Students from Seton Hill University are nearly finished with a series of leadership training sessions as part of the Millennium Fellowship, a semester-long program sponsored by the United Nations Academic Impact and Millennium Campus Network.
“After we finish our training, we’ll teach that to the other fellows,” said senior Ariana Scott, 22, of Leechburg. As part of the fellowship, they will work on a community project that helps tackle the UN’s Sustainable Goal for Sustainable Cities.
“Each group picks a sustainable development goal,” said junior Gabrielle Bubin, 20, of Maryland. “You have to lay out what you want to do and how you plan to do it.”
Their project — “SHUstainable Human Settlements and Resources” — brings together students at the Greensburg university from various disciplines dedicated to researching, educating, and impacting the local community around UN Sustainable Development Goal #11, which is creating sustainable cities. The three-part project will focus on research, outreach, and cleanup. During the research phase, the students will focus on the ways cities are impacted by water, air, infrastructure, and other human-related environmental issues as well as the political and socio-economic effects of the issue. The team then will conduct outreach about their research and the importance of sustainable cities.
“We’re presenting at Seton Hill but also at my alma mater in Leechburg, and we’ve been in contact with a couple other high schools, as well,” Scott said.
In addition, they plan to travel to Harrisburg to lobby state officials on the issue. Finally, the group will host a community cleanup event to take tangible action on the issue of sustainability.
Scott said each student among the 12 in the fellowship views the issue of sustainability a little bit differently through the lens of their own experience.
“I’m a sociology and political science major, so I was looking at doing a survey about the high percentage of lead in the Allegheny County water supply,” she said. “For me, it’s about ensuring that everyone has equal access to quality resources.”
Bubin, a global studies major, focused more on the social impact.
“I looked at the top polluters in Pittsburgh and at whether the healthcare that’s provided in the region is accessible to everyone,” she said. “I’d like to try and make sure that income doesn’t affect the amount of pollution in peoples’ lives.”
Millennium Fellowship members plan to hold a future student summit in conjunction with activities by the university’s Model United Nations Club.
“We’ll have postcards for students to write to their state government representatives about sustainability,” Scott said. “Also, our faculty advisor Roni Kay O’Dell will lead a class on writing policy briefs, so when we come back from winter break, we’ll be ready to start the lobbying aspect of the fellowship.”
O’Dell said the fellowship offers students a chance to engage their leadership skills to identify modern challenges.
“Through research, presentations, and community service they will engage their peers and members of the community to care for and cherish the world we live in,” O’Dell said. “I’m excited to support these students as they implement this project and become leaders at Seton Hill and in our larger community.”
For more on the work Seton Hill’s Millennium Fellowship students are doing, see Sites.google.com/setonhill.edu/shustainable-hrs/about. Learn more about the fellowship at MillenniumFellows.org.