Ecologism and Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse

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Chapter 15 Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse Tamara Savelyeva and Jae Park Abstract From the outset, the authors note a general lack of a more updated and deep theoretical en- gagement on the discourses of ecologism and sustainability in universities, and contrast this de- ficiency with sustainability-related practices. While explaining the interconnected nature of eco- logism and sustainability, the authors describe the rise of ecological citizenship and e ex- pected role of universities. Although ecological discourses are comparable across counies and universities, the practical implications of sustainability on campuses vary in degrees of com- plexity, namely linear, complicated, and complex. To support their arguments with practical understanding, the authors typi the challenges i n sustainability practices at the Duke Universi- ty d the University of Hong Kong by using their earlier works. The findings show similarities . in sustainability discourses across campuses characterized by a "double dichotomy" phenome· non in sllstainability efforts. The authors propose a metaphor of "ensoulment" to suggest cam- pus-based practices in favor of education for stainability rather than the dominant eening and public relation efforts. Introduction . The rapid growth of ecology-related efforts in higher education (HE) reveals the absence of well-iculated theoretical structures to support campus sustajnabiJi discourse. The theoretical reflections on the history and intellectual content, pertinent to the topic of sustainability and i ts relation to a broader notion of ecologisffi, are sporadic and discormected. In numerous analytical studies, the key objectives of campus sustainability discourse - analysis, management, and dis- semination - have not been pursued as theoretically advanced. As a result, sustamability re- mains an intellectually non-rigorous field within broader hmnanistic domains. The lack of theo- retical engagement resicts researchers om fully understanding the complex situation of eco- discourses on campuses. How does sustainability discourse fit in within sucrures and processes of ? e case in point is the Weste discourses 1 of ecologism and sustainabili, which have the most visible applications on university campuses, compared other ecological move- ments Although. the origin of conce for nature in the West could be traced back to the Middle Ages in the works of St. Francis (Sessions 1987), the rise of mode eco-discourses reaches the Age of Ecology with Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Meadows's Limits of Growth (1972), which, in , followed earlier works on "ecological perspective" by Law- rence and Huxley among other writers, and on "ecological conscience" by Leopold (Sessions, I 2 The present work follows Gee et al. (1996) to define discourse as "a way of talking, listening, reading, writing, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and using tools and objects, in particular settings and at specific times to display or to recognize a particular identity." Dryzek (2005) proposes four basic ecological discourses: environmental problem solving. survivalism, sllstainability, and green radicalism.

Transcript of Ecologism and Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse

Chapter 15

Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse

Tamara Savelyeva and Jae Park

Abstract

From the outset, the authors note a general lack of a more updated and deep theoretical en­gagement on the discourses of ecologism and sustainability in universities, and contrast this de­ficiency with sustainability-related practices. While explaining the interconnected nature of eco­logism and sustainability, the authors describe the rise of ecological citizenship and the ex­pected role of universities. Although ecological discourses are comparable across countries and universities, the practical implications of sustainability on campuses vary in degrees of com­plexity, namely linear, complicated, and complex. To support their arguments with practical understanding, the authors typify the challenges in sustainability practices at the Duke Universi­ty and the University of Hong Kong by using their earlier works. The findings show similarities

. in sustainability discourses across campuses characterized by a "double dichotomy" phenome· non in sllstainability efforts. The authors propose a metaphor of "ensoulment" to suggest cam­pus-based practices in favor of education for sustainability rather than the dominant greening and public relation efforts.

Introduction .

The rapid growth of ecology-related efforts in higher education (HE) reveals the absence of well-articulated theoretical structures to support campus sustajnabiJity discourse. The theoretical reflections on the history and intellectual content, pertinent to the topic of sustainability and its relation to a broader notion of ecologisffi, are sporadic and discormected. In numerous analytical studies, the key objectives of campus sustainability discourse - analysis, management, and dis­semination - have not been pursued as theoretically advanced. As a result, sustamability re­mains an intellectually non-rigorous field within broader hmnanistic domains. The lack of theo­retical engagement restricts researchers from fully understanding the complex situation of eco­discourses on campuses. How does sustainability discourse fit in within strucrures and processes of HE?

