Student Views

Phew… what a busy couple of weeks it’s been… Where to begin!?

Peace is always a good place to start. Last weekend was the SU Student Peace Alliance’s third annual Peace March for UN Peace Day. This year we marched in support of the House bill, the Youth Promise Act that would take measures to prevent youth violence, encourage green job training, and fund other programs that would help to educate students and get kids off the street.

Marching

We had over 100 people, around double last years march! We even took a snazzy yellow school bus down to the capitol…

I was honored to be able to give a little speech about the links between environmentalism and peace (and this bill in particular. Framing the environmental movement as a social justice issue is very important to me - we have to remind ourselves constantly that environmentalism is about more than just polar bears - it’s about real live people living in dirty, polluted, and unsafe communities. We have to keep in the forefront the environmental concerns of under served and under represented communities or we will not be able to build a truly just, equitable and sustainable future.

Talking about Peace and Nature… like a real hippie. NOT.
Photo by Kate Steinbach
Oooh, last week ADPi welcomed a new fall pledge class of upperclassmen. Since we have deferred rush at Southwestern (first year women rush in the Spring), we are able to induct a few upperclassmen women in the fall. We just welcomed five awesome new Alphas and I’m definitely excited!

This weekend was crazy eventful. To start it off, my friend (and former SU exchange student) Wouter surprised us by coming back to visit unannounced. I really wish my reaction had been recorded when he walked in to the SEAK meeting Thursday night… sooo fun!

Then Friday afternoon, SEAK painted four beautiful new industrial composters that are now placed around campus, close to the residence halls, so students can more easily compost all of their food scraps! We were able to buy these (about $500 each…) with some grant money that the Environmental Studies department had received. Needless to say, we are SUPER pumped about them and the impact we hope they will have!

Who knew compost could be so pretty?

Zoe, a proud painter

Friday night, I headed back home to Fredericksburg for my Great Aunt Auralia’s 90th birthday party. I got to spend a lot of time with my parents, brothers, aunt and uncle… and I met some family members I didn’t know I had.  Aunt Auralia loved every minute of it… and I loved most of it too.

My dad finishing up the fajitas

The remnants of  a family history lesson

I also got to spend some time at the 10th annual Renewable Energy Roundup & Green Living Fair in Fredericksburg while I was there. They had tons of booths with new, established and emerging green energy technology as well as some vendors of sustainable goods and organic treats (I had a delicious mango avocado popsicle and bought some cute soap!). And it was a success for my parents too; my mom is now looking into some new energy efficient windows for our house!

A solar car!!

So, there’s tons of exciting stuff going on in the next couple weeks - ACL this weekend! And then the highly anticipated Fall Break!

So, the next few weeks (as always) have a lot in store.