As many of you might not know, the Next Generation Environmental Leaders, which is a collaboration between students from the Twin Cities campus and Morris campus, were named winners of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) 2013 Student Sustainability Leadership Award at the AASHE's nation conference, held through Oct 9 in Nashville, Tenn. U of M students first connected with Minnesota's political leaders in 2012, brainstorming with Anderson on ways to participate in the Environmental Congress and engage in developing solutions toward sustainability issues. From there, the enterprising students developed and planned a statewide "Next Generation Environmental Congress" for February 2013, a month before the full Environmental Congress.
Over the next 12 months, this civic-minded group of University students, led by Natalie Hoidal and Christy Newell, reached out to statewide youth through social media, meetings, posters, phone calls, presentations and more. They teamed with University of Minnesota students from all five campuses, as well as groups including the Youth Environmental Advocates-Minnesota (YEA-MN), the Minnesota Youth Environmental Network (MNYEN) and the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) to develop a unified partnership through which the next generation of Minnesotans could voice their concerns to the EQB. Funding for the work was provided in part by a Mini Grant from the University's Institute on the Environment. What made this project even cooler was that they got Governor Mark Dayton to be involved!
As winners, the main collegiate members will have the opportunity to present their leadership story and will be included in a feature piece on the awards in Sustainability: The Journal of Record. Click here if you want to find our more about the team!
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