The case in point is the Western discourses 1 of ecologism and sustainability, which have the most visible applications on university campuses, compared to other ecological move­ments.' Although. the origin of concern for nature in the West could be traced back to the Middle Ages in the works of St. Francis (Sessions 1987), the rise of modern eco-discourses reaches the Age of Ecology with Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Meadows's Limits of Growth (1972), which, in rum, followed earlier works on "ecological perspective" by Law­rence and Huxley among other writers, and on "ecological conscience" by Leopold (Sessions,

I

2

The present work follows Gee et al. (1996) to define discourse as "a way of talking, listening, reading, writing, acting, interacting, believing, valuing, and using tools and objects, in particular settings and at specific times to display or to recognize a particular identity." Dryzek (2005) proposes four basic ecological discourses: environmental problem solving. survivalism, sllstainability, and green radicalism.

tamara
Text Box
Savelyeva, T. & Park. J. (2012). Ecologism and Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse. In W. Leal (Ed.), pp 183-192 Environmental Education, Communication, and Sustainability, Vol 34 Sustainable development at universities: New horizons. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ISBN 13: 9783631573754 

184 Tamara Savelyeva and Jae Park

1987). The works of Carson and Meadows are generally regarded as the milestones of West­ern eeo-movements.

The various instances of sustainability discourses going global in HE worldwide can be exemplified by articles of Palma et al. (2011), Fonseca et al. (2011), Naeem and Peach (2011), and Leal Filho (2011). Palma et al. (2011) mapped sustainability courses at federal universities in BraziL Naeem and Peach (2011) drew a picture of EfS practices in Asia-Pacific region. Fonseca et al. (2011) described the situation of sustainability reports by Canadian HE institutions. A book edited by Leal Filho (20 II) linked this globalizing trend with an intrinsic complexity of HE systems and provides comprehensive examples of practica.l implementa­tions of sustainabiLity discourse in international campuses.

Dewey's (1954) seminal ideas about the public articulate the rise of citizenship and action that underlines the assumptions about the public nature of eeo-discourses on campus. According to Dewey, the public is brought into existence by the awareness of "extensive and lasting em­broilment and the hann wrought by it" (p. 17). This idea leads to a particular type of public -the ecologically concerned public - that develops a shared ecological awareness in response to environmental damages that inflict potential or real harm on them. This awareness would also be the basis of a discourse: an ecologically concerned public conscientiously organizes and sets itself in motion. In the process of action, the public performs the tasks of defending a common cause and interest (guardians); analyzing problems (interpteters); and taking action (doers or executors):

Recognition of evil consequences brought about a common interest which required for ilS mainten� ance certain measures and rules, together with the selection of certain persons as their guardians, in­terpreters, and, if need be, their executors (Dewey 1954: 17).

Dewey's typology of public tasks (guardians, interpreters, and doers) can be paralleled with three key objectives of campus sustainability discourse - analysis, management, and dissemi­nation. This parallel allows identifYing ecological citizens (Dobson 2004) and their roles. With their discourses, ecological citizens shape the ways of apprehending the world with their particular "assumptions, judgments, and contentions that provide the basic terms for analyses, debates, agreements, and disagreements" (Dryzek 2005: 9), and unveil their identity with their actions.

Education system, HE in particular, is one of the key places where such ecological citizens are likely to rise. University is a time-honored global institution that has been addressing "the need for all citizens to have an infonned understanding of complex matters" (Barnett 1990: 176), from Christian theology to infonnation and communication rechnology. Thus, universities are expected to cultivate eeo-citizenry by promoting student and faculty involve­ment with ecological issues in a learned and informed manner. Ecologism and sustainability discourses emerge from this informed and increasingly interconnected international university commtlllity. However, the complexity of ulliversity structures and processes makes it difficult to articulate and categorize the existing eco-djscourses on campus, with a view to finding ways to develop them further or to generate new pathways.

This paper outlines a taxonomy of ecological discourses in HE campuses by making a comparative analysis between sustainability discourse and ecoiogism in two campuses with dif­ferent cultural and historical backgrounds, namely Duke University (Duke) and the University of Hong Kong (HKU)l. This study follows the earlier work of Savelyeva and McKenna (2011) on the three different forms of campus sustainability - greening, sustainability sciences, and education for sustainability - and intersects these three types of sustainability

3 Duke University sustainability website: hnp://sllstainabiiity.duke.edu; University of Hong Kong sllstai­nability website: www.sustainability.hku.hk.

7'77 __

Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse 185

applications on university campuses with complexity theory's categories of linear, compli­cated, and complex practices.

