How Elusive Is the Quest for Sustainability in Higher Education?

Sustainability is the one word that epitomizes, more than any other, the apparent top priority in higher education today. And for good reason.

Several factors account for this cardinal fact on the global higher education landscape. For a starter, the traditional tuition-based business model is showing increasing signs of running aground. In parallel, competition among institutions has never been stronger and the rise in their numbers has never been greater. Political turmoil, economic crises, pandemics, recessionary fears, and international conflicts have all contributed to an air of anxiety and uncertainty to which universities were not immune. Severe as these factors are, however, they are not the most potent forces bringing home to universities the pressing need for pursuing sustainability as the ultimate future-proofing measure. That special distinction has to be assigned to disruptive techno-behavioral changes that have impacted higher education irreversibly. The universalization of online delivery during the extended pandemic, the absence of campus life, the emergence of new challenges never encountered before having to do with lab work, experiential learning, etc. have had a major effect. Their combined effect was calling the predominant higher education paradigm to serious question and highlighting the need for viable alternatives.

The challenge was further exacerbated by the gradual but accelerating mushrooming and upgrading of information sources thanks to various AI applications. This made it urgent to settle serious questions of ethics, responsibility, content, delivery, and particularly assessment. The current debate around ChatGPT is a case in point. More and more stakeholders are joining this debate which is still at its beginning.

The consolidated net effect of the above centers around three key observations, and two pressing questions:

Three Key Observations 

1. The higher education ecosystem has changed to a point where the scene is ready for a paradigm shift.

2. We are bound to go through a transition period before the new paradigm emerges with the desired level of clarity. This transition period will have major effects on the way we do business although we are still not quite sure of what these net effects will be.

3. The one capacity-building process that carries the most promise for a relatively smooth transition to the new higher education paradigm is sustainability.

Two Questions 

1. What exactly is sustainability?

2. What is the best way to go about building sustainability in higher education?

Sustainability Understood

Pedantic definitions notwithstanding, sustainability can be simply understood as a process of ensuring resource availability for an indefinite future period through continuity in resource generation and optimality in resource utilization. The term “resource” is being used here generically to include financial, human, environmental, nutritional, physical, temporal and all other forms of resources.

Sustainability is first and foremost a mindset and a culture, but is just as much a value system, a guide to decision-making, and a set of methods and techniques to bring about continuity and avoid running out of resources.

How Can Sustainability Be Achieved?

The pursuit of sustainability entails six major steps:

1. Creating Awareness among all institutional stakeholders

2. Building Commitment and buy-in

3. Making Decisions: What is to be done, when, how, and by whom?

4. Achieving Mobilization necessary for execution

5. Effecting Implementation as efficiently and effectively as possible

6. Conducting Assessment to determine the degree of success and impact

For the sustainability building process to unfold smoothly, two conditions will have to be met:

• Requisite know-how about change management necessary to navigate and institutionalize the needed innovations.

• Complementarity and integration at various decision-making levels to ensure streamlining, alignment, and smooth up-down and down-up communication.

Push and Pull Factors

At the end of the day the drive toward sustainability is fueled by two powerful currents. The first is an internal push factor driven by the increasing signs of failure of the current financial and academic model. There is also an external pull factor caused by disruptive technology, a significantly altered ecosystem, an unprecedented level of uncertainty, changing expectations and a different approach to learning among the post-millennials of Generation Z.

Implications for Universities in Lebanon

If sustainability is a serious higher education issue on a global scale, it is considerably more so for top-tier universities in Lebanon. Such institutions will always face the challenge of subscribing to world-class academic standards without having a world-class resource base. In addition, they are now suffering crisis fatigue, major uncertainties, and future risks of all sorts. Sustainability should top their list of strategic priorities.

For academic institutions, sustainability should mean six distinct, but closely related, things:

1. A viable business model where tuition revenue constitutes a substantial, but declining, portion of their income with alternative revenue streams regularly on the rise.

2. Ability to pay at least a substantial part of their payroll in US dollars as a counter-measure against faculty and staff attrition. This will also help in talent attraction and development.

3. Gradual but steady shift to renewable energy sources to meet their needs as academic institutions and medical centers in affordable ways following an initial investment.

4. On the academic front, rethinking their programs and course offerings to introduce or improve existing new digital majors based on smart technologies that are already there and promise to change the way we live. 
   
   We still have a long way to go in catching up with the world on such majors and time is of the essence. Several regional universities are already ahead of us. We also need to modernize existing majors like Medicine, Engineering and Business to accommodate smart technology applications that are rapidly on the rise.

5. We need to constantly upgrade our delivery technologies to stay abreast of new developments and accommodate implications of new smart software like ChatGPT and similar emerging breakthroughs. The impact of such technologies on how we teach, how we search for information, how we do research, and how we assess student work is only now starting to be clear. It will undoubtedly inspire major changes in all the areas listed and many more. Beyond the technology absorption factor, the sustainability quest will also entail a radical shift to the interactive delivery style where the very concept of a classroom will undergo serious rethinking in favor of learning communities and joint discovery of new knowledge. 

6. Above and beyond all this, the pursuit of sustainability dictates, in parallel to new approaches to content and delivery, co-curricular emphasis of a specific nature. The focus of this emphasis should be life-long learning, self-renewal, leadership skills, and effective functioning as team leaders and team members. Additional training in creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation will also be needed.

LAU at the Forefront

LAU has gone a long way toward gradually shifting into a sustainability paradigm in terms of all aspects and criteria listed above. Many of our recently introduced changes can only be understood within the broader context of our sustainability strategy.

The list includes financial, administrative and most of all academic dimensions. Dollarizing tuition and most of our payroll, intensifying our fundraising activities, deciding to shift gradually to renewable energy, and acting on the concept of “LAU without borders,” are only a few examples. The biggest example, however, is academic. New majors are on the drawing board, the Center for Innovative Learning has been significantly reinforced, the industrial park is now a reality, and a bio-equivalency center will follow soon. These are but a few examples for a much longer list.

Not So Elusive After All

The pursuit of sustainability might look elusive and farfetched at the beginning. This is particularly true for institutions deep into crisis management and operating in a day-to-day survival mode. Soon after taking the first steps, however, things start to appear far clearer and possible to attain. What matters most is being true to ourselves in terms of weighing the difficulties, gauging and securing the resources needed, and building the necessary critical mass of champions and advocates. This group plays a pivotal role in carrying the idea forward and should be cross-departmental to be effective. LAU can speak to this with confidence as we are currently well into the process with steps being taken to set up a Sustainability Office reporting to the President. Our next step is the appointment of a sustainability officer as a key resource, point person, initiator, monitor, and evaluator.

Sustainability is the way of the future. The choice before us as tier-1 universities in Lebanon is to lead, join, or lag behind. The choice we make, however, will have far-reaching consequences – and decide our future. Dare we sit idle?