Communication studies professor balances teaching,
environmental advocacy

In a classroom in Wilson Library, Robert Cox pauses to update his class about the sudden disintegration of a massive Antarctic ice shelf.

Robert Cox, communication studies professor,  has had a long-standing devotion to environmental causes. He is president of the Sierra Club board of directors. His term ends this month.

Raising his eyebrows, he gestures animatedly in front of satellite images depicting a slab of ice the size of Connecticut crumbling into the ocean.

With passion in his voice, he adopts a preacher- like rhythm that suggests that some of his words are italicized: “The physics of it are so uncertain and unstudied that we cannot model how quickly this will break down.” He is referring to scientists’ projections about how global warming will affect the rest of the ice.

Cox has good reason to be passionate about the collapse of Antarctic ice. In addition to teaching a course about global warming in the communication studies department, he is president of the board of directors of the Sierra Club.

The San Francisco-based Sierra Club is a national environmental organization that claims more than 1.3 million members and supporters. The naturalist John Muir founded the organization in 1892, and its members have worked to preserve wilderness and to protect national parks. 

In 2005, Sierra Club members decided to expand the organization’s traditional mission to make fighting global warming a top priority.

Cox said that under his leadership, the club was pressuring the U.S. Congress to enact regulations that would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 percent by 2050. Climate scientists have warned that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are rapidly approaching a tipping point after which dangerous climate destabilization will be inevitable.

Cox’s work with the club, for which he declined compensation, requires frequent travel and up to 60 hours of work each week, he said. “There have been quite a few late or all-nights.”

Cox’s longtime partner, Julia Wood, Lineberger Professor of Humanities, said his devotion to environmental causes is rooted in the mountains of West Virginia where he was born. There, he witnessed the destructive effects of coal mining on the environment and on the health of miners.

“He grew up in an economically poor but environmentally rich area,” Wood said.

During the 1960s, Cox participated in the civil rights movement, where he began observing the communication techniques of social movements.

His appointment as an instructor at Carolina in 1971 came just nine months after the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. That year’s demonstrations were the largest public protests in U.S. history, drawing more than 20 million Americans. 

Cox credits the rise of the environmental movement with his desire to join the Sierra Club.

“Earth Day commanded so much attention at the dawn of the 1970s that it was only natural for me to turn my attention to the environment,” he said.

After working with local and state chapters of the group for more than a decade, Cox came to the attention of national Sierra Club leaders. They encouraged him to run for the national board of directors, and in 1994 he was first elected president of the board. Cox also served as president in 2000–01, and he was elected to his current term in May 2007. 

But he admits that balancing his roles as professor and national leader is not always easy. 

Cox has reduced his teaching load to one course each semester and must still cancel some classes to attend Sierra Club meetings. Even so, his work with public policy and the environment helps him demystify the workings of government for students.

“That inside experience has allowed me to see that the environment really is a crucible for democracy where people can really make a difference,” he said.

And students seem to feel that the benefits of learning about the environmental movement firsthand outweigh the drawbacks of an occasional canceled class.

Patricia Phillips-Ayers, a staff member in the School of Education and a student in the global-warming class, describes Cox’s personal experience with environmental activism as inspirational.  

“Dr. Cox is very informed,” she said. “You cannot sit there and listen to his lecture … and not want to go out and do something.”

Bill Balthrop, professor of communication studies who has known Cox for more than 30 years, describes Cox as an intense and gifted teacher.

“He is really passionate about what he teaches,” Balthrop said. “He’s one of those people who is able to put all those pieces together and do it really well.”

Cox’s current term as Sierra Club president will end this month, but his fight against global warming will continue. At the end of a class lecture, he paused, as if to let the urgency and complexity of global warming sink in. Then he said: “I want to dedicate the time I have left … to this issue.”

Editor’s note: This article was contributed by Sara Peach, a master’s student from Durham in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.