Executive / Administration / Management
“What kind of a world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (LS 160)
School leadership plays a key role in shaping school’s action on the environment. Major decisions around ecology often start or stop at this level of administration. We include in school leadership executive staff such as presidents, academic roles such as principals, and the collective leadership of teachers and other staff. As leaders, we share the responsibility to form ecological awareness across the school’s campus, community, culture, and curriculum and to collaborate with different parts of the local and global community.
Reflection
- How does our school leadership shape the culture of caring for our common home among students, faculty, staff, and alumni?
- Where is the promotion of the common good and the care for the environment embedded throughout the school, including in the architecture, curriculum, landscape, and other basic assumptions?
- How can we, as school leadership, better collaborate with school community leaders who have committed themselves for caring of our Common home?
Action
- Organize retreats, seminars, or workshops which promote an ecological Examen, leading to environmental conversion of heart of the school’s distributed leadership. Use resources such as Laudato Si’, Fratelli Tutti, and A Living Tradition.
- Organize environmental campaigns such as tree planting, conservation of resources, appropriate waste management, or events discouraging the “throw away culture” eschewed by Laudato Si’.
- • Conduct periodic audit of curriculum to identify areas in which school curriculum could deepen the promotion of environmental justice. Redesign curriculum using resources such as the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
