Action for a Sustainable Future

Student intern Naomi Weinflash conducted research and collaborated on initiatives to advance sustainability on campus.

When Naomi Weinflash was looking for a way to make a tangible impact on campus, she gravitated toward an internship with Syracuse University’s Sustainability Management team.

“I liked the idea that I would be doing real work in my internship that would go to help the greater good on campus,” she says.

Weinflash, a double major in policy studies and citizenship and civic engagement in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School, researched how the University can offset travel emissions produced by its vehicles, buses, vans and general fleets. “Getting to practice and apply what I learn about policy in Maxwell on a carbon pricing policy I genuinely care about in my internship with Sustainability Management is a great opportunity,” she says.

Sustainability Management’s for-credit internship program lets students pursue projects that complement their major and explore their interest in sustainability. “No matter what your major is, sustainability plays a part in it,” says Sustainability Coordinator Meg Lowe, who manages the growing program. “Students in our office work on realworld projects that we need help completing, and every project is useful for the betterment of Syracuse University.”

The internship program is enhanced by Sustainability Management’s relationship with Facilities Services. Past student-intern projects have focused on sourcing materials sustainably, fighting food insecurity and marketing sustainability on campus.

Weinflash’s research focused on recent legislation that was introduced in several states to begin taxing carbon emissions. She examined how the University could implement a similar tax based on a greenhouse gas inventory that includes all travel for faculty, staff and students to and from campus. The revenue generated by this tax would go toward the purchase and planting of trees on campus.

The connections between Weinflash’s hands-on research and her coursework resonated. “Citizenship and civic engagement are about serving a community in its own way, because each community is different,” Weinflash says. “I knew that an internship with Sustainability Management would allow me to have an impact on the Syracuse campus.”

—Shaina M. Hill