Striking for climate change doesn’t make you smart
Universities have an obligation to provide intellectual development to students. So why then are resources diverted to chasing leftist brownie points by encouraging students to protest climate change, writes Cronan Yu.
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For some at the University of Notre Dame, today’s climate strike is a reasonable step in order to force action against so-called man-made climate change.
But others see the university’s support for the strike as bowing to partisan political ideology.
One week ago, an email was sent from Sydney Campus Life — a joint staff-student initiative — to all Notre Dame students.
In it, students were encouraged to take a stand “in the midst of a climate emergency” with “strong support from University administration”.
The email further claimed there is overwhelming support on campus for the strike, which might very well be true if one were to believe that a sample of 300 students comprehensively represents the opinions of 5,000+.
Following The Daily Telegraph’s report on that email, the university’s vice chancellor moved to quash suggestions of strike support
Instead, an emphasis was placed on an agreement that students would not be penalised for skipping class and then extensions for assessments would be granted for students thinking of attending the strike.
So, though not formally supporting the strike, the university backed it by incentivising students to attend. It’s irresponsible either way.
Deeper issues are at play. My complaint is an expression of genuine concern over the uni’s direction.
The University of Notre Dame explicitly sets out its commitment towards the “provision of university education, within a context of Catholic faith and values”.
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What sets our university apart from others is that it is grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition. It exists primarily for the pursuit of universal truth and the formation of the individual person vocationally, intellectually and spiritually.
There’s a sense that, with this and other events, the Notre Dame administrators have abandoned this unique aim. Instead of the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness, energy and resources are diverted towards flimsy cultural fashions and cheap social justice brownie points.
That email incentivising students to skip class and hand in assignments late with no negative consequences is testament to that.
Incidentally, Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith recently wrote that higher education institutions are “drowning in BS”. His solution: a return to “visionary traditionalism”, that is, a commitment to objective truth and the liberal arts.
That universities have a moral obligation to adequately form the intellectual and spiritual needs is obvious enough. What isn’t so obvious is the realisation that as part of the body politic, individual actions have consequences for the collective as well.
RELATED OPINION: What are we teaching in our schools?
If climate change is the single greatest issue of our time, as we are lead to believe, then surely it isn’t enough for only governments and big corporations to take action.
An obligation also rests upon individuals to change their own habits.
They don’t. Students engrossed in woke leftist ideology call on governments to act while they themselves give up nothing at all.
Politics and journalism student Cronan Yu is currently secretary of the Student Association of the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney