Remember that unique feeling of being a new mom when everything was about your baby? It was so special that it didn’t even bother you when people eye-rolled right to your face? That’s me right now. I’m blissful with love. Except my baby is 18, and I am over-the-moon thrilled to be packing to go see her at college freshman parents and family weekend. She texted me a list of things to bring her that I’m swooning around, methodically gathering. What a thing! Surely no one has ever felt this way before me!
I haven’t seen my kid since the end of August, and I have been counting the days until this visiting weekend. If anyone so much as sniffles near me, I threaten them with hand spray. Nothing will keep me from seeing my student! The university emailed parents the most comprehensive schedule of things we can do when we arrive, laden with snacks my daughter can absolutely buy on her own but that we are still bringing.
Between receptions, fairs, concerts, group bingo (!), and tours of everything from art galleries to libraries, the school is offering a series of mini lectures for parents. I scanned the list. I can attend:
- The Dangers of Imagination
- The Marketing of You
- Emerging Diversity and Inclusion Trends in Higher Education
- Miniaturizing Optics Using Nanophotonics
- Human-Centered AI for Accessible and Assistive Robotics: Research at the Assistive Agent Behavior and Learning Lab
Interesting. I don’t mean to be rude, and I am sure all these are eye-opening and current and amazing and given by deeply thought-provoking professors, but pardon me while I shout:
WHERE’S THE CLIMATE LECTURE??
Are the well-intentioned organizers not living in the same climate crisis the rest of us are in? Are they not watching the aftermath of not one but two devastating hurricanes and fretting about getting out the vote?
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments and Clean Air Progress
Some universities seem to be living in this realm. In fact, I just read that UC San Diego now has a graduation requirement for current students. It started this fall. The young, impressionable minds who very soon will be our future have to take a course in climate change. And courses must cover “at least 30% climate-related content and address two of four areas, including scientific foundations, human impacts, mitigation strategies and project-based learning.” Brava, UCSD, for your bold, sensible, and totally no-brainer academic policy requiring a knowledge of climate change to graduate.
To say I am green with envy and wanting this knowledge for my college freshman is an understatement. I’m beyond proud that my kid is going to a wonderful and highly competitive school. She worked overtime and through some dark family times to gain acceptance, and she’s loving it. We are also paying an outrageous amount of tuition. Where’s her climate requirement? At UCSD, about 7,000 students from the class of 2028 will be taking a course my daughter is not mandated to take.
She has plenty of requirements from her school, don’t get me wrong, especially as she’s in a five-year joint degree BA/BFA program. It’s a long list, and some of it hasn’t changed much from the math 101 stuff I had to take in college that has nothing to do with my daily life 30 years later. It’s up to her if she studies climate.
I checked out the various environmental clubs at the school when I dropped her off for her pre-orientation program in August. I genuinely liked what I saw (though they do seem to have a lot of takeout containers available at the dining halls…). I suggested she join any one of their eco clubs at the time, but she declined. I don’t want her to be able to decline. Actually, it’s not just about my kid. I want a universal requirement for climate courses at all schools in the United States! There are others besides UCSD, like Arizona State University, but it’s not very widespread—yet.
As I pull various coats out of her closet that were too hot to pack in the summer but are very needed now as the fall foliage has erupted in a rainbow of colors and the temperature has dropped on her campus, I make a decision. When I arrive with my abundant love and many treats, I will enact my own climate course requirement for my young adult. I can be persuasive. For example, she’s already enrolled in a community health class this semester. That was the result of a gentle nudge from her environment-obsessed mother. Or maybe it’s just because she was interested. No matter.
I’ll let you know how my newfound mom-climate-course-requirement goes. Parents of college-aged kids, join me?
Tell Congress: Commit to Climate Investments and Clean Air Progress