Community college leaders know all about change. Given the barrage of demands on the community college, leaders often find themselves reacting to one crisis after another; a major challenge is to move from crisis management to strategic proactivity. First, however, leaders must understand the cultural, political, and economic process that compel organizational responses.[1]
One way of thinking about drivers of change is to organize them into categories. Specific to community colleges, Vaughan urges leaders to increase knowledge of a college’s technological, political, economic, and sociocultural environments.[2] Focusing on organizational strategy, Dan Fogel describes three sets of pressures: environmental and natural capital, social pressure, and environmental regulation.[3] Similarly, Benn, Dunphy, and Griffiths discuss the dynamic natural environment, globalization, evolving forms of regulation, and new technologies and business models.[4]
The dynamic natural environment is rarely considered as a driver of change for community colleges. Below, I will reflect on this driver of change and consider the implications for community colleges.
Naval Station Norfolk, Va. (Sept. 18, 2003) — Rain and heavy winds from Hurricane Isabel flooded portions of Fleet Parking at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, today trapping some vehicles in water as high as their windows, as the hurricane proceeded inland. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 1st Class Michael Pendergrass. (RELEASED)
Globally, the impacts of the dynamic natural environment are so dire that the U.S. Department of Defense has named climate change as a top threat to national security.[5] According to DOD, climate change“will aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries”.[6]In November 2016, global sea ice dropped at unprecedented rates, carbon dioxide levels reached record highs, and global sea levels increased drastically.[7] Severe storms such as Hurricane Matthew, extreme heat and cold, tornados, extreme snowfalls, wildfires, and severe droughts and floods wreaked havoc on communities and economies worldwide.
Direct Threats
Direct threats to colleges include devastating wildfires, hurricanes, increasingly frequent “hundred-year” floods, droughts and depleting municipal water supplies, deadly heat waves, and the northern migration of vector-borne diseases.[8] Leaders of coastal campuses, in particular, are scrambling to prepare.[9]
John R. Broderick, president of Old Dominion University, notes that tides from the Chesapeake Bay are predicted to rise up to four feet by 2050. For a campus already taking on water from high tides and storms, sea level rise is a serious threat.[10]The increasing severity and frequency of these hazards require college leaders to take proactive steps.
Below are four general recommendations:
- Assess vulnerability and risk to human, financial, manufactured, social, intellectual, and natural capital;[11]
- Increase resiliency, or the organization’s capacity to respond to and recover from extreme weather events;[12]
- Coordinate hazard mitigation and disaster response plans with local and regional entities;[13]
- Prepare for the college to serve as a community center of operations in times of crisis.[14]
Indirect Threats
The dynamic natural environment also presents indirect threats.
First, it has resulted in increased government spending for disaster relief. Economic losses due to climatic issues have increased each decade since the 1970s and the losses in the 1990s and the 2000s were more than double the losses in the 1980s.[15]Since 1980, weather and climate disasters in the USA caused more than $1 billion in damage. The overall toll to the economy was $1.1 trillion. The Federal Emergency Management Agency assists with disaster relief costs, but states also bear a substantial financial burden. For example, a severe flooding event in October 2015 cost the state of South Carolina approximately $114 million.[16]In 2016, damage from Hurricane Matthew cost South Carolina $64 million.[17]In North Carolina, Hurricane Matthew forced colleges to shut down campuses temporarily, pushing enrollments off the precipice. Of the $100 million spent on recovery, community colleges received $2.7 million to offset tumbling FTEs [18]. These costs put pressures on state budgets, reducing levels of support for community colleges.
Second, the dynamic natural environment has accelerated the push for renewable energy. Where state economies are directly linked to a political economy of energy, appropriations to community colleges will remain unstable. Community colleges in Wyoming, Montana, and West Virginia have faced sharp decreases in funding as the coal industry falters. At the end of Fiscal year 2016, West Virginia faced a $426 million shortfall, primarily as a result of a shift in energy markets. For the most part, the decline in demand for coal can be explained by the increased supply of natural gas. As renewable energy replaces fossil fuels, community colleges in many states will likely experience extreme budget cuts.
Opportunities
The dynamic natural environment also presents opportunities. As power generators pivot toward renewable energy, community colleges will need to help states modernize their infrastructure and prepare the workforce for a green economy. Community colleges will also have opportunities to lead communities in resiliency planning. Take, for example, the role of community colleges in California in community responses to wildfires. Finally, community colleges will have an opportunity to develop and showcase sustainable practices.[19]
The AACC has already recognized these opportunities. To make the most of them, AACC established the Center for Sustainability Education and Economic Development (SEED). Its goal is to support community colleges educate for and build a green economy. According to a report by SEED, “community colleges are ideally positioned to help ensure that low-income, under- and unemployed workers can advance into family-sustaining careers, while the communities in which they live improve resilience to climate insecurity”. [20]
The dynamic natural environment will continue to drive organizational change for community colleges. Direct threats are the most obvious, and these include weather disasters and vector-borne illnesses, among others. Indirect threats include increased state costs for disaster recovery, which reduce state funds available to community colleges. Where state economies depend on the fossil fuel industry, the move to renewable energy will decrease revenues and further reduce state support. The dynamic natural environment also presents opportunities. Community colleges can develop and showcase sustainable operations. They can also reorient educational programs to the green worforce.
[1]G. B. Vaughan, Institutions on the edge: America’s community colleges, 72 Educational Record(1991).
[2]G. B. Vaughan, The community college’s mission and milieu: Institutionalizing community-based programming,in Community leadership through community-based programming: The role of the community college(Edgar John Boone ed. 1997).
[3]Daniel S. Fogel, Strategic sustainability: A natural environmental lens on organizations and management (Routledge. 2016).
[4]Suzanne Benn, et al., Organizational change for corporate sustainability (Routledge. 2014).
[5]U.S. Department of Defense, National security implications of climate-related risks and a changing climate (U.S. Department of Defense ed., U.S. Department of Defense 2015).
[6]U.S. Department of Defense, DoD releases report on security implications of climate change (U.S. Department of Defense ed., DoD News 2015).id. at, 3.
[7]WMO statement on the sate of the global climate in 2016. (2017).
[8]A guide to climate resiliency & the community college. (2014).
[9]Ben Myers & Erica Lusk, Rising threat: As the climate changes and seas swell, coastal colleges struggle to prepare, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2017, December 6.
[10]Ben Myers, Building a coalition to fight a sea change, see id. at, 2017, december. 2017.
[11]Fogel. 2016.
[12]White & Cohen. 2014.
[13]Id. at, vii.
[14]Id. at.
[15]Atlas of mortaility and economic loses from weather, climate and water extremes (1970-2012). (2014).
[16]Nikki Haley, Governor Nikki Haley discusses SC flood costs (YouTube 2015).
[17]Avery G. Wilks, Hurricane Matthew damage will cost South Carolina $64 million The State athttp://www.govtech.com/em/disaster/Hurricane-Matthew-damage-will-cost-state-64M.html.
[18]Disaster Recovery Act of 2017 SL 2017-119§§ 143C-6-23, 143C-6-4, 166A-19.4 (2017).
[19]Community colleges in the emerging green economy: Charting a course and leadership role. (2011).
[20]White & Cohen, 7. 2014.