Who are we exactly?

So you might be reading this blog and have no idea who the Vassar Greens are or what we're all about, so I thought I might expand a little on that so you can better understand where we're all coming from.

The “Vassar Greens” is a student run organization seeking to increase awareness of local, national, and global environmental issues on campus. We accomplish this goal by dispersing information to students, sponsoring lectures, organizing film screenings and coordinating panel discussions on a variety of environmental issues. We provide a student forum for discussion, and by working with the Vassar College Sustainability Committee, we evaluate the state of campus ecology while serving as a vehicle for action on these concerns. Membership is voluntary and open to all students in the Vassar College community.

As this year’s Chair of the Vassar Greens, I hope to expand our role further. While I want the Greens to continue to be a resource to students on campus, I want to see our organization working actively to connect students to their greater communities. On a local scale, I want us work with environmental and community groups in Poughkeepsie. We already have very strong ties with some groups, such as the Poughkeepsie Farm Project where Vassar students can often be found working as farming interns or volunteers. To build on that, this year I am trying to continuously provide students with volunteer opportunities in the community to expose students to the innumerable ways that they can be involved in environmental work in the Hudson valley. On a National scale, the Greens also have a history of political action. This past year, we successfully lobbied to add an adaptation fund for developing countries to climate change legislation, and two years ago, we lobbied along with other Vassar organizations for the Farm Bill. Next spring, we will be taking a large group to the capital, where we will again lobby our senators for environmental legislation. The purpose of these trips is not only to learn about environmental issues and help pass new legislation, but also to empower students to become active members of our local and national community.

Bringing a group to the Bioneers conference is helping us fulfill these objectives in a myriad of ways. First and foremost, the conference is instructing us in contemporary environmental issues and solutions being discusses by the environmental community. We would be able to bring this knowledge back to Vassar to share with our community. The conference would also help us be more effective in the work we already do, especially through the many afternoon sessions being offered on the greening of education and how youth can be instrumental in this change. Finally, attending the conference would allow the Greens to tap more directly into the environmental community, giving us greater resources to provide to our students.

I hope you enjoy our blog, and learn even a tiny bit more of what’s going on in the environmental world, and in our actual world itself.