ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a framework – consisting of three axes – by which potential ideas of the ecological university could be placed. Thinking and fearlessness accompany each other in the ecological university. Sustainability denotes a concern that the environment has been or may be weakened in some way, and is oriented towards restoring the environment. Ecology has no difficulty with these sentiments per se, but it is a richer concept. The ecological university is oriented towards the totality of the Earth's ecosystems, and especially the seven ecological zones picked out here. Fearlessness is absolutely necessary for any serious understanding of the ecological university. In the culture of modernity, fearlessness all too often implies a readiness to speak out, and to be declarative in promoting one's self. The ecological university is and has to be a thinking university. The ecological university orchestrates its capacities for self-reflection and self-scrutiny.
