Uplifting Student Voices in Dartmouth's Climate Education Roadmap
- rachelskent
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
This piece is a personal reflection from Ben Stevenson ‘27, a sustainability intern and student advocate for strong climate action at Dartmouth and beyond.
The climate crisis has arrived. From the wildfires incinerating neighborhoods in Los Angeles, to Hurricane Helene’s devastation of the Southeastern U.S., to summer floods displacing Vermonters near Dartmouth's Upper Valley campus, extreme weather events are harming communities across the country.
Institutions of higher learning have an opportunity to cultivate a generation of leaders who can address the climate crisis with thoughtfulness and impact. This College’s mission reads: “Dartmouth educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership.” Dartmouth’s Climate Futures Initiative student engagement process reveals how we can live up to this exciting vision.
The Climate Futures Initiative (CFI), led by Special Advisor to the Provost on Climate and Sustainability and Professor of Anthropology Laura Ogden, was a one-year effort to “map out a vision for the future of climate teaching and scholarship at Dartmouth.” Excited by the prospect of such a concerted institutional commitment to mainstreaming climate and sustainability in Dartmouth’s curriculum and research, I reached out to Professor Ogden to advocate for the meaningful inclusion of student voices in CFI. Our conversation led to my Sustainability internship during the fall term of 2024, in which I coordinated student engagement with CFI. Through my internship, I organized a student workshop, an interactive exhibit in Berry Library, a survey, and a student advisory council of seven students from across campus, each of whom conducted two hours of fieldwork in their own communities. CFI’s prioritization of student perspectives felt innovative—higher education rarely allows student voices to shape curriculum—and proved valuable for students and Dartmouth.
Below, I share two key takeaways and four specific recommendations synthesized across students’ feedback. Let us look to CFI as a blueprint from which we can build a Dartmouth that shines as a beacon of climate learning, hope, and action.
Takeaway 1: Student voices have the potential to fundamentally shape Dartmouth’s academic priorities.
Dartmouth students consistently came ready with passionate and inspiring visions about the future of climate education. During a student brainstorming workshop, a sense of possibility and hope hung in the air. Over fresh samosas, we mapped sticky notes of ideas onto dozens of whiteboards. The Initiative collaborated with Dartmouth Libraries to build a centrally located tactile display. Hundreds of students walked by hourly, and many stopped to comment on CFI’s emerging ideas or share one of their own. Our survey provided space for students to reflect and dream big before ranking CFI proposals. We received dozens of imaginative responses from majors across disciplines. These methods encouraged students to act as active designers, instead of passive recipients, of their own education.
It felt momentous for students to shape the future of climate education. Students suggested including a fund for student-led climate research and activism; expanding action-oriented learning, like climate study abroad programs; hiring professors who study climate in Math, Computer Science, Economics, and Government; and developing guidance for climate careers. If Dartmouth acts on the scale of the climate crisis demands, its response will touch every part of the school—and the creativity and empowerment fostered by meaningful inclusion of student voices will echo across the College.
Takeaway 2: CFI’s engagement of students offers a promising model for other institutional decision-making processes.
Students comprise a key group of stakeholders in every university. But our voices are typically left out of strategic planning processes. CFI charted a different course by bringing students directly into the middle of the planning process, when things were still messy and in progress—rather than simply consulting a few token students after finalizing all major decisions. One of the central tenets of CFI was creating climate citizens: students who are prepared to navigate an uncertain and changing climate future. We must ask students, many of whom graduate to become leaders in their fields, what tools they may need to confidently leave Dartmouth.
To ensure buy-in, Dartmouth should fund classes and programs which reflect student needs. Genuinely engaging student voices through participatory processes can help college leaders understand what those needs are. Walking the walk is the best way for Dartmouth to demonstrate a genuine commitment to transformative climate research and education—and to serving students as a whole.
