ASU PRESIDENT MICHAEL CROW: “Sustainability is a core value.”

President of Arizona State University and Co-Chair of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, Michael Crow called on his peers to accelerate their campuses’ efforts toward reducing greenhouse gases. President Crow spoke in Chicago to over 250 representatives of 650 universities and colleges at their annual meeting August 13, 2009.

“We need to teach sustainability as a core value,” Crow told his audience of leaders in higher education from around the country. “We need to teach it right along with justice, and liberty and freedom.” While acknowledging the ACCUPCC members have made great strides on their campuses in two short years, Crow, said the changes “are not happening fast enough to match the speed and severity of climate disruption.”

Crow commended the university and college leaders for their political risk in “taking on an issue for the first time.” He also gave them credit for effective collaboration and networking among all the 650 university, college, and community colleges that have signed on to the Climate Commitment.

In congratulating the leaders of higher education in the audience,” President Crow said, “We are stepping up.”