Higher education and sustainability at the unam centenary

Abstract

Currently, the University is located in a particularly vulnerable economic, political and social context due to recurrent economic crises in the country, which combine in a perverse way with environmental degradation, pollution of water, air and soil, the decline and loss of biodiversity, and a new world wide threat due to global warming and its impact on climate. Faced with this situation, the concern for the environment has been recognized as a new social paradigm. The importance for the University to train professionals as a part of its teaching, research and cultural activities, places this institution as an strategic value to the sustainable development of societies; however, there has been a delay by unam in the institutional response to the challenge of incorporating the environmental dimension to all its substantive functions, situation that is discussed in this article.