It’s graduation season! And for those who will be leaving the NYU community, we wanted to send you off with some tips for living sustainably in your post-NYU years.
The NYU Office of Sustainability welcomes alumni to continue to work with us in advancing environmental initiatives at NYU. Help inform the initiatives of our office and stay up-to-date on what’s going on in our community by signing up for our newsletter. Read more
by Sophia Gumbs
Wangari Maathai
In her 2004 acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, Professor Maathai commented that “protecting and restoring the environment contributes to peace; it is peace work. . . . I always felt that our work was not simply about planting trees. It was about inspiring people to take charge of their environment, the system that governed them, their lives, and their future.”
Professor Wangari Maathai (1940-2011) was a well-known enviromental activist, professor, author, and feminist from Nyeri, Kenya. She was a professor of Veterinary Anatomy and was the chair of the department at the University of Nairobi. She wrote several books, including The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience, Unbowed: A Memoir, The Challenge for Africa, and Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World. She was chair of the National Council of Women of Kenya (1981-1987), at which point the seed was planted– pun intended ;)– which would lead to the founding of her eco-feminist organization for community-based planting of trees to combat poverty and promote environmental health: the Green Belt Movement. Read more
The Green Graduate series is a collective of interviews and conversations with environmentally-minded and eco-conscious NYU graduates. As these students move on to the workforce, graduate programs, and other opportunities, we are struck with how different the world seems today than it did a few months ago. Our hope with this series is to inspire, motivate and most importantly, honor our recent graduates.
In the mood for tips on greening the mind, body, and spirit? Look to Yvonne Cuaresma. As a Master’s student in Steinhart’s Food Studies department, Yvonne’s eco-consciousness is a driving force behind her daily choices.
Identifying as Filipina American, Yvonne has many rich childhood memories spent in the natural world. At seven years old, Yvonne’s family packed their bags to move to California, where her days were filled with adventures like camping, fishing, and trips to the lake or beach. While her love for these scenic landscapes grew, her parents made sure that love for the outdoors was coupled with something else.
by Kiersten Blake and Alexia Leclercq
New York City, our shared city, has a gap in environmental education programming, namely a lack of focus on environmental justice education. We decided to co-author and implement an environmental and climate justice curriculum at the High School for Teaching and the Professions (HSTP) in the Bronx. Our project-based curriculum covers topics such as environmental and climate justice, sustainable and equitable land use, public and climate health, and global effects, and was created with teacher, student, expert, and community-based organizational input to reflect on the multidimensional nature of the climate crisis from an interdisciplinary and social justice viewpoint.
The Green Graduate series is a collective of interviews and conversations with environmentally-minded and eco-conscious NYU graduates. As these students move on to the workforce, graduate programs, and other opportunities, we are struck with how different the world seems today than it did a few months ago. Our hope with this series is to inspire, motivate and most importantly, honor the class of 2020.
This is Chu Jia Sing. Like many graduating students, she’s finishing her senior year back home. For her, that’s Singapore. She moved to New York four years ago to pursue her Bachelor’s degree in economics and environmental studies – disciplines that couldn’t seem more relevant with everything going on in the world. I asked her if this pandemic has transformed how she’s thinking about sustainability and environmental justice? Her mind goes to the localization of supply chains, “Will we cut down on emissions, are we going to minimize the environmental harms we inflict on small indigenous communities?” Read more
