Composting the University

Abstract

This conceptual article invites higher education faculty to respond to the global polycrisis in ways that honour our relational responsibilities to current and coming generations of all species. It reviews three genres of hope about the future of higher education – hope in continuity, hope in consensual change, and hope in composting – and invites a deeper inquiry into the possibilities of the latter. The metaphor of composting highlights the need to let go of harmful illusions of separability and human exceptionalism and encourages faculty to lean into a humbler, less sanitized, and more accountable relationship with the living Earth that we are part of. To illustrate one possible approach to hope as composting in higher education, I draw inspiration from the increasingly popular campus as a living laboratory model and ask how we might relate to our campus as a metabolic co-laboratory. I also encourage faculty to reconsider their roles and responsibilities in response to potential questions from various communities.