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The CUIP Campus Recycling Intern for the 06-07 school year, Kelly
Hickman, came to her position with a passion for conservation and
protecting the environment. With her motivation to learn new things
and willingness to work with other people, she provided energy to
the recycling office and truly wanted to make a change on this campus.
She had previous leadership experiences as publicity chairman and
president of clubs in high school. Once she came to UCSC, she became
an active member in the Student Environmental Center’s Waste
Prevention Campaign. As an RA at Crown College her second year on
campus, she became familiar with how the housing and residential
facilities operate on campus. She also gained confidence, learned
how to respond to conflict and created fun as well as educational
programs for her residents.
The main goal of her internship was to help the campus in efforts
to have a larger recycling diversion rate and give UCSC residents
an increased awareness about waste reduction and recycling through
educational materials and programs. When Kelly started to work for
Recycling Services in the summer before the fall of her third year
and the start of her CUIP internship, she immediately began to research
what other universities and organizations were doing to actively
engage people in waste reduction and inform them of proper recycling
practices. She also continued the efforts of the previous CUIP intern
by producing the popular refillable mugs and educational magnets
for on campus apartments. Additionally, she felt fortunate enough
to attend conferences such as the California Resource Recovery Association
Annual Conference, the Chico State Sustainability Conference and
the San Francisco Green Festival. Kelly also spent a good amount
of time tabling at events around campus. This allowed her to outreach
to the general student population by providing them with educational
materials such as mugs, magnets, stickers and informational brochures
and magnets. She tabled at events such as RA training, the OPERS
Fall Festival, College 8 Earth Day and the Health and Wellness fair.
In order to have a variety of information to hand out at those tabling
events, Kelly created educational flyers that she also distributed
to residential life staff and student groups on campus. During residential
move out at the end of the school year, Kelly worked with colleges
and other dedicated students and staff to create swap meets and
donation drives that occurred during finals week of spring quarter.
This allowed the university to eliminate many valuable items that
would have otherwise been sent to the landfill.
A huge part of this internship for Kelly was also to act as a liaison
between the recycling services office and other groups on campus
such as student groups, the staff and faculty, and residential life
teams. Regarding student groups, Kelly attended SEC general gatherings
and the waste prevention subcommittee break-out meetings. Working
with the Waste Reduction Working Group at the Earth Summit and the
Student Coalition for Electronic Waste was also a rewarding experience.
With the staff and faculty on campus, Kelly spent time encouraging
paper recycling in all the offices on campus. By distributing desk-side
paper recycling organizers and keeping track of the distribution
through a spreadsheet she created, Kelly hoped to increase the amount
of paper that got recycled in all staff and faculty offices. Regarding
residential life teams, Kelly mainly worked with College Eight and
Stevenson to help create and facilitate educational programs for
the respective residents at each college. At College Eight, she
helped with the Sustainability Project’s Jump to the Dump
program, volunteered at the San Francisco Green Festival, and tabled
at the Earth Day festival titled Ode to the Globe. At Stevenson
College, Kelly helped create a committee called Path to a Greener
Stevenson that included students and housing staff. Path to a Greener
Stevenson worked to create a sustainable college night, coordinated
a planting day with the site stewardship program, showed “Fern
Gully” on the Stevenson knoll, developed Recycling Relays
as a part of the multicultural games day, and visited the Santa
Cruz landfill and materials resource recovery facility.
The CUIP course, Leadership and Institution, allowed Kelly to gain
insight into the university structure as she met with important
leaders of this campus. It was also equally valuable to hear the
other CUIP interns’ experiences and achievements. In Kelly’s
near future, she plans to graduate with a B.S. in Marine Biology
and attend graduate school to get her PhD. With that degree, she
hopes to research coastal ecosystems and apply what she discovers
to marine conservation efforts. She will be using the skills she
gained through her recycling internship to aid in her future endeavors.
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