UC student uses passion, opportunity to help the environment

Elle Faris is an environmental studies major with a minor in communications who will graduate in December. While working around the Cincinnati area, she has used resources at the University of Cincinnati to help her achieve her goals and pursue environmental challenges in her community.

UC’s environmental studies major is an interdisciplinary program offered through the College of Arts and Sciences.

Faris has worked and volunteered with several companies and organizations, those of which, along with UC and its staff, have equipped her with resources and abilities to help the environment in the Cincinnati area.

At the Cincinnati Zoo, I worked there for about 6 1/2 years, and a large portion of that was volunteer experience as a teenager and to the beginning of my college career, and they brought me on as a paid intern.  

What I gained from that is how to effectively communicate about science in an area recognized for its sustainability as an organization. And so what I can take away from that is the ability to articulate the importance of these issues and how we can tackle them at like a larger level and an individual level to a larger group of people, whether they work within a sustainability department at the organization as a whole, or if they're just a member of our local community. 

I've had a very seamless interaction with the co-op track because of my advisor. Shout out to Leanna Thomas. They are amazing and have been super helpful with explaining how that works because I don't have the capacity to be a student during the summer.  

So, I've been able to take on work during those summer months and then return to UC through the guidance of that advisor and Teri Jacobs, my undergraduate director. They have both helped me figure out how I can get credit for those experiences after having done them and not being enrolled as a student at that time. So, they've been very flexible with my availability and my enrollment to help me get the credits and experience that I need. 

Absolutely. So I'll start by explaining that LEAP stands for a much longer name, which is Leaders for Environmental Awareness and Protection, and this is essentially an entry-level kind of all-encompassing club that invites any environmentally inclined individual to come to learn with and from their peers in an inclusive and inviting space that's not excluding people or telling them that they can't be in there because they don't know enough.  

We're here to just learn together and expose ourselves to our local community partners and that environmental community so that we can do real, hands-on, meaningful work and see how environmentalism, climate change, and sustainability are happening within our community. I got involved with this group because, as a freshman, I was looking for an environmental club to join, and to be honest, they were the first ones I saw.

I was really hyped up by the director when I was coming in, so I went in. They had a very welcoming environment and group, and they were very active on campus. So, I stuck around and went to every meeting.

Then, in my sophomore year, I became an executive officer on social media. And then, just by being diligent, showing up for all those meetings, and doing all my duties, I was asked to take over as president when our president was graduating and did not have enough capacity in her schedule. So, I have been serving as the president of LEAP for two years now. 

For sure. As I mentioned before, we do a lot of community involvement, and by doing so, we take on a lot of service projects or volunteer projects. People can get their service and volunteer hours with us. Still, we really strive to immerse ourselves in that space to remove invasive species that are harmful to our native flora and fauna, as well as plant native trees be there to help educate members of the community and pick up trash in Burnet Woods and around our city that we just love so dearly. And so that's a big area we've decided is an important project. And then, our club as a whole is kind of a project in the sense that we're trying to help UC students see how they are interacting with their world and help them feel more comfortable being more sustainable if that's something that they so choose or as simple as using public transit. It's really a whole project to become a part of our community and help anyone who cares about the environment feel welcome in that space. 

LEAP is a group that welcomes anyone who would like to have a conversation, sit in a room and have a discussion, or learn some things about the environment. We meet every Thursday from 4:00 to 5:00 PM at 2110 Clifton Court Hall. I also highly recommend that people contact other environmental organizations and groups to find what clicks and resonates with them. Soon, in October, the weekend of the 25th, there will be a UC student sustainability summit planned and led by students.

I'm one of the students on the planning committee, and this will be held in Shawnee State Park. It's an entirely free weekend with food and lodging included where people can come and just learn about building a sustainable future, what that means, and existing space to brainstorm with like-minded students about what that can look like within our community at a larger level, or even just at our university. So I highly recommend that for anyone interested. 

Featured image at top: UC's environmental studies major offers an interdisciplinary program that reaches into the natural sciences like biology and chemistry, policy and social sciences along with writing, ethics and other humanities. Photo/Pixabay