“I’m hopeful about the approaches that people are suggesting that go beyond collaboration to sharing diverse perspectives on how we can create a groundswell of changes on multiple levels—individual, community, national, global." The urgency Stinson feels is taking hold across PSU, as the University’s longstanding commitment to the climate enters a new, more pressing phase. In one sense, PSU has been taking action on climate issues for years. Many of Oregon’s environmental problem solvers got their starts here (see “Green Roots” on p. 27); questions of how to make our society sustainable have long been woven into teaching, research and operations, spurred on by a $25 million challenge grant from the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation in 2008; and campus itself has made great strides toward easing its impact on the planet (see “The Living Laboratory” on p. 22). But now, as Stinson’s experience reflects, something different is brewing. Extreme weather events, driven or exacerbated by rising global temperatures, are hitting the Northwest with greater frequency, from massive wildfires to deadly, record-breaking heat waves, like the one that saw Portland reach 116 degrees last summer—hotter even than cities like Dallas, Texas, or Orlando, Florida, have ever been. “Climate change has gone from something in the future to something that’s happening right now,” says Jennifer Allen, environmental and natural resource policy faculty. “This is a focusing moment.” At the beginning of this school year, President Stephen Percy called for a renewed university-wide focus on climate change. And as students and campus leaders grapple with how to translate the urgency into action, a theme is emerging: The need for new, transformative connections—between PSU and communities outside of campus, especially those that have been harmed and shut out of decisions for generations; among researchers across PSU’s many schools and colleges; and between students and the knowledge they need to live in and sustain a warming world. CONNECTING WITH COMMUNITIES Even at an urban university with a mission to serve the city, the tendency is to first come up with the brilliant ideas, and then spread them beyond the campus. “If we fly in and do our own thing, we are narrowing our potential from the beginning,” says Fletcher Beaudoin, director of PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions. “When we flip that script and start with what the community needs, I think we can actually be more significant partners in change.” An example of flipping the script is the Institute’s partnership with the city of Portland, Beaudoin says.Through years of projects with city officials and hearing their concerns, researchers learned that separate bureaus—each responsible for different infrastructure, from roads to sewer pipes to bridges—needed to build capacity for a coordinated response after a severe flood, landslide or earthquake. Each bureau manages assets that the others rely on. For example, to restore safe drinking water, the water bureau needs the transportation bureau to keep roads passable, so workers can reach and repair critical pump and pipe networks. If bureaus could plan how to respond together after a disaster, residents might face less time without basic services, making recovery quicker. To tackle this issue, faculty, staff and students designed workshops with city officials to help them develop tools and strategies to make coordination easier—and ultimately, to make Portland more resilient. Instead of PSU sweeping in to tell officials which climate-related problems they should address, “We really tried to be responsive to this foundational challenge they faced around collaboration and coordination across bureaus.Then, as a university, we came in with research and student engagement to respond to that core challenge,” Beaudoin says. Another way PSU is connecting with communities is through research that helps to reveal why some face greater climate-related harms than others. For example, research by Vivek Shandas helps illuminate how discriminatory policies of the past put low-income, Black and Latino communities at increased risk from climate change impacts today. What gives you HOPE? “There is nothing more inspiring and hope-inducing than our students. Period, full stop.... Students bring much more bold and progressive insights to this work. And that makes me feel like we aren’t so stalled or stuck in the old or slowly incremental ways of doing things.” —Jola Ajibade, assistant professor of geography “Climate change has gone from something in the future to something that ’s happening right now.” —Jenny McNamara, Campus Sustainability Director 20 // PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE
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