Sustainability News

Sophia Yvonne Vitale is days away from graduating with her Master of Sustainability Leadership from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability. She said her inspiration to study sustainability came from a spiritual awakening in which she realized that all of her actions have impacts, and she wanted to do more to change the world.

Despite family tragedies occurring during her studies, Vitale was able to stay on track with her degree and learn a lot through her classes, school mentors, classmates and capstone project — a sustainability consulting project working with businesses. Read more about Vitale’s journey in her Q&A.

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As School of Sustainability sophomore Nadene Hubbard knows from personal experience, access to clean and safe water (or the lack thereof) is a prevalent issue on the Navajo Nation. Like more than one-third of Navajo Nation residents, Hubbard grew up without running water, and now she aims to use her sustainability degree and subsequent master’s degree in hydrology to “fix water quality and quantity issues on Native American reservations throughout the United States — starting with mine.”

Hubbard, who is also pursuing an American Indian Studies minor from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said she originally started off at Arizona State University as an engineering student but realized sustainability was her true passion.

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Want to watch the Arizona State University School of Sustainability convocation from afar? It will be livestreamed on ASU Live 2. Tune in Thursday, May 9 2019 at 4:30 p.m. MST.

Daryn Lee Lieberman is an Arizona State University online student pursuing a bachelor’s degree from the School of Sustainability. Recently, Lieberman presented a vertical garden project for elementary schools at ASU’s inaugural Change the World event (more on that project in the Q&A below), so we decided to ask him some questions to get to know more about him and his work.

Lieberman, a junior, describes himself as a “reconnecting indigenous student” and said that when he lived in San Antonio — where he started his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio — he organized a large march downtown in opposition of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Standing up for indigenous rights is important to him, and he said he’s in the process of starting a nonprofit that will “assist with sustainable development in indigenous communities — specifically to increase their sovereignty, visibility and ecosystem/community health.”

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As part of Arizona State University’s efforts to advance sustainability education for K–12 students, a faculty-led student group created a suite of Kahoot! games to teach sustainability concepts. Kahoot! is a widely used platform to play fun, educational games called “kahoots” that are popular in classrooms and other group settings.

Through a new capstone workshop called “Innovation in Science Communication,” three undergraduate School of Sustainability students created nine quizzes for a new Kahoot! campaign, ASU Sustainable Futures. Topics include designing for our future, environment, sustainable food, social justice and energy. The students were responsible for developing the content and then demoing the kahoots in several middle school classes.

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Maryam Abdul Rashid took a big risk enrolling in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Coming from Malaysia, she said sustainability was a foreign concept and people back home questioned what her future might be. But she took the leap anyway — with a big payoff.

"I forever feel blessed to have been given the chance to travel 9,021 miles just to come to school here," Rashid said, adding that her favorite part of being an ASU student is the diversity she is able to experience at a school that values different people and their cultures.

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School of Sustainability alumna Haley Paul, who now works as a policy manager for Audubon Arizona, talked on Arizona PBS about the organization’s new report detailing the value of waterways to Arizona's economy. According to the report, water-based recreational activities in Arizona bring $13.5 billion to the economy and create 114,000 jobs.

The report aimed to establish a baseline of information and show how important water-based recreation is as an industry in Arizona.

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Ashley Quay, who graduated from the School of Sustainability's Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership program in January 2019, was one of two winners of the Knowledge Impact Mobilization Awards presented by the Graduate College at Arizona State University. These awards recognize graduate students who are translating research into real-world impact.

Quay's project, “Positively Impactful,” is a social-media campaign and website that highlights changes people are making to be more sustainable. “The doom-and-gloom approach is leaving people disheartened, overwhelmed and stagnant to change,” Quay said, so she used what she learned during her studies to take a more positive, inspirational approach.

Jacob Bethem, PhD candidate in Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, only recently defended his PhD dissertation but he has already accepted an offer to teach sustainable business courses at the University of Redlands in California. Bethem will be a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business for the 2019-2020 school year.

After completing more than 40 job applications, Bethem became a top-five candidate in at least three schools’ faculty searches, but selected the University of Redlands for its mix of management and ethics courses and emphasis on active learning. He attributes his success in attaining this position to strong recommendations from his instructors and supervising researchers as well as experience gained through various research opportunities provided by ASU in consultative roles for corporate and government executive clients.

