Our students are constantly growing both as environmental innovators and career professionals.
Environmental Students are Busy People!
Between achieving national recognition for their efforts as campus organizers and scientists, presenting at a variety of international and domestic conferences, publishing papers, starting non-profit endeavors, logging thousands of hours of community service, and working collaboratively on campus, we wonder where our students still find time to do so well with their regular academics.
Recent Awards, Honors, and Presentations
- AASHE 2008: Working Together for Sustainability on Campus and Beyond
- Sarah Brylinsky (E.Studies Minor, Class of '09) was awarded the Student Sustainability Achievement Award for her leadership in educating fellow students about sustainability.
As Resident Assistant of the Sustainably Conscious Living Community, Sarah created new programs that boosted popularity of the Community and increased the number of applications from less than 15 in previous years to over 140. Her efforts to catalyze student interest in sustainble living prompted Residential Life to require sustainability training for all of IC's Resident Assistants, training which she designed and implemented herself. To increase conscious dorm-living even further, she designed twelve sustainability-focused residential-hall programs, and training materials so that any RA might hold the programs themselves. She is working with Residential Life to retrofit dorms with energy efficient lighting, water saving measures, in-house composting, community dining space, and shared organic gardens, and creating an apartment-style sustainable living option for upper-classmen. Sarah also coordinated a new program for first-year students called "The Sustainable Community Challengers" which connects new residents to importance environmental and civic hotspots in the Ithaca community.
While acting as the Ithaca College Sustainability Intern, Sarah created a series of online resources such as an eco-events calendar and 24hr peer question-and-answer service to help students learn about IC's sustainability efforts and numerous opportunities to get involved. She was the first undergraduate to apply for and receive a Sustainable Curriculum Grant, with which she created the College's first communications course on sustainability: Strategic Sustainability in Communication. She is also developing IC's first course combining women's studies and environmental issues: Ecofeminism: Violent Progress and Ecological Beginnings.
- Professor Michael Smith (History, ESP) and three ESP students were invited to present on their projects with Local Environmental History. (Check out the Student Presentations section for more information on the history of this work!)