Preamble: Ecologism, sustainability, and complexity science

[t may be useful to start by differentiating ecology from ecologism. Ecology is the smdy of eco­systems and is only marginally concerned about sustainability. By contrast, the more recent concept of ecoiogism consistently juxtaposes sustainability discourse, which adds a clear dif­ference: ecoiogism is a movement for and with action. Ecologism suggests, demands, and emphasizes the need for a paradigm shift in humanity's relationship with nature, which should bring about fundamental changes in societal and political lives. Ecologism calls for major changes in very assertive or provocative tenns, and often assigns priority to the survival of nature over man. Such practical reasoning makes ecologism a moral and ethical discourse. The call for activism, its connection to ethics, and the slowly developing theoretical and ideo­logical root') (Baxter 1999) make ecologisrn attractive to intellectuals and welcomed by aca­demic communities. Cases in point could be the Greenpeace flagship confronting a whaling boat a more action-oriented activism and the "Do not eat blue-fin tuna sushi" campaign from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which is more of a moral education lobby. The "radical green" or "deep ecology movement" (Sessions 1987) brand of ecologism arouses strong atti­tudes to the point of suggesting, for example, a "landscape without humans," however unfeas­ible it might be. A milder form of ecologism considers the current environmental predicament as rooted in the "metaphysics of mastery," that is, the dominance of anthropocentrism in En­lightenment humanism that would have caused subordination and exploitation of nature (Bonnett 2007).

Sustainability is the youngest sibling in the ecologism family. It is perhaps the simplest among ecological discourses, and it has become popular since the J 980s. This integrated and integrating discourse appears reasonable and inclusive, as it covers environmental concerns at local and global levels and requires practical movements toward a gradual change in relation­ships with nature. However, what sustainability means in theory has never been crystal clear within the academic community, regardless of it being the cause of comprepensive debates at all levels of policy and practice. The way something can become sustainable makes it instant­ly an evolving and longitudinal discourse, highly scalable/negotiable, and, therefore, most re­levant to academic institutions and individuals alike.

A theoretical engagement with campus ecologism and sustainability cannot be addressed comprehensively with '"either/or" reasoning of classic science. In contrast, complexity science (CS) offers a conjunctive uand" framework for reasoning that allows better handling of some deeply ill-structured and problematic situations in the domain of social sciences (Delonne 20 I 0). CS is a body of multidisciplinary ideas and principles that has been constructed from var­IOUS domains of knowledge (page 2011; Waldrop 1992) and offers an analytical tool to under­stand a wide range of phenomena from ordinary to illstitutional level events of human life, such as

7o:"ganization learning and corporate management. What CS thinkers have in common is the

abIi�ty to take a closer look at certain qllalia of the realities. In relation to sustainability. these realitles might include predictability, causality, hierarchy of control, and, where human freedom becomes involved, accountability. These qualities are generally grouped into three degrees: li­near (non-complex .causal relation), complicated (numerous but predictable rules), and complex �emer�ence), CS reiterates that "classic" nattrral and social sciences have long been falling short m thel . d 7 . � esCnptlve and explanatory endeavors because they mostly rely on linear and, at most, compilcated paradigms. Thus, CS positions itself by differentiation from classic scientific para­digms and chaos theory : u[N]ormal science shows how complex effects can be understood from

186 Tamara SaveJyeva and Jae Park

simple laws; chaos theory demonstrates that simple laws can have complicated, unpredictable consequences; and complexity theory describes how complex causes can 'produce simple ef­fects" (Anderson 1999: 217). A succinct, yet comprehensive, list of the most frequently visited issues and concepts in CS includes:

• Interconnected and interdependent elements and dimensions; • Feedback processes promote and inhibit cbange within systems;

• System characteristics and behaviors emerge from simple rules of interaction; • Nonlinearity; • Sensitivity to initial conditions; • Phase space tbe "space of the possible"; • Attractors, chaos and the 'ledge of chaos"; • Adaptive agents; • Self-organization; • Co-evolution. (Ramalingarn and Jones 2008: viii)

Method

Two campuses are arbitrarily selected - Duke University and HKU - followed by data collec-tion from tbe websites created by their sllstainability offices, complemented by interviewing sustainability-related staff as well as information from openly available textual narratives and artifacts. The data are manually analyzed employing reflective-interpretive approaches to ana­lyses.

