Written by Prarthanaa Singhal and Emily Haworth
From futuristic hydroponic shipping containers that grow lettuce, to bike repair stations dotted around campus—and everything in-between—Campus Sustainability Fund grants make dynamic and real sustainability impacts on University of Arizona’s campus and surrounding communities.
The Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF or Fund) is a program of the University of Arizona Office of Sustainability. The CSF was established to provide funding support for large and small-scale sustainability projects that build a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient future for the University of Arizona and the Tucson communities through offering approximately $550,000 per year to allocate to Annual Grant and Mini Grant projects. While less than a year old, the CSF is already among the largest and most comprehensive student-directed “green funds'' in the nation.
The Fund provides an internal, approachable, and collaborative source for funding and project support. With the vision of advancing sustainability on and across campus, potential project ideas go beyond the project categories you might typically think of, like recycling efficiency and water conservation, and seeks to support projects that also create a cultural shift in the way campus community members interact with sustainability. Eligible projects can be educational campaigns, events, programs that enhance social sustainability on campus, or create meaningful partnerships with community entities.
At its core, the Fund supports multidisciplinary, sustainability-focused projects that are led by students and campus community members. The Fund also provides the unique opportunity for students to have a direct impact on campus sustainability and obtain project management experience through envisioning, creating, and leading campus projects.
The Campus Sustainability Fund Student Committee is responsible for reviewing, selecting, and facilitating project proposals, as well as supporting the overall mission of the Fund. The Committee is composed of voting student employees, who are hired by the Office of Sustainability, and nonvoting staff and faculty advisors. Though an interim committee began allocating money to projects in December of 2021, the spring 2022 semester marked the first fully operational semester of the new Campus Sustainability Fund.
The CSF’s first committee start at the top left and moving clockwise:
Madison Gerdes:
Hello! My name is Madison, and I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m a junior majoring in Environmental Science with a minor in Astronomical Studies, so I like to say I have the whole universe covered between the two. I am one of the three Outreach and Connections Specialists, so I work primarily on promoting the Fund on campus across many different avenues, including social media, tabling events, presentations, and more—in addition to voting on and facilitating active projects that we’ve funded! As an Environmental Science major, I’m exposed to sustainability every day in my classes. I wanted to do something tangible and impactful in terms of protecting our planet and managing our resources on a local and global scale, and my position with the Office of Sustainability aligns perfectly with this. Having a hand in making this high-level change is refreshing as a student and empowering in terms of the climate movement, and I couldn’t be happier to be working with the Fund. A fun fact about me is that I'm a huge bookworm and love to escape into different fantasy worlds!
Prarthanaa Singhal:
Hello everyone! I am Prarthanaa, and I was born and raised in India. I am a junior studying Finance and Management Information Systems at the Eller College of Management. I work as the Communications and Web Content Specialist for the Committee. I took two courses on climate change and sustainability last fall. They helped me understand the significance of sustainability, and they got me excited to learn more. As a result, I aim to work in the consulting industry to support businesses in changing their sustainability strategies and implementing a zero-waste work culture. Recently, I have been working on creating, compiling, and publishing website content to highlight CSF grant recipients, application windows, project successes and impacts, and progress reports. As a CSF committee member, I review, consider, vote on grant proposals worth up to $100,000, and contribute my knowledge from my finance classes to help bring about real changes on campus and in the larger Tucson community with respect to the different aspects of sustainability. An absolute crazy fact about me? I am a nephophile, that means I am obsessed with clouds and love cloud gazing!
Jess Gates:
Hi, all! My name is Jess Gates (she/her/hers) and I am a senior majoring in Retailing & Consumer Science. I work as one of the Outreach and Connections Specialists for the Campus Sustainability Fund. I am originally from the Pacific Northwest, which is where my love for nature and sustainability truly started. Working for the Office of Sustainability has deepened my passion for ethical consumerism and reimagining the retail industry through a sustainable lens. My position with the CSF allows me to explore my passions of community engagement, content creation, sustainability and project management, all in one role. Currently we are working to expand our network by developing strong relationships with campus partners, creating a comprehensive events calendar, and engaging with our community in meaningful ways. As a member of the CSF, I help to shepherd sustainability grants from proposals all the way through to completed projects that bring tangible change to our beautiful campus. After graduation, I have plans to move to Los Angeles and work in the fashion industry!
