Meet Colleen Cochran: A student at Fordham University paving the way for sustainability on college campuses
Colleen Cochran is a current junior at Fordham University in Bronx, New York. She is one of the leaders of the Climate Impact Initiative, a group within the Social Innovation Collaboratory at the university. The Collaboratory was founded with a goal of seeking social justice for those who are underserved. The Climate Impact Initiative does this through campus sustainability and environmental justice.
Cochran meets with her team once a week with a specific agenda. Their meetings consist of discussions of climate policies and current events, their budget for the year, and distribution of work for the week. Cochran works with other students, alumni, administration, professors, and community members in an attempt to make sustainability something valued at Fordham.
The Climate Impact Initiative team started last year and since then they have been able to collect and record a large amount of data on sustainability efforts on campus. They have used this to launch other initiatives in response to what they believe the campus would benefit from.
“At Climate Impact our main goal is to bring transparency to Fordham’s sustainability edits and spearhead new events and ideas to improve our existing culture,” senior and co-leader of the Climate Impact Initiative Jessica Walker-Corbett said.
Despite only being on Fordham’s campus for four years, students involved with the Climate Impact Initiative start their advocacy for systematic change during their undergraduate years.
E-board member of Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice (SEAJ) and member of the Climate Impact Initiative team, junior Gabby Perez is an involved advocate for campus sustainability and thinks the administration has not done nearly enough.
“I want Fordham to completely divest from fossil fuels, run on 100% renewable energy, and compost its massive amount of uneaten food. By when? By 10 years ago,” Perez said.
Another group involved with campus sustainability efforts is United Student Government (USG). Within USG, there is a sustainability committee that has launched several initiatives in an attempt to make the Rose Hill campus more environmentally friendly. They worked with Fordham Dining to allow students to bring reusable cups and Tupperware to dining halls. They also launched Fordham Flea, an initiative to combat fast fashion and clothing waste by setting up a flea market of clothing outside of the McGinley Center on campus.
While climate remains an unpredictable force of nature, one thing that is certain is that there is a group of passionate college students on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus that want, and are demanding, change.
