SGA President, Jenna Davis, talks about community cleanup and how to get involved with Earth Day.
Transcript:
0:07: Welcome back to Chronversations.
0:09: I’m your host, Levi Libson.
0:14: April 22nd marked Earth Day for all of us.
0:17: It puts focus on supporting and protecting our environment.
0:21: Oftentimes there’s a misconception that you must contribute fully or not contribute at all.
0:25: This is false.
0:26: The little things we do end up being the main contributor of big differences.
0:30: This can be taking public transport instead of driving for a day or making sure your lights are off when you are out of your place.
0:37: Or in the case of this week’s episode, participating in organized cleanup.
0:41: Today, I’m speaking with SGA president Jenna Davis about one of the many ways you can contribute to keeping your community clean.
0:48: my name is Jenna Davis.
0:49: My pronouns are she, her.
0:51: I’m a BFA in Fine Art minor arts and healthcare.
0:53: I’m a senior and I’m also the student government president.
0:56: On April 24th, SGA is hosting its 4th annual Earth Day Cleanup.
1:01: This is a great way for students to get involved and make a positive impact.
1:05: What specific goals do you have for this Earth Day cleanup?
1:08: is it mostly about awareness, measuring impact, student turnout, long term change?
1:13: The goal of Earth Day Cleanup is to build community around sustainability, by bringing people together and cleaning up our campus to help make it a greener place, and also inform them of what things.
1:25: Should be recycled versus shouldn’t.
1:27: Are there any like specific locations beyond just campus that you think students should focus on during this cleanup?
1:32: Would it be like dorm buildings or around like the student center areas like that?
1:36: We are planning to clean up from IWLs all the way down to Roosevelt, down Wabash, and some of the side streets.
1:43: we’ve had success in the past with a lot of people, so we’re planning.
1:47: Potentially for 10 groups, which would allow us to do larger areas like parking lots, things like that, but Ida B.
1:54: Wells to Roosevelt is our area.
1:56: What strategies are you using to get students, excited, about participating?
2:01: so our poster has been out for a while now, so we’re marketing the heck out of that and then my vice president of communications, Danielle Lang is working on some reels to get people excited on Instagram.
2:13: we sent out a bunch of emails within.
2:15: different newsletters of all the schools, yeah.
2:20: How can a one day event translate into long term sustainable habits on campus?
2:26: I think that for this event specifically, being a one day cleanup, it can encourage people to be more mindful of where they’re throwing things out, especially if you’re out in public and you don’t know where the trash can is, find the trash can because so much trash ends up on the streets, and you don’t realize it until you’re spending all morning picking it up.
2:45: Are there any policies or campus changes that you’re really pushing to be implemented beyond this event?
2:52: Not at the moment because I am graduating, but I did update all of the signage on all the recycling bins and garbage bins, my freshman year.
3:01: and that has been that has left a very positive impact because it increased our diversion rate, which was the initial goal of the entire collaboration with facilities.
3:11: I hope that my successors of SGA continue this event.
3:17: we have.
3:18: Week going on as well.
3:20: that’s been a kind of expansion of the Earth Day cleanup, encouraging other student groups to come together to promote sustainability.
3:30: so it may look different next year.
3:32: I don’t know, but I hope that the Earth Day cleanup stays.
3:35: What’s one misconception students have about environmental action that you’d want to change?
3:40: Hm, I think students think that they don’t have an impact, but something as small as putting your recyclables in the right bin does have an impact.
3:49: For example, with putting up the new signage, like it changed behavior, I actively see people making sure, oh, the plastic goes in this bin, oh, my wrappers go in this bin, so something as small as a behavioral change in your everyday activities can make a huge impact by leading to a higher diversion rate.
4:09: And my last question for you is, if a student wants to get more involved after this event, what should the next steps be?
4:15: First step, you can come to student government meetings, which are every Tuesday, 5 to 6.
4:20: we can talk about sustainability.
4:22: There is a sustainability, passion project team.
4:26: that works together on all of this, and we also have an upcoming, potential, actually don’t want to confirm that our donation drive, which we did, we’ve done in the past, but we don’t know if it’s gonna happen again this year.
4:37: But, outside of that, there are a bunch of sustainability activism resources outside of campus.
4:44: So if you want to get started over the summer, you can do that too.
4:47: So, this Friday, April 24th is our 4th annual Earth Day cleanup.
4:51: It’s from 10 to 12.
4:53: We’re meeting on the first floor of the student center.
4:56: and then we will disperse into groups.
4:57: It’s going to be a lot of fun.
4:59: There will be some faculty, administration, students, a lot of bonding, and there might be food afterwards.
5:09: Make sure to stay up to date with campus and Metro news at Columbia Chronicle.com.
5:14: I’m Levi Libson.
5:15: Thanks for listening.