Four core recommendations emerged from CFI's student feedback. Here's how Dartmouth can build off its strengths and learn from its peer institutions to make students’ exciting visions a reality:
1. Experiential Learning.
“The Sustainability Office's trip to Iceland and the Environmental Studies study abroad in Namibia have by far been the most important for me because they've connected me with both local and global issues in a way that extends beyond the classroom. I've had to confront complex realities that have really shaped the way that I think, and I don't think you can fully get that from a reading or a lecture.” – ‘25
Picture short study abroad courses during Winterim which take students to study Indigenous ecologies and advocacy in New Zealand, environmental justice in Los Angeles, or geopolitics and glacial engineering in the Arctic Circle. These classes would combine the action-oriented nature of Sustainability Office Immersion Trips with the academic rigor of the existing +1 programs like the Jewish Studies and Asian Societies, Culture, and Languages Departments’ Fall Term+ programs. Expanding courses where students can learn from and impact climate work on campus and in the Upper Valley would introduce students to the power of local leadership. Existing options, including the Energy Justice Clinic and the Earth Sciences’ Community Partnerships for Climate Resilience class are very popular with students and already oversubscribed.
2. Courses and programs which develop students’ ability to analyze and intervene in the power structures driving climate change.
“[I want to see] classes about political and social engagement [and] how to best exert your political voice. Making climate a can-do thing instead of a big thing that no one wants to even approach is very important.” – ‘25
Imagine a flourishing series of workshops—building on the Irving Institute’s current bootcamps on Electricity Grids & Markets and Clean Energy Finance—which attract climate leaders to campus. Students could explore climate litigation under the guidance of experts from the Vermont Law and Graduate School and delve into tribal climate action and resilience with insightful alumni.
Picture courses—as Notre Dame Professor Arun Agrawal demonstrated in his lecture at Dartmouth last Fall—which instill the art of citizenship by teaching students to act on the issues they study. Although Government and Economics are two of Dartmouth’s largest departments, students seek more opportunities to study climate from a political and economic perspective. The Government Department could teach about the successes and failures of recent climate policy, while the Economics Department could introduce students to a circular economy and climate risk.
3. Funding for student-led projects and conferences.
“Students who are really committed to these issues have a lot of insight.” – ‘27
Dartmouth could follow the lead of Middlebury College and establish a fund for students who want to attend climate week in New York City, shoot a short film documenting flooding in the Upper Valley, or solarize their Living Learning Community. Personally, participating in the Beyond Bretton Woods Convergence has connected me with mentors who have helped me explore how climate change intersects with the global economy; Tennessee Representative Justin Pearson's speech at the 2024 Yale Environmental Joy Conference inspired me to write this very piece. These experiences are transformative, but they can be hard to find and expensive to attend without financial support. Dartmouth should help students overcome these barriers.
4. Support for career paths which advance climate action and environmental justice.
“Career support is incredibly important because like it or not, that is on a lot of students' minds, and when resources or role models (i.e. alums) are lacking it's hard to imagine alternative pathways, and people end up gravitating to the same few career paths.” – ‘25
Imagine a climate fellowship modeled off the Rockefeller Center’s First Year program which connects students to alumni mentors and empowers them to have impactful off-terms. Students could cover the climate crisis at leading news outlets, craft groundbreaking climate models, and collaborate with frontline communities to accelerate a just transition from fossil fuels.
The Climate Futures Initiative teaches that all of us benefit when colleges and universities uplift student voices. And Dartmouth and other schools must do more. The College would benefit from really taking into account student voices calling for curricular change, from action-oriented climate education to founding an Asian American Studies Department. A replication of the CFI’s in-depth student engagement for other decisions is a fantastic place to start.
Students: We are the leaders we have been waiting for. Next time an issue you care about comes under consideration, take it as a leadership opportunity. Collaborate with classmates and faculty to call for meaningful incorporation of student voices. If we don’t advocate for ourselves, who will?
Professors: We look to you for education about important decisions. Please ask us if and how we would like to be involved. Champion our voices when we speak up.
Administrators: Students have so much to contribute. Trust students to run targeted or campus-wide engagement; we are in the best position to talk to our own communities. This may require slowing down planning processes—real feedback and imagination take time. It’s great to include one or two students on a committee, but we can do so much more.
The climate crisis demands nothing less than higher education’s full commitment to developing a generation of climate justice leaders. I sincerely hope that Dartmouth will listen to the student priorities outlined by CFI when allocating funding. Innovative changes at Dartmouth can further empower our generation to build the more just, sustainable world we need.
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