Make it Plain

This blog post addressed sustainability from a corporate perspective. Initially, I felt the article would not relate to my team's goal and tactics. After reading over it in its entirety, I realized that students are the CFO's when it comes to approving the Green Energy Fund. In order for our group be successful at getting 60% of Phase III residents to support the Green Energy Fund, we have to show them a benefit that favorably affects them. When we pitch to residents, we need to address an issue or need that has already been expressed by residents. If the Student Green Energy Fund presented as an initiative motivated by their desires and concerns and not a fine forced upon them, there are likely to be less favorable results. 

According to the article, when CFO’s did decide to invest in sustainable practices that were financially unfavorable in the short term, they did so because the long term outcome will help control their costs and make their image more favorable among increasingly eco-conscious consumers. While I do not feel the benefits of a Wal-Mart CFO mirror the benefits of a student, they both are stakeholders that decide what they will pay for.

Students at Florida A&M University have a lot of pride. If we tied the Green Energy Fund to school pride, residents that might not be in favor of the fee, may reconsider, support and even promote the bill themselves.   I believe that this technique would be successful if it was done in conjunction with other schools, preferably sport rivals that would bring more attention.
While I would not recommend this article to the Green Coalition, I feel the ideas it sparked can definitely help them tackle student involvement in larger activities. I would recommend this article to my group because it would be interesting to see what ideas it sparked for them.

Citation
O'Sullivan K. (2011,September).Going for the other green: once the domain of tree-hugging do-gooders, the green movement now offers bottom-line appeal, and finance executives are taking notice. Magazine for Senior Financial Executives, Retrieved November 10, 2011, from Gale Power Search database.

Leadership gives life to a campaign's validity

After reviewing an article by Mary Spilde, who serves as the current chair of the AACC Board of Directors and Lane Community College's president, I was immediately impressed by how involved she was in her campus' efforts to increase its sustainability. Judging from the article, not only was she aware of the motivation for increased sustainability, she herself was paramount in insuring that the campus will continue to increase its sustainability. Under her leadership, Lane Community College has increased the visibility of sustainability efforts by being the focus of academic articles and implementing educational requirements that include sustainability across every major.

Spilde reveals her passion for increasing sustainability efforts at all colleges and in her efforts, catapults her university in the forefront as a leader. Not only does Lane have a student organization motivating students to increase their sustainability, they have their president initiating efforts and defining expectations that on our campus are far too vague. Spilde urges that their efforts tell their public, what, why and how. She also urges that the why is tied to an area of interest.

On Florida A&M University’s campus and many others the only individuals pushing for sustainability efforts are student-led organizations. Judging from the effectiveness of the sustainability efforts at Lane, clear support from a university’s leadership is pivotal to message validity and acceptance. Many individuals in a target public must be informed that a topic is important by someone important to actually embrace the message.

I will definitely share this article with my group. It was very eye-opening for me because the sustainability efforts our class is involved with have not been endorsed by the leadership at our university. We must find a way to explain how the Green Energy Fund that we want residents to vote for relates to something they care about.

Spilde, M. (2009). Seizing the moment. Community College Journal, 80(2), 6.  Retrieved October 18, 2011, from Research Library. (doi: 2014096051)

A Path of My Own

Since Google has not yet equipped it's search engine with the capacity to point me to my destiny and there is no idiots guide with rules that I should follow, I have to make a path for myself. There is no clear answer to the questions that I face in the darkest and loneliest corner all night interrogations from my future. It seems as though one day I awoke from a slumber of spelling bees, geography map tests, English essays, standardized tests, college applications and advisement conferences with esteemed professors. I have sat behind a desk my entire life and in less than a year, that will all change.

I have always had a strong relationship with family, professors, employers and peer, I can turn to none of them to find my path. Even the clarity that I once found in their counseling has been undermined by their unintentional bias. While their advice has proved invaluable in the past I am facing the challenge of having to create my own plan. While I have immeasurable respect for them, there is no law that says I must succeed the same way someone else did. I find myself hitting a brick wall of depression following paths that were never meant for me.

My plan is skeletal and is and definitely subject to change.

1. Reflect- As I sit here and ponder all the decisions I have already made that were not truly my own, I feel as though I have been robbed. My psyche has trained itself to self-impose the standards and expectations of others and this cannot be reversed over night. I also find that I have developed some resentment towards those expectations because they were not my own.

2. Release- Change can be terrifying; being alone can be intimidating, but the act of releasing anything that you've grown accustomed to having takes the more courage. Confidence is something that I struggle with. When a teacher asks a questions I am usually shooting my hand in the air with the correct answer looming between my ears. That confidence is artificial, it is not uniquely possessed by me. Everyone in the room that adequately prepared for class has that same confidence. How can I transform that confidence and make it my own? Releasing the group thinking that has boxed my in is step one.

4. Explore- Through child-like interaction I intend to experience the world that I have accepted in ignorance. I have a friend from California that has a boundless curiosity. She questions everything around her and treats every experience as though it were new. I plan to no longer dismiss the things I do not understand or accept the things prescribed to me. Sometimes the question is more important than the answer.

3. Pursue- One of my greatest fears  is failure. Ironically, this fear threatens my success. No one is can hide from failure and rise to their full potential simultaneously.


How long does it take to find your career? When I first met with my academic adviser at Florida A&M University, I was told most students enter college unsure but have it figured out by the time they leave. I may not fit into that statistic and I am content knowing that I have a plan.

Visibility is what our campaign needs

Students at Muhlenberg College are working to make their campus more sustainable. The students highlighted are doing the same thing as my PR Research and Strategies class, they are trying to reach are their peers and persuade them to act. The students in the environmental communications class at Muhlenberg produced a sustainability guide. The guide educates students by listing examples of ways they can increase their sustainability. "The 20-page guide is full of tips "covering every aspect of college life" at Muhlenberg”(June).  The guide also included information on the financial benefits of implementing the sustainable practices. (June)As we prepare to campaign to residents of the campus dorms here at FAMU and persuade them to vote in favor of the Green Energy Fund bill. We have get residents to complete surveys that reveal attitudes and knowledge related to sustainability. This article did not prove as useful as I hoped it would. While it did include very eye-opening information, there was no clear tie to the task of changing attitudes. Instead of discussing tactics to motivate student involvement, the article discussed different things the students at Muhlenberg College did to educate their target population.  This article may prove more useful for campaign that has a goal of getting students to recycle and not vote for funding to increase sustainable. Although it would be nice to equip students with ways to increase their sustainability this is not a part of our campaign goal. Initially, I thought the article may have included more detail about the campus involvement in the initiative, but there were other quality highlights that sparked other ideas.  For example, during our mock focus group in class, the Green Coalition came up several times and one student felt they were ineffective in reaching the student population. If students are not being reached, the likelihood of supporting a tuition increase being pushed by an organization they are not familiar with is minimal. In June’s article the campus recycling program at Muhlenberg “saved enough electricity to power a typical home for almost 55 years” (June).  Does the Green Coalition have successes such as this? If so these things need to constantly be highlighted so the bill will not be seen as the only initiative. Visibility is what our campaign needs.

June, A. W. (2007). Muhlenberg College Students Publish Their Own Guide to Sustainable Living. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(46). Retrieved from