Husky Green Awards 2020

The College of the Environment's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team is always asking hard questions to see if they're representing groups equally in the conversation about sustainability. Part of the College of the Environment, the DEI seeks to create a perspective that is inclusive of various identities, and propose solutions to key environmental issues. Two members, Terryl Ross and Isabel Carrera Zamanillo, have been integral in a collaborative planning process with UW Sustainability to plan Earth Day events for the past few years.

They frequently connect with diverse groups to incorporate their voices and feedback in the DEI’s projects and events. The DEI spearheaded the Intersectionality Project, a collaboration with UW Sustainability, to bring together people and encourage them to share authentic dialogue relating to environmental sustainability. With the DEI, intersectional representation is a priority both on and off campus.

The efforts of The Giving Garden at UW Tacoma center around addressing food justice for its community members. This organization is partnered with the campus food bank, known as The Pantry, to distribute food to their students, one-third of whom are facing food insecurity.

The Giving Garden uses sustainable methods to grow their greens, like keeping rain barrels, maintaining a living roof, and creating their own compost. Taking initiative, the Giving Garden also promotes these practices on campus and within the greater Tacoma community. These opportunities for service learning create a space for conversations about underserved populations and their experience with food justice. Students clocked in over 600 volunteer hours in 2019 and hosted 16 events. The same year, staff also incorporated the Giving Garden into five curriculums at UWT to teach food security, sustainable urban agriculture, and sustainability.

Jan Whittington’s leadership paves the way for students to become involved in improving campus sustainability. As an associate professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning and the director of the UW Solar group, Whittington works with students both academically and professionally to advise them in proposing and designing new solar panel installations across campus. 

As an interdisciplinary RSO, the members of UW Solar come from a variety of backgrounds, ranging in both age and areas of expertise. Whittington encourages students to address their projects from many lenses and angles, allowing all members to play a part. For example, students need to evaluate physical infrastructure, ease of installation, future research potential, and policy change. Through her impact, UW Solar acts as a de-facto alternative energy consulting firm on campus.

Each aspect of Shelby Carroll's life connects back to her passion for sustainability. She's held a variety of leadership positions at the UW dedicated to enacting change on campus.

As the director of the Green Greeks Representative Program, Shelby ensures fraternity and sorority members attend their monthly meetings, which discuss sustainability measures taking place in their houses. If a house needs extra help in making their methods more sustainable, Shelby works with their representative to work out a solution. Green Greeks is at full capacity and the members work hard to join in on the mission. Shelby helped bring the club to this level by engaging them with guest speakers and reaching out with volunteer opportunities. She introduced multiple projects to the Green Greeks, like clothing drive donations, waste reduction initiatives, and trimming invasive species near U-Village.

Outside of the Greek community, Shelby also worked for UW Recycling. From that experience, Shelby carried her knowledge over to the Green Greeks to educate the members. Shelby manages both the thriving Green Greeks program and a full course load as a student.

Yona Sipos inspires passion in her students during her Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health lecture, while also leading by example.

She goes beyond the coursework to teach environmental justice topics to her students and also promotes ways to engage with these topics. 

Groups across campus and the greater Seattle area are familiar with her work, too. Sipos co-chairs the advisory team for The UW Farm, where she helps to support the farm’s operations. She also contributed her knowledge and enthusiasm to the creation of the upcoming Sustainability Action Plan. Sipos is currently launching the inaugural food systems capstone, engaging multiple local leaders in community-based projects for senior UW students.

She has played a role in producing sustainability reports on food systems, in addition to serving on a couple of food policy councils in Canada and the US and supporting a regional foodshed network in the Chesapeake.

Sipos uses food systems draws a bridge between academic and non-academic worlds. She creates spaces for students and community members to get involved in the field of food justice and pushes them to reflect on the social, ecological, and economic impacts of their work.