Illustration: LJ Davids

More colleges are integrating the topic of climate change into all fields of study as a way to inspire action, not just fear. Many of these efforts address sustainability more broadly—and the need to balance environmental, economic, and social goals. 

Including climate issues in the curriculum offers other benefits. Employers need workers to help them carry out their climate commitments, so green jobs, including those in renewable energy, are growing across diverse industries.

Fostering student success takes institutional leadership and collaboration. Barrington Price, Dominican University’s vice president of student success and engagement, knows this well because he was a struggling first-generation college student himself.

In this interview, Price shares his student success philosophy, including the importance of nurturing hope.

Keeping students engaged in a fully online environment proved to be an enormous challenge for college faculty in the first couple semesters of the pandemic. Opening campuses back up was supposed to help.

But even as many courses returned to in-person formats or were updated to hybrid formats, student interest still hasn’t fully recovered. Now, a new report shows that many students remain disengaged because they fail to see the connection between their coursework and future careers.