ABSTRACT
Growing numbers of faculty across a wide variety of institutions recognize this call to teach more gently, urgently—and contemplatively. Increasingly, it becomes apparent that student's generations are asked to live at one of those great "hinge points" in history, as cultures are being profoundly disturbed and reordered by environmental and social realities and the unprecedented challenges they spawn. It is arguable that among these challenges, climate change and environmental degradation are primary, because human life is fundamentally contingent on the viability of sustaining a healthy enough planetary environment. Good educators know that the art of teaching requires perceiving the ways in which students are making meaning in order to join them effectively in their ongoing learning. Some aspects of human development are biologically determined, and students typically move through their unfolding, "ready or not". Emerging adulthood has become a distinct era in the life span with its own tasks, potentials, and vulnerabilities.
