From Anxiety to Action

Student concerns about an unsustainable future call for action by higher education—and SHU is positioned to respond.

From the fall 2025 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine

Key Highlights

• Eco-anxiety is a response to real global challenges—climate disruption, resource depletion, pollution, inequality, poverty and conflict
• Addressing underlying issues, not merely the anxiety they create, must be the priority
• To better understand youth perspectives, SHU faculty and partners conducted two national polls of U.S. youth (ages 15–29) in 2024 and 2025
• Real problems require real institutional and societal responses

By Kirk A. Bartholomew

A little over two years ago, a student wrote to me describing her despair and disillusionment. Despite pouring her time, energy, heart and money into an admirable campus environmental project, she felt deeply discouraged about what would happen after she left campus. Her worry was not only that the project would wither without her, but also that her efforts and the values underpinning them were neither heard nor valued by the larger Sacred Heart University community.

The letter moved me. I now recognize the feelings she described as an example of “eco-anxiety distress prevalent among young people about the future of the planet and concern that urgent action isn’t happening quickly enough. Since then, I have worked to foster change at SHU to ensure that students do not feel compelled to send pleas for help like this to their faculty and mentors.

Eco-Anxiety is not the Problem

Like the eco-anxiety reported by a significant majority of American youth, the student’s concerns in her letter are a symptom of a deeper issue: the unsustainable path we face. Human society faces challenges that demand serious reflection on our long-term future—overuse of natural resources, pollution from plastics and forever chemicals, climate disruption, degraded farmland, inequity, poverty, hunger and war.

One way I helped address the problem of unsustainability was to lead a University-wide discussion about the meaning of “sustainability” and how it relates to our mission as a Catholic university committed to Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si', that calls for an “ecological conversion” to address human-driven climate change and overconsumption of Earth’s resources. One activity carried out through a new initiative at SHU, now embedded in the Laudato Si’ Office of Sustainability & Social Justice, was to intentionally reach out to young people across the United States to hear, understand and amplify their desires for a sustainable future—and, in particular, determine what role higher education institutions like Sacred Heart could play.

My faculty colleagues, Todd Matthews and Marylena Mantas-Kourounis, joined me along with sustainability expert Brooke Suter and Seamus McNamee of GreatBlue Research on two national polls of U.S. youth ages 15 to 29 in 2024 and 2025. We wanted to know directly from them what they thought, what they wanted and what support they needed. We deliberately designed the survey to move beyond young people’s basic concerns, adding questions about trust, self-censorship and the skills required to address issues of sustainability and social justice.

The results broadened our understanding. Alongside climate worries, we found widespread unease about the future. More than half of those surveyed said they self-censor when discussing sustainability and social justice out of fear of judgment—yet 80% said safe, open communities for these conversations are essential.

In other words, they care deeply and want to talk about and contribute to solving these issues, but do not feel safe doing so. This reflected the tension in my student’s letter: deep commitment paired with discouragement about not being acknowledged or heard.

Concern and Anxiety

Large majorities of poll respondents agreed across partisan divides. On issues of sustainability—from climate change to education, health, clean water and clean energy—U.S. youths agree that action is needed. More than seven in 10 U.S. youths ranked all 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as at least “somewhat important” regardless of race, gender, age, political identity or party affiliation. They may be divided over how to act, but they are not divided in their concern.

However, concern doesn’t always translate into confidence. While seven in 10 at least somewhat agreed that they feel responsible for acting on sustainability and social justice, fewer than one in three strongly agreed that they are confident in how to do so. This gap may help explain the high levels of eco-anxiety—nearly two in three (63%) youths somewhat agreed with the statement: “My level of concern for climate change causes psychological distress that impacts my daily life.”

Higher Education's Role

The ages of our respondents, encompassing those typically before, during and after college, should directly inform higher education leaders. From these results, it is clear that young people expect a response. Approximately three in four said colleges and universities should teach about sustainability and social justice (75%) and also teach the skills to act (74%). Such skills include those described by the Inner Development Goals project—capacities like resilience, empathy and critical thinking that help students stay engaged even when challenges feel overwhelming. Just as important, they told us that campuses must foster safe spaces for dialogue where students feel free to voice their concerns and ideas.

At Sacred Heart, we have started to weave sustainability and social justice into core areas of the curriculum. The First-Year Writing Seminar (FYWS) now features sustainability as a unifying theme, and FYWS course coordinator Amie Reilly and I recently received a $200,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation to expand and refine this work. The Laudato Si’ Initiative, led by Chelsea King and Kathy Katts, has reinvigorated our recycling efforts and expanded nature trails and reflective areas for our community to build the inner capacities required for this work.

These are just the latest efforts in a long history of pursuing a sustainable future that began with SHU community members before I arrived and will continue now that I am retiring—this type of work is at the core of the University mission that “embraces a vision for social justice and educates students in mind, body and spirit to prepare them personally and professionally to make a difference in the global community.”

Eco-anxiety is real. But higher education institutions like Sacred Heart are beginning to turn that worry into purpose, equipping young people not only with knowledge, but with the confidence and skills to effect change now. I am excited to see the many ways the Sacred Heart community will continue to do the hard work required to keep moving this essential work forward.