Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has announced the creation of the new Columbia Climate School, the first new school at the university in 25 years. The school will focus on research initiatives targeted toward generating scholarship and pedagogical momentum around the issue of climate change. The school, according to Bollinger, will represent part of the university's core focus on the "intersection of knowledge and change."
In a statement announcing the creation of the school, Bollinger explains, "The School, at least at the outset, will be somewhat unconventional in its structure, building capacity from a hub of existing, world-class research centers and programs, including the Earth Institute and its many centers: the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), and more."
Alluding to the potential for this new school to engage with existing climate change-related initiatives, including those at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), Bollinger adds that "even at the present moment, virtually every school and many departments within the University from the arts and humanities to medicine and engineering, already support work in the field of climate. The new Columbia Climate School will be able to draw upon and reciprocate support for those efforts. It will, therefore, work in partnership with the deans and faculties of other schools throughout the institution. It is also notable that the School will be able to utilize the capacities we have created to be truly global in character and focus, especially with the vibrant Columbia Global Centers, and to bridge the world of scholarly endeavor with that of action and implementation."
3 Comments
Climate change has certainly become a cottage industry. Not to say any of these people will solve anything -- like medical schools "solve" diseases, rather they create industries to treat, manage and profit from it.
What will the tuition fee be to be fighting climate change academically and more importantly, will Greta Thunberg be a professor?
I always though it odd that Columbia has a graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) while their building housing the Art Department leaked so badly and ruined so much of the art students' work that they demanded a refund on their tuition. Not a great deal of emphasis at Columbia on 'preservation' I guess. I am sure they will be crackerjack on the climate thingy though.
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