Congratulations to the UW Sustainability students who graduated this year - Veronica Guenther, CSF Outreach Coordinator; Caroline Beightol, Green Certification Intern; Cole Lausch, EcoReps Coordinator; and Jennifer Watts, Graphic Design Intern. They all added to the ever-changing mosaic of our office, which has relied on the energy and interest of students since we were established in 2008. Students are the life force of sustainability action at UW and we are grateful to have worked with so many talented students over the years who are now changing the world one day at a time.
I often get asked what I’m doing over the summer since, “It’s summer break and not a lot of students are on campus.” But this is a myth. This summer, we have eight interns working in our office, and many will be continuing through next academic year. Students are involved with a diverse range of projects, including auditing and revamping our website, tracking metrics, designing logos and informational material, as well as conducting financial impact analyses for campus sustainability projects.
We’ve also had a busy start to the summer and hosted visitors from University of Chulalongkorn in Thailand and the University of Minho in Portugal who stopped by to meet with us en route to the International Sustainable Campuses Network (ISCN) Conference in Vancouver BC. Our staff and students enjoyed learning about their sustainability programs, and now we can keep in touch and share best practices from our campuses!
We're not only enjoying the sunshine this time of year. Summer time also means planning for the Fall quarter, and our team is already gearing up for Dawg Daze events and collaborating with the campus community on the SustainableUW Festival in October, part of national Campus Sustainability Month. Stay tuned as we share more updates this summer.