Are You Afraid to Ask?

If you are involved in environmental activism on a college campus, you will soon realize that you can’t do it alone. Asking for help can be scary and nerve-racking, especially when you don’t know where to go, or have been faced with getting a “No!” in the past. Though people’s willingness to help is out of your control, here are a few strategies to strengthen your ask, to increase your chances of getting a “Yes!”

As the president and founder of SLU Close the Loop, a club at St. Lawrence University dedicated to fostering and promoting exchange and swap culture to reduce waste on campus, I want to share my successful experience of performing an ask to the President’s Office and other senior staff. I hope my story will inspire you and help you get the “Yes!” from your school’s administration that you are looking for.

Close the Loop started two years ago and since then has grown significantly. Last semester, my main goal was to merge it with an on-campus thrift store that was abandoned after COVID-19. Having a physical location pinned down would ensure that the organization will remain operable in the future. The old thrift store functioned by hiring students to work a couple of hours a week. But there was no actual funding to pay the employees since it was expected that store sales would cover wages. Since there was no funding, there were no workers, creating a downward spiral. This semester, Close the Loop decided to ask for money from the President’s Office to pay for students to work in the store. Such a change would secure funding not only this semester, but also for many years to come long after we are gone. Even though we are still negotiating, things are moving forward. And we have already received even more than we initially requested. These four strategies played a major role in our success.

Networking Within Your University

In college, especially in the US, you hear the word “networking” from the moment you arrive. Networking with alums, networking on LinkedIn, and attending networking events. Most of this networking focuses on pushing you to network outside your university. But in my experience, networking within my university has been vital to the success of my initiative. Networking within the school has allowed me to create change because staff and faculty know me, my goals, and the work I have been doing.

There are many different ways to network within your university and many different paths you can take. Connecting with your professors outside of the classroom is a very important strategy. If you are in a major related to environmental studies or sustainability, or even if you are taking a couple of environmental classes, it is worth it to make an effort to learn about your professor’s work outside of classes. If they are in the environmental department, they are likely involved or at least know about the on-campus initiatives related to sustainability. They may even be doing research you can get involved with.

Another way to network within your university is to be on the executive board of a school club. Usually, students who are part of the exec board get invited to specific trainings or talks with the student activity staff. Connecting with them is vital since they have experience with past student initiatives and might be able to tell you what projects already exist, which ones have been abandoned, and which ones have never been done before. In my case, I reached out to the staff in student activities regarding the thrift store. Meeting with them is how I learned the ins and outs of how it worked and who was in charge.

Make Your Ask Specific

Before thinking of making any ask, it is essential to reflect on its clear purpose and who is the best person to receive it. A big mistake students can make is asking the wrong person, or not knowing exactly what they are asking for. Once you identify the need, do some research within your university to ensure that your idea doesn’t already exist and that someone is not already working on it. This is also a great opportunity to use your on-campus network and do some digging to find potential allies and people working on similar things.

I was looking for my club to be able to manage the thrift store and secure funding for student workers to work there. By having a meeting with the Director of Student Activities, we got permission to run the store. But we learned it wasn’t in her hands to secure funding.

That is why we decided to go higher and talk with the President. I prepared slides that contained a specific amount of money, exactly what that money was going to be used for, as well as anticipated questions she might ask such as “Why are we asking the President’s Office and not the student government?” By having my answer previously prepared, I was able to show the research I had done when, indeed, the President asked me that exact question.

Bring Other Stakeholders to the Meeting

Another important step when creating change or implementing a new environmental initiative is to involve different stakeholders and include students from other years. If you only bring seniors to the meeting, doubts may arise about how the project will continue once you graduate. By bringing a range of classes, you are showing the strength of your project. In addition to involving first and second-year students, inviting a faculty advisor is also very valuable. An advisor is someone familiar with your project who will be there for more than four years. Finally, if you had meetings about your project with staff before your final meeting, try to invite them to your big meeting, too. They can provide important support for your initiative. Also, it helps to show that have you talked to all the relevant parties before going directly to the President.

In my case, I invited all these groups to my large meeting with the President including the Director of Student Activities, a Faculty Advisor, and other students. This way the President was able to see the extensive prior work I had done and our club’s deep commitment to the thrift store.

Ask For Next Steps

Last but not least, it is important to ask for next steps. Having a meeting in the first place is a huge success. But not thinking about next steps might make all your efforts in vain. Make sure to come up with a timeline or ask for a date to check back to see if there has been any progress.

During our meeting, the President seemed on board with the idea of making the thrift store something more permanent and securing student job funding. But she explained that she couldn’t make the decision at the moment and needed time to think. We thanked her for her support and asked to schedule a meeting in the next couple of weeks to chat about the ways we could make our plan happen. She agreed and we secured a check-in meeting, ensuring that she would follow through with her commitment.

Although the funding has yet to be secured, our second meeting went very well. We could see the President’s commitment to our cause and even more came out of the meeting than we had expected. We learned that the school was already planning major sustainability initiatives for the coming year, so the President had already figured out how our project could play a role in the upcoming changes, benefiting us both.

In conclusion, numerous factors play a role in making permanent and lasting change at a university. Some are out of students’ control, but strategies can be implemented to increase the likelihood of success. By creating intergenerational clubs, and involving staff and faculty in students’ projects and ideas, initiatives get bigger and stronger. The more kinds of people that get involved in an initiative, the richer it will be and the more likely change will happen. If we persist, we will achieve positive change!

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RCC National Environmental Leadership Fellow – Valeria Obregon

Valeria Obregon is a senior at St. Lawrence University majoring in environmental studies and sociology and minoring in gender studies. She has studied abroad since she was seventeen having lived and studied in four different countries: Mexico, Singapore, Italy, and the United States. During her time at St. Lawrence University, she has been part of the Sustainability Program cohort of 2021-2022 and founded the club “SLU Close the Loop,” an environmental initiative to reduce waste on campus. Valeria has a passion for the arts, especially protest art and muralism.