This is the opening keynote address to the national conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education held in October 2015 in Minneapolis. Here I outline my argument for the curriculum reform necessary to meet the environmental and sustainability challenges of the coming decades.

I don’t know that my recommendations are the only path forward, but I assert that it is high time for higher education to get off its duff and embrace a new form of relevance. When I have presented these ideas at various institutions, I typically get nodding heads and smiling faces, and utterly no willingness, or perhaps ability, to act. The silos of our institutions have walls that are thick and high.

I offer the mirror test as a thought experiment for any administrator or faculty member who reads these words:

In ten years will you be able to look in the mirror and say with integrity and conviction that you did the best you could to bring about positive change and needed reform?

I am sure that some of you will think me preachy and overly righteous. Perhaps so. But, I believe that the purpose of our fine careers is not to be comfortable. We are afforded the highest privilege of civilized society. We are paid to be intellectuals, and we are asked to give back in the form of scholarship, research, teaching and outreach.

I am merely suggesting that we direct our efforts to addressing the greatest challenge in the history of our species.

This seems like a reasonable and timely proposition.