very clear that scientific knowledge is of paramount importance in the pursuit of sustainable development. For more discussion of Agenda 21 implications for higher education through science, see Gerd Michelsen, Sustainable Development as a Challenge for Universities, in Communicating Sustainability (Walter Leal Filho ed., 2000), Vol. 8 at 69.
(23) Notably, there is no reference in Chapter 36 to sustainable campus operations (i.e., energy and water conservation, recycling, etc.), where most progress has been made in the U.S (see hereinbelow). This is a major component of HESD in the U.S. and Europe.
(24) The CSD was created in December 1992, to ensure effective followup of UNCED and to monitor and report on implementation of the Earth Summit agreements at the local, national, regional and international levels.
(25) See Report of the Secretary-General, Commission on Sustainable Development, Eighth session, Implementation of the Work Programme on Education, Public Awareness and Training, 24 April -5 May 2000 (2000), available at http://www.un.org/documents/ecosoc/cn17/2000/ecn172000-8.htm (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(26) World Declaration on Higher Education for the twenty-first Century: Vision and Action, World Conference on Higher Education, Paris, adopted Oct. 9, 1998, preamble. For the full text, see http://www.unesco.org/education/wche/declaration.shtml (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(27) Id. art. 1.
(28) The theme of sustainable development was taken up at a special WCHE half-day session, which put forward concrete proposals for future action. Many of these ideas are reflected in the action plan of the Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership (GHESP), which officially formed in December 2000 to further the implementation of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 as well as the CSD work program, and to follow up the recommendations of the WCHE. This partnership includes the COPERNICUS Programme of the Association of European Universities (CRE), the International Association of Universities (IAU), the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) and UNESCO. The GHESP action plan includes developing resources for institutional reform and creating Regional Centers of Excellence to accelerate the transition toward sustainability in higher education. See the GHESP Memorandum of Understanding, available at http://www.ulsf.org/resources_ghesp.html (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(29) The conference was organized by Tufts University and hosted at the Tufts European Center.
(30) Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF), Report and Declaration of The Presidents' Conference (1990), available at http://www.ulsf.org (last visited Mar. 30, 2002) [hereinafer Presidents' Conference].
(31) Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, Talloires Declaration (1990), available at http://www.ulsf.org (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(32) Other prominent international HESD declarations include: The Halifax Declaration (December 1991), like the Talloires Declaration, was meant for institutional endorsement and emphasized teaching and practicing sustainable development; it included an action plan outlining short and long-term goals for Canadian universities. Lester Pearson Inst. for Int'l Dev., Creating a Common Future: Proceedings of the Conference On University Action for Sustainable Development (1992). The Swansea Declaration (August 1993), of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, stressed the recognition of the "mutual vulnerability of all societies, developed and developing," and the need for people to work together cooperatively. UNESCO, Swansea Declaration (1993). The Copernicus University Charter (fall 1993), also meant for institutional endorsement, made reference to the Talloires Declaration, the Halifax Declaration and the Rio Earth Summit, and stressed environmental literacy for students, faculty and staff, public outreach, and "interdisciplinary networks of environmental experts at the local, national, regional and international levels." Conference of European Rectors (CRE)-Copernicus, CRE-Copernicus Secretariat , CRE-Copernicus Charter (1993). The Kyoto Declaration (November 1993), stressed the ethical obligation of universities to reform and recommended specific institutional plans of action. International Association of Universities, Kyoto Declaration (1993). The Thessaloniki Declaration (1997), which resulted from the most recent international conference on ESD ("Environment and Society: Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability," organized jointly by UNESCO and the Government of Greece), makes the fundamental assertion that poverty reduction is a condition for sustainability, and affirms that the reorientation of education requires that all disciplines address sustainable development and that this requires "a holistic, interdisciplinary approach" UNESCO, Thessaloniki Declaration (1997). See Wright, supra note 6.
(33) Id. art. 12.
(34) See Blueprint for a Green Campus: The Campus Earth Summit Initiatives for Higher Education, A Project of the Heinz Family Foundation (1995) [hereinafter Blueprint for a Green Campus].
(35) The event was sponsored by Second Nature and the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (two nonprofit organizations promoting sustainability in higher education) and held under the auspices of the President's Council on Sustainable Development.
(36) Second Nature and University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, Workshop on the Principles of Sustainability in Higher Education, Essex Report (1995) [hereinafter Essex Report].
(37) See B.H. Strauss, The Class of 2000 Report: Environmental Education, Practices and Activism on Campus 17 (Nathan Cummings Foundation 1996), available at http://www.ncf.org/reports/program/rpt_campus2000/campus2000.html (last visited Aug. 8, 2002) [hereinafter Class of 2000 Report].
(38) See Education for Sustainability: An Agenda for Action, PCSD (1996).
(39) Also of note are the Ball State University (Muncie, Indiana) "Greening of the Campus" conferences, which have been held in 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2001. These gatherings of over 200 participants have become the premier U.S. campus greening events. They involve paper presentations and workshops, and Ball State publishes all papers in a Conference Proceedings volume, now part of the literature of the field. The latest volume included papers on "Values and Ethics" and "Political Aspects of Campus Greening." See Ball State University, Conference Proceedings: Greening of the Campus IV: Moving to the Mainstream (Robert J. Koester ed., 2001) [hereinafter Greening of the Campus IV].
(40) An attention to issues of social justice would also be present. In the words of theologian John Cobb Jr., an academic institution committed to sustainability should help students understand the roots of today's injustices and motivate them to seek justice in full integration with understanding the roots of environmental degradation and modeling environmentally sustainable practices. John B. Cobb Jr., unpublished notes from "Sustainability and the Liberal Arts" Conference, Conway, Ark. (Oct. 1998).
(41) The "ecological footprint" measures human impact on nature. It indicates how much productive land and water we use to produce all the resources we consume and to take in all the waste we make. This concept, now a popular measure of sustainability, was developed by Mathis Wackernagel, who has written widely on the question of embracing limits and developing indicators to assess sustainability.
(42) These dimensions are explored in more detail in ULSF's "Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire." See http://www.ulsf.org/programs_saq.html (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).
(43) See supra note 34.
(44) Presidents' Conference, supra note 27. Furthermore, academic freedom, tax-free status and public resources are granted American educational institutions in exchange for the dissemination of knowledge and values to ensure the health and well-being of society. See Essex Report, at 5. See also Anthony D. Cortese, Education for Sustainability: The University as a Model of Sustainability (1999), available at http://www.secondnature.org (last visited Mar. 30, 2002). See also Anthony D. Cortese, Education for Sustainability: The Need for a New Human Perspective (1999), available at http://www.secondnature.org (last visited Mar. 30, 2002).