Derrick Nwobodo:
Hello! My name is Derrick Nwobodo, and I am an international student from Nigeria. I am currently attending pharmacy school at the College of Pharmacy, and I am serving as a Diversity and Inclusion specialist on the CSF Committee. After working as a Global Ambassador for international students and as a New Start tutor, where I got the opportunity to interact with first-generation students and students from low-income households, I realized that I am passionate about promoting diversity and inclusion on campus. My goal as a CSF committee member is to educate the committee on issues that students of color face and approve projects that enable more minorities to be introduced into the field of sustainability. In my free time, I enjoy dancing salsa or reading a book, and you would not catch me in Tucson during the summer, because it’s just too hot!
Emma Romano:
Hello! My name is Emma Romano, and I am from West Virginia. I am a sophomore studying Molecular and Cellular Biology with a minor in Health and Human Values. I am currently one of the Outreach and Connection Specialists for the Campus Sustainability Fund. During high school, I worked on science projects every year and they always pertained to climate change issues. I realized I enjoyed learning about these problems facing our planet and communicating those findings to others. I work on communicating our grants to clubs and classes on campus, completing outreach to the greater campus community, voting on grants, and acting as a project manager to funded projects. I also develop presentations that give grant writers access to information on our grant writing system and more! A fact about me is that I love sushi and I have been eating it since I was three years old.
CSF Committee members not pictured:
CSF Committee Staff Advisor:
Hello! I am Pete Corrigan, Associate Director of Employer and Alumni Connections for Student Engagement and Career Development at the University of Arizona. For as long as I can remember, I have been picking up litter and pulling plastics and glass out of garbage cans to make sure they are processed in the appropriate fashion. I took my passion for sustainability to the next level when I became the Green Team Captain for Borderlands Brewery here in Tucson and graduated from the City of Tucson’s Master of Recycling Program. For the past three years, I have served as the advisor to Students for Sustainability—a campus organization that does great sustainability work in the community. When the Office of Sustainability at the University of Arizona reached out to me to consider becoming an advisor to the Campus Sustainability Fund, it was an easy decision. My role is to have input on the many proposals that come before the committee. The wonderful student team makes the decisions, but I am in the conversation providing my thoughts and any information that I think may be helpful in their decision process.
CSF Coordinator: Emily Haworth
Hi! I’ve been the Coordinator for the Campus Sustainability Fund since October of 2021. My role is to support both the CSF Committee and campus community members in implementing projects, events, and programs that make meaningful contributions to university sustainability goals. Although I’m still pretty new to the University of Arizona, I was born in Tucson and lived here for 17 years prior to a brief seven years in Flagstaff, Arizona.
I’m proud to have received a Master of Science in Climate Science and Solutions as well as a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Environmental and Sustainability Studies from Northern Arizona University. Prior to my position here, I worked as an analyst for a consulting firm based in the Bay Area where I specialized in voluntary renewable energy and designed a systematic approach and evaluation tool for assessing renewable energy community impact projects and their co-benefits. While my other professional experiences range from managing a monarch butterfly citizen science program to endangered species policy research, I’m most passionate about helping to propel smart climate solutions for a resilient future and supporting students and campus community members to do the same. My favorite part of this role is seeing students create meaningful and dynamic impacts on campus sustainability and supporting the CSF Committee to make some of those efforts happen.
Outside of work, you can find me riding a bike downtown or on the river path, playing with my kitten named Pigeon, and going to concerts.
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The Committee is excited to continue to see innovative project proposals that push the envelope on campus sustainability, climate action, and social sustainability. Please don’t hesitate to drop into their Office Hours or to connect with the Coordinator of the CSF at emilyhaworth@arizona.edu.