Champions and leaders. Those are the two words that come to mind when we think about the campus directors for our Small Steps, Big Wins (SSBW) challenge. For three years, this undergraduate competition has been inspiring and motivating students to take social and sustainable actions and then record their activity online. It all adds up to make a big impact in the world, and it's because of the campus directors that the program has thrived. Sometimes a campus director comes along who goes above and beyond the call of duty.
Julia Julstrom-Agoyo from the University of Iowa is that kind of leader. She's helped place her university in a competitive position through effective project and community management -- running events, posting interesting and dynamic content, and regularly engaging her peers to log actions on the SSBW website. We know lots of you out there are hoping to make a difference on your campus, too, so we asked Julia to talk about how she stays motivated and to share her best tips.
1.What's your best tip for getting people involved on campus?
My best tip for getting people involved on campus is to make connections and build a strong network of the students and organizations passionate about the environment or similar issues. Several environmental student organizations have recently come together to create a sustainability umbrella organization called “Green Sphere,” which meets once a month to keep each other updated on what each organization is doing and might need help with, as well as how to further sustainability efforts on campus. This has given me a great network consisting of many students I had previously met through other organizations.
2. How do you keep students engaged throughout the semester?
One way I keep students engaged throughout the semester is by having SSBW updates and occasional prizes throughout our Net Impact meetings, although not all those logging actions are Net Impact members. I regularly review the actions being logged at my school to “like” several and occasionally “nudge” those who haven’t logged in lately to encourage them to keep logging actions. The SSBW party I organized at one of our Net Impact meetings fairly early in the competition helped to get people excited. We will be tabling at various Earth Month events this month and giving out cookies, which will hopefully increase our presence on campus and promote SSBW as a fun activity to get involved in!
3. What leadership qualities or principles do you admire and emulate?
I always admired people who seemed to go out and get things done successfully without appearing afraid to fail. I used to be very hesitant about my abilities as a leader, but in the last couple of years as a campus director and as someone involved with a lot of other organizations on campus, I’ve gained confidence in leading and completing projects. I’ve also learned that the more you go out and do, the more you get connected to people and organizations that will help you along the way or in the future.
4. What's your biggest hurdle in helping the program grow? (And how do you get past it?)
After gaining the confidence to be a leader, my biggest hurdle in helping the program grow was then the ever-present question: How do you get people to care about something? And more than that — to care about something that you care so much about and aren’t quite sure why others don’t care as much about it. I’m not sure if I’ve found the solution yet, but what I did was create some prize incentives (Chipotle gift cards), make it “fun” (SSBW pizza party) and promote opportunities on campus that correlate to sustainable actions (i.e. tabling on campus, speaking in class, volunteering, cleaning up a river, learning by attending a lecture, etc.). This also helped me to ask my peers who volunteer or organize events with me to say, hey, you can log a sustainable action for that!
5. What motivates you to become a strong leader on campus and get other students engaged?
I know that in order to help change the world in the ways I want to, I need to be a strong leader. I’ve gained strong skills throughout my jobs, internships, and involvement in student organizations the past few years that will inevitably help me in my path after college. By getting involved in so many things, I’ve been lucky enough to make connections with people who have ended up helping me to land opportunities, which will help in my overall goal to save the world! What motivates me to get students engaged with SSBW specifically is that sustainability is one of my two major passions (human rights being the other one), and SSBW happens to be the perfect platform to promote sustainable behavior (and even human rights related behavior as well!) I believe SSBW can help shape a more sustainable culture, and I love being a part of that process on my campus.
Learn more about the Small Steps, Big Wins program and our exciting Earth Week Challenge here — now's a great time to get involved!
