Audrey Vaughan
Dec-12
Greeks Going Green Internship
Final Report
a. Description of your organization/agency:
The mission of Greeks Going Green is to work to implement a greater sense of
environmental stewardship into the Greek system. We hope to spread awareness, education and
thoughtful action about sustainable living on campus and beyond. One of the specific projects of
GGG is to establish a permanent and active sustainability chair position in each Greek entity.
This Chair would be the leading point person of environmental stewardship within the chapter.
This chairperson will oversee and help facilitate an organized and consistent recycling system for
his or her fraternity or sorority. While elected, they will work on an annual project specific to
their chapter as well as collaborate with other Greek Sustainability Chairs to coordinate the
Greek system’s presence in sustainability on campus. In addition, this person will serve as the
liaison between their sorority/fraternity and the GGG intern in order to facilitate recycling,
sustainable living practices and green events. The second main goal of the GGG internship is to
work on recycling within the Greek system. Currently, the majority of the fraternities do not
have a recycling system and the sororities have been consistently poor at following through with
recycling within their respective Prentiss sections.
This internship does not require funding as any costs would be paid by the individual
Greek entity, and this position is more of a catalyst for change within and a resource for the
Greek system rather than an organization that puts on its own events. On one hand, this structure
enables more projects to be taken on, as the GGG intern is able to delegate responsibilities to the
Sustainability Chairs. However, it can also make things challenging in that this position must
coordinate with many other people in order to be productive.
b. Internship Responsibilities/Activities:
Again, my two main goals were to establish sustainability chairs in each
fraternity/sorority and, once they were in place, to implement a recycling program in each
house/Prentiss section. So far I have compiled a list of people who are interested either in
becoming, or who already are, the sustainability chair for their Greek entity. I have a name from
every frat/sorority except for SIG; however, I have been in contact with their president, who said
SIG would be interested in this position, but that he wants to wait until elections are held to
decide who this chair will be. I hope that he will tell me in the upcoming week who this person
will be so I can organize a meeting with all the Greek representatives to go over the goals and
duties of the positions as well as the GGG program as a whole. I also attended the composting
workshop with the PHI sustainability chair a couple weeks ago to help build a composting bin
for their house. In addition, I have brainstormed with the Climate Challenge GGG person, Annie
Audrey Vaughan
Dec-12
McFadden, ideas for possible projects we can suggest to the sustainability chairs. At this point, I
am prepared for my meeting with the chairs, which I believe will be a major step in beginning
the process of making the Greek system more sustainable.
c. Reflections:
Mid-Term
This internship has definitely been a huge learning experience for me in that it has taught
me a lot about self-motivation and planning. At the beginning of the semester, I was busy with
school and other extra-curricular activities, so it was easy to let GGG fall to the wayside, as it
didn’t really have any pressing deadlines or rules. It took a couple weeks for me to realize that if
this internship was something that was important to me, I was the one who had to put in the
effort and time to make it happen as no one was looking over my shoulder and telling me what to
do. I learned that in order to get anything done, I needed to actually sit down and figure out what
exactly I wanted to accomplish and to make mini-deadlines for myself to do various small tasks.
In addition, I realized that I really valued being able to talk to someone who was also interested
in my project. I now brainstorm a lot with Annie, and I’ve found it is helpful to have someone
there to bounce ideas off of and help you prioritize your goals. One of the biggest difficulties of
the job has also been trying to coordinate with 8 other people, all who have different priorities,
most of which are not GGG. For example, I am all ready for the meeting with the chairs, yet I
have to wait for SIG to have their elections and choose their representative before I can go
forward. On the other hand, this has also been one of the perks of the job, as the PHI
sustainability chair is really passionate about making his house more green and has even looked
into installing solar panels. I would definitely recommend this position to a future intern, as not
only it is a great way to get involved on campus, but it is also an excellent opportunity for
personal growth in organizing.
Final Report
I really enjoyed finally getting to meet with some of the sustainability chairs and feel
useful! I was happy that these chairs felt able to ask me questions and for help in making the
fraternities and sororities more sustainable. I thought it was good that they saw this position as a
resource to connect their organization with the Whitman College sustainability community. For
example, I was able to help Theo get in contact with Matt Atkins in order to further his
composting project at Beta as well as look into why the recycling was not being picked up
outside of Phi. Such questions that arose from the chairs made me realize the need for a master
manual for the Greeks Going Green intern. In this manual, it would be helpful to gather all the
information from the individual fraternities and sororities (such as whether or not they have an
official Sustainability Chair position, the contact information for their GGG representative or
Audrey Vaughan
Dec-12
chair, who own the property the fraternity house is on, who picks up their recycling, etc…) as
well as the contact information of the landscape manager at the physical plant and the Outhouse
(which would facilitate recycling themed questions). Again, I was very frustrated at the lack of
response I got from the other fraternities and sororities. I sent numerous emails and even talked
to several representatives face-to-face, yet was met with little to no cooperation. Twice I was
even stood up at meetings by representatives who failed to show up despite confirmation. I
therefore decided to focus my attention on the three chapters, Theta, Phi and Beta, who showed
interest in becoming more sustainable. It is my hope that, after these three chapters have gained
momentum and recognition for their actions, that the other chapters will join in the fight as well.
Advice
The advice I would give to future Greeks Going Green interns would be to, early on,
establish contacts in each of the fraternity and sorority chapters. I underestimated how long this
process would take and how difficult it would prove to be. In addition, I would say that future
interns should plan to set aside a certain chunk of time, every week, to dedicate to GGG work.
This would prevent putting off this work in order to focus on other, more pressing tasks. I would
also urge interns to create a master manual of helpful information pertaining to this organization.
I think this would ease the new intern’s start of the semester by giving him or her a foundation
from which to grow instead of completely starting from scratch.