Results: Complexity science and campus sustainability actions

The three degrees of complexity and CS's conceptual paradigms can now be intersected with the framework by Savelyeva and McKenna (2011), which describes three main fonns ofw]i· versity-based actions for sustainability (greening, sustainability sciences, and education for sustainability). Related theoretical considerations can be illustrated with two cases of campus sustainability. This study is built on the assumption that HE institutions are multifaceted in their organizational structure and physical sites, with a wide range of enactments of ecological discourses. An easy approach to ecologism is to operate witb enforcement of a set of regula� tions, which is evident in the case of campus greening.

Greening: a linear policy and complicated action

Campus greening is the strongest and the most visible sustainability application in contempo­rary universities (Savelyeva and McKenna 2011). Greening serves as an assessment yardstick of overall campus sustainability and aims to increase the efficiency in all university opera­tions and inspire sustainable actions. Campus greening policies and initiatives can create an ecologically sensitive academic environment and establish a results-oriented culture of sus­tainable action. They also exemplify and provide visions of innovation and technological ad­vances that create a positive image for the university. Greening includes a standard list (Ke­niry 1995) of greening initiatives that are visible on both Duke and HKU campuses:

• Constructing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings and retro-fitting old campus facilities;

• Including vegetarian and organic meal options in university catering;

Complexity of Campus Susfainability Discourse

• Updating campus infrastrucnlre with energy and water efficient technologies; • Using local and organically produced foods in food services; •. Organizing campus recycling initiatives; • Participating in a sustainability assessment program;

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• Including environmental impact specification for cleaning products, laboratory equipment, paper, and building materials.

The linear nature of greening policies allows administrators to explain the multifaceted sus­tainability action in tenns of three well-defined elements: reduce, reuse, and recycle. The goal is predictability (if you recycle one aluminum can, you can save half a gallon of gasoline) and control (if you can control energy consumption, you can control a university budget). Another important characteristic of the linear nature of greening is that it presumes consistency and steady conditions. For example, given the same general conditions for enforcing a green policy on campus, a university usually achieves corresponding results, say, reduction in energy cost, waste production, or water consumption. When conditions are changed (e.g enforcement of new room temperature standards for lecture halls), the outcome (reduction in energy consumption) will settle to a new equilibrium until the next policy takes effect.

Linearity in greening has a number of significant consequences, some intentionally sought, and others unintended. First, it heJps universities to materialize sustainability efforts and to measure achievable outcomes provided that proper planning, analysis, and assessment are si­multaneously conducted. Second, it narrows the scope of policymaking to a linearly definable ,scale. Thus greening often allows campus leaders to break down sustainability into piecemeal processes so that even a less-endowed university can make small steps toward its envisioned sustainability. And third, it tacitly makes a "false promise" of absolute control that prevents panicipants from understanding more complex problems and corresponding solutions re­quired for true sustainability. This is obviously an unintended side-effect of linear greening efforts, which raises the unsolved problems to complicated and complex levels.

However, not all campus-based greening efforts are linear. The large variety of scenarios that draw students and faculty into greening efforts offers a glimpse of the complicated side of campus sustainability. For example, installing recyciing bins for sorting waste might not nec­essarily inspire people to change their habits of dumping all waste in the same garbage bin. To make this happen, universities might need to use media resources to �nnounce and monitor the initiative, educate the public about recycling practices, and promote recycling on their campuses. Analogous actions might be needed for reusing and reducing. It is obvious that greening policies are received by the campus community members with different levels of responsiveness, suggesting the need for a mOre complicated approach to sustainability, which will be discussed in the following sections.

Sustainability sciences: complicated business

Savelyeva and McKenna (20 11) described a second type of campus-based sustainability efforts as "sustainability sciences," with research being its main feature. The idea is that universities as research institutions "could and should develop much of the knowledge base for an ecolog­ICally enlightened society" (Mathisen 2006: 111). Campus-based sustainability sciences are complicated (in the taxonomy of CS) and they often transcend disciplinary boundaries. They

. m�lude either collaborative or single field research projects focused on s ustainability and sus­tamable development (Fig. 1), -

188 Tamara Savelyeva and Jae Park

Fig. 1: Sustainability research domains on HKU and Duke campuses

Biodiversity

Agriculture

Economic development

Forestry

Soil science

Energy and resource conServatio n

-

,

Note: The absence of linking lines among the concentric ovals illustrates the challenge of creating inIer- and trans-disciplinary connections.

