{"id":7340,"date":"2018-03-27T20:31:23","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T00:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2018\/03\/29\/on-board-with-generation-green\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T20:05:55","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T01:05:55","slug":"on-board-with-generation-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/on-board-with-generation-green\/","title":{"rendered":"On board with Generation Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

The state of Georgia doesn\u2019t have a reputation for being a hotbed of environmental activism, but green initiatives are gaining momentum in the Peach State thanks in no small part to the outsized contributions of Furman alumni to the Georgia Conservancy.<\/p>\n

The Conservancy is perhaps the most influential pro-environment organization in Georgia, and five of the 22 elected directors for Generation Green<\/a>, its young professionals board, are former Paladins. Leah Dixon \u201909, Will Kurz \u201914, Mia El-Hamaki \u201915, Emily Hays \u201914 and Jenni Asman \u201911 make up nearly a quarter of the members, which is a total coincidence except for the key fact that all discovered their passion for sustainability at Furman.<\/p>\n

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Furman alumnae Jenni Asman ’11, Emily Hays ’14 and Mia El-Hamaki ’15 serve on Generation Green, the Georgia Conservancy’s young professionals board.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe sustainability world in Atlanta is small in general, so to have a strong Furman group in (Gen Green) is really fun,\u201d Hays, who majored in sustainability science, says.<\/p>\n

El-Hamaki also majored in sustainability science<\/a>, and she and Hays were two of the attendees at Gen Green\u2019s first Next South conference<\/a> in 2015. Next South is dedicated to inspiring future leaders seeking careers in sustainability and corporate responsibility, and Hays and El-Hamaki were inspired to the point that Hays is now an ORISE Research Fellow at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and El-Hamaki is the environmental sustainability analyst at Cox Enterprises, where she manages sustainability programs for 55,000 employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really fun job, and I\u2019m really thankful for it,\u201d El-Hamaki says. \u201cIt was one of the reasons that I came to Furman \u2013 the fact that they offered the major and were involved and excited about sustainability. The reason I majored in it, though, was the introductory sustainability course I took my freshman year. I thought I was going to be an English major, but I absolutely fell in love with studying sustainability science and kept taking classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asman was a psychology major who is now the sustainability director at Georgia State University. She was the chair and central organizer of the 2018 Next South conference, which drew 12 Furman students to Atlanta on Feb. 23 to present their senior projects. That was the most ever, which was not a coincidence.<\/p>\n

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Furman seniors India Butler, Susie Wold and Ann Legg-Margiotta presented their research at Next South.<\/p><\/div>\n

On the advice of Weston Dripps, executive director for the David E. Shi Center for Sustainability<\/a>, she made a few changes to make New South more useful to students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be the chair because I work in higher education, but also selfishly I wanted to have a reason to connect back with Furman folks,\u201d she says. \u201cHe mentioned there was a need for a conference close by that would be cost-effective and where students could present their research. That tied the networking opportunity with sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Hays took her job with the CDC, she got to know someone on the board a Gen Green. She decided to join herself, which turned out to be the same year El-Hamaki and Kerr got involved. Then, \u201cwe get there, and there are two other Furman alums already on the board,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it was really important to give back in that way \u2013 serving on the board created more opportunities for me to connect Furman students with possible positions,\u201d El-Hamaki adds.<\/p>\n

Asman thinks Furman\u2019s reputation for sustainability helped all of them get jobs in a growing field, and the opportunity to work together for change is an added bonus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool that so many Furman students who have been in the sustainability program have gravitated towards this board as a way for us to connect with one another in a professional space and really feel like we\u2019re making a difference together outside of our normal day job,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state of Georgia doesn\u2019t have a reputation for being a hotbed of environmental activism, but green initiatives are gaining momentum in the Peach State thanks in no small part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":17847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,37,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-centers-and-institutes","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-shi-institute-for-sustainable-communities"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}