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The first Change the World event showcased how Arizona State University students are making a difference through their entrepreneurship, art and ambitious initiatives. Hundreds of students from every campus participated in or attended the festival, held Wednesday at Sun Devil Stadium. At least 15 School of Sustainability students showcased projects, and many other ASU students from around the university presented initiatives relating to sustainability.

The School of Sustainability projects and ideas presented included:

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With so many directions one can take in a sustainability career, Garrett Wong wasn’t sure where he would land. But after a series of experiences during his time as an Arizona State University School of Sustainability student, Wong realized he wanted to apply sustainability to the sports industry.

As he said in his interview below, sports involves a wide variety of people from all walks of life: “What better way for sustainability practices to touch all of these individuals than in a space where leadership and teamwork both on and off the field are the driving message?”

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Many students go through elementary, middle and high school without ever learning about sustainability. That needs to change — and Arizona State University is doing something about it.

Accomplishing this will require systemic change and large-scale collaboration, which is why Christopher Boone, dean of the School of Sustainability at ASU, and CaSondra Devine, sustainability initiatives leader at Wells Fargo, recently put their heads together with more than a dozen local and international sustainability leaders for a three-day brainstorming conference hosted at ASU's Wrigley Hall.

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With great sustainability knowledge comes great sustainability leaders — this is the mantra that Arizona State University School of Sustainability students like Julia Colbert and Kevin Goddard live by. Colbert is a graduate student studying K-12 sustainability education and Goddard is an undergraduate student interested in water policy and sustainable urban design. Together, they have been working hard to get sustainability into K-12 schools through their Student Council Sustainability Officers Initiative (SCSO).

Last fall, Colbert and Goddard partnered with the City of Phoenix to transition SCSO from the city to the School of Sustainability. SCSO is focused on adding a Sustainability Officer position to Student Councils to implement student-led sustainability initiatives in K-12 schools throughout the Valley. Projects may include water and energy conservation, cafeteria waste auditing, recycling and even cultural events such as International Night.

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For the past few years, Professor Hallie Eakin has been teaching "SOS 327: Sustainable Food and Farms" in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Eakin, a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, is an expert in food systems and students take her class to learn about theories of food security, rural livelihood sustainability and food sovereignty, as well as sustainability challenges associated with food system activities (production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste).

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Two new segments of “Catalyst” by Arizona PBS, in the episode released March 20, feature Senior Sustainability Scientists in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability: Jenni Vanos and Harvey Bryan.

Hot playgrounds and microclimates

The “Hot playgrounds and microclimates” segment discusses research studying the effects of heat and microclimates on playgrounds and the corresponding activity of children playing there.

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Two Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability Senior Sustainability Scientists, Jesse Senko and Ira Bennett, brought a group of students to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico for a class they are teaching called “Sea Turtles, Sharks and Fisheries of Baja California: Emerging Topics in Marine Conservation."

This Global Intensive Experience, organized by the ASU Study Abroad Office, was one of 15 spring break programs across 12 different countries. These 20 students were part of the 230+ students participating in a study abroad program during ASU’s 2019 spring break.

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Haley Penny is a hardworking senior soon to graduate from the School of Sustainability and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Through her unique experiences abroad and insight from influential professors, Penny learned the importance of cultural representation in sustainability and city planning, and became motivated to develop multilingual sustainability curriculum.

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Hillary Junglas, a senior in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University who’s double majoring in supply chain management, is driven to apply sustainability to the business world. And with all she’s learned and experienced through ASU, she’s on the right track to do just that.

“I love the School of Sustainability and could not be happier with my experience as a sustainability student,” Junglas said. “The people, the classes, the experiences available — everything motivates me every day to follow my passion and make a difference with my degree. I look forward to graduation and where life will take me, but I will always credit the School of Sustainability for the inspiration and support I needed to succeed.”

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Originally studying to become a civil engineer, Matthew Waldman was so inspired by a sustainable neighborhoods urban development class that he changed his major to sustainability at Arizona State University.

As a School of Sustainability student, Waldman was able to participate in first-hand experiential learning opportunities that allowed him to serve the community while gaining real-world experience. He said his most meaningful opportunity was his internship at The Farm at South Mountain.

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It took 10 years for Nathan Gassmann to get his bachelor’s degree — the “scenic route,” as he called it. But finally getting that diploma in 2014 from the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University was the result of a lot of hard work, persistence, and balancing responsibilities as a parent, student and employee.

Gassmann recently landed a job as Subway’s manager of global sustainability, and he said he’s excited to enact change at a large scale. His advice for all Sun Devils is to challenge themselves.

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