The complicated nature of sustainability sciences on campuses is attributable to their broad range of disciplin.es, fields, and topics from the natural sciences to business and public policy. However, the mere presence of sustainabiiity-retated research in a university does not make that university sustainable. Existing research projects must be inventoried, and new studies must be launched in coordination without compromising the academic freedom of the faculty and research fellows. A university usually creates a separate research center to identify and monitor sustainability-related research studies, attract governmental and corporate sponsors, and house the new studies on sus­tainability-related topics.

Education for sustainability: a complex story

In contrast to the divergence of research-centered sustainabiUty sciences, several models of Education for Sustainability (EfS) converge in infusing sllstainability into a university's teaching and learning that are intended to engrave stable and lasting dispositions in students and academic staff (Savelyeva and McKenna 20 II). At Duke, sustainability-related courses are offered primarily in the Nicholas School of the Environment via its undergraduate, gradu­ate, and professional degrees and programs in biology, environmental sciences, and earth sciences. In its Faculty of Science and School of Biological Sciences HKU also offers majors, minors, and degree programs to undergraduate and graduate students with a focus on issues related to sustainability. Students can take eJectives on broader sustainability issues (climate change, social responsibility, sustainable building design) in the Faculties of Engineering. Ar­chitecture, Business and Economics, Law, and Social Sciences.

The most common ways of delivering EfS to faculty and staff are sustainable-practices training (for administrative staff) and "curricular greening" workshops (for faculty members). These initiatives at the curricular level are typically offered with the support of external grants, and the access to funding generally affects whether a university can offer such work­shops. All of these efforts to introduce EtS into teaching and learning, either through adding a

sustainability course to the roster or offering a training session to staff and faculty, contribute to the noble goal of capacity building aimed at a particular type of "global citizenship" (De­maine 2004; Pike 2008) by fostering concrete attitudes and values that witl produce "ecologi­cally sound" graduates, faculty and administrative staff.

The primary objective ofEtS is guided by several United Nations (UN) declarations and initi­atives, such as the ongoing 2005-2014 UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse 189

H owever, almost 40 years after these international declarations and signatories' commitments, EfS remains marginalized and delimited to a particular discipline on campus Of a lecture topic within a course. Creative, cross-curriculum, interdisciplinary ways of teaching are rather ex­ceptional due to the disciplinary compartmentalization within university systems themselves (Savelyeva 2012).

The perspective from complexity theory can contribute to a better understanding of the dy­namics of classroom relationships regarding sustainability. Taking cues from Miller and Page (2007) it could be argued that EfS should be seen as a "complex adaptive system" rather than simply an "adaptive system." First, multiple agents are involved namely, students, faculty, and administrative staff with various degrees of participation. Second, these agents are not isolated, but interdependent. This tenet has been marked as reflexivity by CS theorists. Third, there is di­versity among agents, yet each contributes to their organization with their uniqueness and dif­ferences, which provides cohesion in EfS (ref. Sargut and McGrath 2011). For example, stu­dents bring in new systemic properties (new agents, ideas, and problems) to every EfS course or training program. These properties are essential for "emergence" in a complex adaptive system, which typically makes "the whole more than the sum of parts." In EfS, such emergence happens during the process of teaching and learning, and they cannot be predicted. For example, an un­anticipated yet relevant issue could emerge during a class discussion that might lead to deeper understanding of sustainability. Second, any small difference, called "disturbance" (for exam­ple, diverse opinions about climate change within a group) gets amplified through the interac­tion between faculty and students. This amplification of minor differences holds the potential tor short- or longer-term changes in students' and faculties' perceptions of sustain ability.

Not all disturbances lead to a major shift in perception and understanding of sustainability, just like not every graduate of the university becomes a global eco-citizen with deeply rooted sustaina­bility ideals. This points to another complex property of the sustainability discourse: unpredicta­bility of outcomes. Accepting the non-linear character of outcomes ofEfS helps one to embrace the paradoxical nature of bi-directional relationships within educational processes and to view the lack of absolute control as nonnal. This acceptance helps ease the perception of personal or pedagogical failure associated with linear implementation sustainability practices. Recognizing and anticipating unpredictability is also a goal of producing a global eco-citizen more realisti­cally. As the focus on measurable outcomes of campus sustainability programs becomes less urgent and somewhat shocking, more attention can be paid to immediate interactions (student-

. faculty), available resources (existing courses), and defining relationships·(agents-nature).

