SU Sustainability Ambassador

Photo by Anthony Garcia

SITE: Office of Sustainability

During my first semester at Southwestern, I joined the Sustainability Ambassador Association. Our goals on campus were to reduce the amount of paper printed on campus, inform students about local wildlife, and spread helpful information on how students could perform sustainable tasks themselves. I worked under the leadership of Veronica Johnson throughout the 21-22 academic year, referenced here.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

I assisted the Ambassador Team in creating flyers, brochures, and promotional images for campus events.
Book-keeping: keeping a detailed log of hours worked and meeting biweekly with my supervisor to discuss how those hours were used.
Maintained the on-campus donation center, Pirate Pantry, by cleaning, organizing, and cataloging items.
I connected professors, student leaders, and campus life coordinators to plan sustainability events and pop-ups.

REFLECTIONS:

I learned as a result of this experience:

That the communications used to inform people about environmental conservation and sustainability are just as important as the technology and techniques used to aid them. While assisting my team, I often needed to consider what medium would best communicate our events, such as choosing between a social media post or flyers via email. Also, the visuals needed to be eye-catching.

One of the most impactful experiences I had was:

Working with the Pirate Pantry and helping set up pop-up shop versions on campus to raise student awareness and engagement. Many students were thrilled to be able to thrift on campus, and they also recognized how important the cause was for providing food and additional resources to students who may be underprivileged otherwise.

MAKING CONNECTIONS:

In Intro to Statistics, I was taught the cruciality of being able to represent numerical information accurately and how to do calculations for group studies. The team I worked with focused on conservation, and we learned first-hand that our project to reduce the amount of paper printed on campus would require conducting a survey. That information would tell us which printers were used the most, when, and for what reasons - so we could develop alternative methods for students to turn to.

Also, I was easily able to connect the jargon used in my position with the additional Environmental Studies classes I took in the future. I had a better understanding of the local systems in place at SU, and the requirements of programs outside the institution that we took place in, such as the Tree Campus Higher Education certification.

Photo by Iris Dannelley

MOVING FORWARD:

This experience has helped me decide what I want to pursue after graduating;

and, I would like to continue to study the history of environmental conservation. I want to pursue research and publication jobs in these fields, thanks to my experiences creating informative pieces as an Ambassador.

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