Haverford College’s new Michael B. Kim Institute for Ethical Inquiry and Leadership (KIEIL) hosted its inaugural event in Marshall Auditorium when marine biologist and policy expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson visited the college to discuss her book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures with the school community.
The event, held on September 30 in collaboration with the fourth annual Campus Read program, was headlined by Johnson and featured opening and closing remarks from Haverford President Wendy Raymond, Dean John McKnight, and co-director of the Kim Institute Professor Jill Staufer. The conversation with Johnson was moderated by Provost Helen White and Associate Professor and Chair of Environmental Studies Joshua Moses, but questions were later opened up to an attending audience consisting of students, faculty, and other Haverford community members.
Campus Read is a Customs and community-wide program that selects a book each school year to be read over during the summer by new students. This year, the program was co-planned with the new Kim Institute to align with their inaugural year-long theme of “heat”, created to encourage campus-wide discussion on climate change. The Institute is development which came out of “Haverford 2030,” the school’s strategic plan, and will explore a new theme every year to prompt meaningful discussions and ethical questions in the school community.
After opening remarks, Johnson read excerpts from the closing chapter of her book “A Note on Hope”, and then responded to questions from both the moderators and the audience concerning topics discussed in What If We Get It Right?. The book, consisting of a series of interviews, artwork, and creative pieces, as well as personal reflections from the author herself, explores visions of a sustainable future and discusses climate actions in an array of different fields, from policymaking, to farming practices, to investment opportunities.
“Some of [the book] was really uplifting…it prompted me to do a lot of research,” attendee Parker Brown ‘29 reflected. “But especially as someone who wants to be a teacher, who wants to have children, who really wants to be a part of the future generation, it’s really sad to see that not just my lifetime, but their lifetimes are gonna be very difficult.”
Johnson, in her book and in her words shared with the community, was clear in her doubts about giving people too much hope in terms of thinking about the climate. “I don’t even like the word [hope]. It seems so passive, like wishful thinking…and that vibe certainly isn’t going to get us anywhere,” she read from her passages in “A Note On Hope”. However, she noted that the state of the world is not a reason to give up. “I am overflowing with motivation to work toward a better world,” she added during the event.
Questions directed at Johnson during the hour-long event ranged from political themes–such as how war impacts the environment–to personal reflections on identity and the importance of intersectionality in environmental justice.
Though Campus Read is a Customs-oriented program, this event has been the only one so far in the school year that has discussed the book at length. Customs Week, which took place prior to the start of the academic quarter, did not include discussions on the book at all.
“I wish that we discussed [the book] more in Customs…I would’ve liked to know what my fellow classmates thought about it,” Brown said, adding that there were many of interesting themes in the book that she would have liked to discuss more at length with her peers.
Though the book wasn’t discussed during Customs, Aspen Mulick ‘27 enjoyed Johnson’s visit, saying, “It was really nice to have a prominent author talking to us seriously about [climate change]. I feel like in this day and age it keeps getting swept under the rug…we need to still have a vision of the future where, instead of sweeping it under the rug, we fix things, even if that is an incredibly difficult thing to do.”
CORRECTION: Previously, Dr. Johnson’s name was mispelled. The Bi-College News apologizes for this error and has since rectified it.
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