Discussion and conclusion

The findings indicate that ecologism and sustainability discourses of two culturally and geo­graphically distant campuses show significant similarities in: • efforts to meet eeo-standards and rank highly in international ranking systems; • emph�sis on greening over EfS and sustainability research; • devotIOn of sustainability efforts to appear as an eco-compliant institution before the gen­

eral public; • mo�tly linear approach to ecologism and sustainability efforts; and • t�c:t assumption that complex intricacies of campus sustainability and issues of accounta-

blhty are not really accessible to the public. The findings draw

-a double dichotomy picture of campus sustainability: a dichotomy bet\veen camp�s sustaina

.bility discourse and the university's public image, and this in turn with an in­

ternatIOnal rankmg o� excellence in sustainability. This dichotomy is a result of the HE em-

190 Tamara Savelyeva and Iae Park

phasis on quick and visible sustainability image-building efforts that might be found in other campuses around the world. Although these are reassuring signs of sustainability implementa­tion efforts on campuses, whether university alumni will continue participating and growing as ecological citizens after their graduation is difficult to predict Nor is- it certain that academ­ic and non-academic staff will lead their off-campus lives conforming to their infonned sustai­nability ideals. The double dichotomy phenomenon makes sustainability discourse look identic­al to that found in universities of comparable rank. but the perceptions of tbose involved can be drastically different. HKU does have a reputation as a green university. However, this percep­tion is countered by a disastrous sustainability situation in the region. This implies that little progress has been made outside the HKU campus. By contrast, Duke enjoys a positive reputa­tion as a highly advanced sustainability-driven university that serves an ecologically con-cerned community. .

The bottom line is that campus sustainability efforts should render more stable habits and lifelong ideals among people in HE. Indeed, the main raison d'etre of the university as a so­cial institution is the fonnation of future citizens, who are expected to be ecologically in­formed and proactive. This imperative for nurturing a sense of ecological citizenship can be illustrated with an analogy borrowed from Ancient Greek philosophy "ensoulment". In short, ensoulment means the incorporation of a soul into a physical body of living beings.

In the context of sustainability discourse in HE, ensoulment can illustrate the need for higher level of acquired sustainability values, the "ecological sou]", for the HE public rather than a merely �echanistic and linear delivery of green knowledge, green rules and green in­itiatives. But ensoulment is not the same as simply knowing a set of sllstainability values. An ecological ensoulment also suggests a pedagogical aim in HE, that is, helping people to embo­dy those values with a finn intellectual commitment and lasting predisposition to sustainability actions. To achlcve this state of ecological ensoulment, diverse ways might be considered by HE educators and academics; fyom classical approaches of moral education scaffolding with a par­ticular focus on the virtue of justice (Kohlberg 1981) and character education (Lickon. 1992) to . the approach of dual inculcation of "deep ecology movement" and "deep ecology" (Drengson and Inoue 1995; Naess 1973). The real challenge for any of these approaches (0 ecological en­soulment lies beyond short-tenn and action-driven campus greening, in a categorically different type ofEfS through which ecological citizenship can shine forth from within. Finally, the idea of ensoulment supports a non�mechanistic research perspective, which takes into account'<the ob­vious richness and complexity of human .. ' life" (Johnson 1992: 56). A more conjunctive "and" instead of an «either/or" reasoning (Delorme 20 J 0), as well as multidisciplinary and across­discipline approaches to sustainabiHty research can offer better solutions to deeply ill·structured sustainability problems inside and outside the campus. Without ecological ensouiment, not only will ecological citizenship remain illusory or incomplete. but also a vast amount of invested resources, time, and effort to produce an ecologically sound public would not have been worthwhile.

The main lesson of this study is that both Duke and HKU face the task of campus sustaina­bility in similar ways with comparable greening standards and research orientations. The sus­tainability discourse as currently articulated and practiced at Duke and HKU, and possibly elsewhere in the global' HE system, appears to fall short of the ensoulment of ecological val­ues and sustainability ideals. Not without paradox for these educational institutions, EfS ap­pears as the weakest and most neglected among the three types of campus sustainability ef­forts (greening, EfS, and ,ustainability science), when it is absolutely essential for full mate­rialization of ensoulrnent of sustainability ideals and true ecological citizenship. Perhaps fur­ther theoretical and practical developments that take into account the reordered priorities sug­gested in this paper could open new pathways to success.

-.,

Complexity of Campus Sustainability Discourse 191

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