Hannah JohnsonNowadays, sustainability is said to be one of the fastest-growing careers. As a matter of fact, I am sure many of you reading this article are passionate about saving our planet. I am also sure that this generation of college students have a myriad of innovative ideas and thoughts but do not know how to voice them. That was me. However, I discovered UK’s Student Government Association (SGA), an organization dedicated to being the student body’s voice and advocating for positive change on our campus.
As I am writing this article, I am sitting in front of a poster in SGA’s office that states their purpose. It reads, “to intentionally promote an inclusive environment for students by re-engaging the community through active listening, transparency, and accessibility to achieve sustainable success,” and I believe they do so in several critical ways.
To provide you with a little context, in recent years, the University of Kentucky has attempted to make sustainability a priority and is working on an updated Sustainability Strategic Plan to outline their goals. SGA’s office assists in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of both long-term and short-term sustainability initiatives taken on by the university and collaborates with the administration to ensure that those goals are being met. Our job, as the Sustainability branch, is to be a mediator between faculty and students, to ensure that not only are we working towards these goals but also that they reflect what the student’s priorities and needs are. Currently, our team includes our director, Callie Dickman, as well as two coordinators, Skylar Gillies and myself, Hannah Johnson. We all pride ourselves on being advocates of a green campus, and we are students just like you. We are even a part of other sustainability organizations on campus, such as the Sustainability Intern Program and the Student Sustainability Council.
This semester alone, we have accomplished some pretty exciting things. In collaboration with the Student Activities Board and others from SGA, we planned the first-ever Wildcat Market, where students could come and pick out free produce from local farmers. We were able to provide a variety of fresh foods– from apples to peppers and so much more. The first 100 people even received a reusable tote bag! This gave students access to delicious produce, as well as supported our local farms—a win-win! With food waste and food insecurity being such prevalent problems on college campuses, we were so grateful for an opportunity to address it. The attendance truly exceeded expectations! We hope to potentially hold more events like this, so stay tuned.
SGA also collaborated with the Urban Forest Initiative (UFI) to promote Tree Week 2022 and to hold our own Tree Week event! Tree Week is a celebration of trees and greenspaces throughout Kentucky, and it promotes community engagement with civic and environmental topics. We hosted a showing of The Lorax on campus and invited the UFI team to come and talk about Tree Week. This increased the accessibility of Tree Week to students and introduced students to the importance and benefits of trees!
One final event I would like to highlight is the Sustainability Showcase, where we were invited to table about SGA and to join the celebration of sustainability! This was a great space where we could connect with others who share the same passion for sustainability and foster new relationships that can open us up to the possibility of more collaboration in the future.
With this being said, I hope that we can continue working hard and achieving even more! As far as future plans, we have plenty of exciting goals underway. Be sure to check out our local business and non-profit fair, Keeping Good Company, on November 30th! It’ll be on the Social Staircase in the Gatton Student Center from 2:20-4:30 pm. For more information, you can follow SGA on Instagram @uksga! Also, feel free to contact us at sga.sustainability@uky.edu!
