2024 has been an exceptional year thus far for disaster events. Fires in Argentina and Peru; earthquakes in Japan and California; volcanic eruptions in Italy and Iceland; typhoons in Myanmar and Thailand; and most recently flooding in the mountainous regions of Nepal and North Carolina.
It’s also been a record year for crises among institutions of higher education in the United States. Penn State at New Kensington, St. Cloud State, University of New Orleans, Cleveland State, West Virginia University, and our own Western Illinois University have all seen drastic reductions in faculty and staff.
I can hear you out there, asking “What in the world do environmental disasters and faculty and staff layoffs have to do with each other?” To me the answer is clear. They are both what disaster researchers call cascading disaster events, meaning that one disaster may precipitate another, either by directly causing it, or by severely impairing the resilience and response of those involved. Death by a thousand cuts, is another way of putting it. The other major variable is human decision making and policy implementation.
In a nutshell, both types of disaster events are driven by human actions or, more specifically, the failure to act.
Let’s look at the flooding in southern states like North Carolina where I have both friends and family. Asheville, is nearly three hundred miles from the nearest coastline with an elevation of 2,134 feet above sea level. Yet Hurricane Helene caused monumental damage in this region. This is an example of a cascading event. Human failure to address climate change has resulted in the Caribbean being abnormally warm – 85 degrees Fahrenheit, which is like bath water. A story by NPR on September 27, 2024 reported that, abnormally warm ocean water also causes storms like Helene to suck up huge amounts of moisture as they move toward land. That moisture then falls as rain. Helene dropped more rain than she would have without human-caused climate change. The climate is warming and yet we fail collectively to take action to mitigate this turning point.
The crisis facing many institutions of higher education is eerily similar in my opinion. A combination of human failure to address a multitude of threats to the stability of higher education seems to be resulting in death by a thousand cuts for many institutions. Some of those variables include the demographic decline of traditional college age students, lack of state support for public institutions, waning confidence in the worth of higher education, and poor leadership.
According to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, “during the budget impasse, universities and community colleges received just 30% of Fiscal Year 2015 funding in Fiscal Year 2016, a cut of $1.2 billion…As state appropriations for institutions declined, tuition increased. In FY 2002, state funds on average covered 72% of public university costs vs. 28% from tuition and fees. In FY 2020, the situation flipped, with the state covering 35.6% vs. 64.4% from tuition and fees.”
While federal COVID-19 funding helped colleges withstand some of the worst financial challenges associated with the pandemic, some institutions are now facing systemic problems that had been ignored for decades. In some cases, many of these problems have worsened to the point of no return.
In order to address these now unavoidable problems, institutions like WIU joined “a long list of universities to make cuts to staff, faculty and programs in recent months amid enrollment woes.”
Are those communities affected by climate induced disasters going to look like they did before the disaster events? Absolutely not. Will WIU and Columbia College Chicago look like they did in the 1980s and 1990s? Highly unlikely. But what we can do is work together to solve these complex problems. It means building teams of diverse stakeholders. We must have transparent and honest conversations about what’s at risk. Collaboratively we need to establish methods for reducing unacceptable hazards. We must make a realistic plan weighing the resources and work together on a path forward.
I think Mike Krzyzewski, legendary coach from Duke University said it best in The Bear, “In order to get better, we must change limits. Learn how to be on a team. Surround yourself with good people. And learn how to listen.”
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad is a Professor of Anthropology at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on collaborative action for sustainability.
The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the university or Tri States Public Radio.
Diverse viewpoints are welcomed and encouraged.