Michael Crow

The first step to solving a problem is understanding it. And Michael Crow, as president of Arizona State University (ASU), is making strides when it comes to educating America’s future change-makers. Nearly two decades ago, under his tenure, ASU launched the school of sustainability. Fast forward to this year: all incoming students must take a sustainability course. The year 2024 has, indeed, been a notable one. In January, ASU received $15 million from the National Science Foundation to lead a research hub in collaboration with industry and local community to develop regional solutions to tackle carbon capture, water security, and renewable energy. The school also launched an innovative land-based coral research and propagation facility in Hawaii in April—the largest coral nursery of its kind—with the aim of restoring 120 miles of reefs off the Big Island.

What’s one sustainability effort you personally will try to adopt in the next year, and why?

My primary focus is always what Arizona State University (ASU) can do, so I consider it a personal and professional endeavor that we designed, developed, and are deploying a new sustainability curriculum for all of our 181,000 students, plus a version specifically for our staff. This fall ASU became the first university to require all newly admitted students, regardless of their major, to take a sustainability course as part of the general studies curriculum. This approach will better reflect the interdisciplinary knowledge all students need to be successful in a rapidly evolving world. It furthers the commitment we made in 2006 when we became the first U.S. institution to open a School of Sustainability.  

What is a climate solution (other than your own) that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?

Education is one of the roots of solving the multiple crises we face. We must educate young people on the importance and interconnectedness of climate change and sustainability, giving them the knowledge, tools, and, most importantly, the agency to do their part to put the earth on a better track. 

And by young people, I mean climate education should begin at the earliest grades, integrated into curriculum and outside activities, and amplified through secondary and post-secondary education. In this way, they will learn early that climate and sustainability are central to any career and life path. This is crucial across all education systems around the world, but colleges and universities must step up and take the lead. We need to enable the next generations to think about the actual issues of how the planet works, our role on the planet, and the sustainability of our relationship with the planet.

If you could stand up and talk to world leaders at the next U.N. climate conference, what would you say?

The world’s universities are an exceptional, singularly powerful source of knowledge, innovation and action to guide us to a better world position. But governments, companies, NGOs, and foundations tend to look at universities through very narrow lenses. They fail to fully understand what universities can bring to the table, so opportunities are missed.  

To universities, we must do away with the traditional models we’ve had since the Middle Ages that set boundaries between disciplines—between, say, chemistry and geology. Those boundaries prevent different subjects from being considered together in looking at climate models. Instead, we must work toward new, integrated ways of thinking about these really complicated things. If we don't figure out how to do that, we're just blindly hurtling into sustainability and climate change issues thinking we know what's going on—when in fact, we don't because our knowledge is too siloed and too segmented.

*Disclosure: Donors to Arizona State University include TIME co-chairs and owners Marc and Lynne Benioff.