What Being an Eco Rep Fellow Taught Me About Leadership

Leading 28 busy college students is not always a walk in the park.

My name is Nabila Wilson, a sustainability major from Houston, TX, and I’ve been leading the Eco Reps program for two years now. Eco Reps is a national program focused on peer-to-peer sustainability education.

Since beginning Eco Reps my freshman year, I’ve seen Eco Reps, Furman, and the world change a lot.

The sustainability space is always shifting and turning, and so we must change with it. Last year, we switched from a residential structure to one based on events. We split Eco Reps up into groups, and each group is responsible for leading one event a semester. This change, along with being the Eco Rep Fellow, has taught me so much. Today I’m going to share a few of these lessons with you.

1. Balance of Structure and Participant Input 

For students to be passionate about what they’re doing and have buy-in, they must somehow be involved in the brainstorming process. For an event to be successful, the subject must be something that the organizers believe to be important, or else they won’t be motivated to work on it. However, there is such a thing as too much leeway. I realized this freshman year when our goals were a bit broader. When given the option of everything, people become overwhelmed and will likely choose nothing. So this year, we began giving Reps specific sustainability themes they could choose from to design their events around. They still have freedom to choose, but they also have some built-in options that prevent duplicate programming between the Reps’ events and also streamlines the brainstorming process.

2. Group Size Matters

If a group is too big, no one will accept responsibility, and nothing will get done because they think that others will do the work. But also, if it is too small, Reps may get overwhelmed. I think a sweet spot is 3-5 Reps per group.

3. In-Person Meetings are Essential 

Last year, we began to include planning time at our monthly meetings. This skyrocketed the productivity of the group. It is so much more efficient to work with others in person as opposed to online, where messages can get lost, and it’s much harder to brainstorm because of a delay in communication. Having these set planning times and including specific goals for each group at the end of meetings made sure that all of the groups were on the same page and progressing forward in their event planning.

4. Centralize Knowledge 

Everything that is learned should be written down; this is how a group grows. Navigating events at Furman can be complicated. Where am I allowed to hang up flyers? How do I reserve rooms in the academic buildings vs Trone? And what are the best practices for making informational Instagram posts? I had learned this information as a Rep and from talking to the upperclassmen. We decided to combine all of this information into one document that Reps can reference whenever they have questions. This makes planning events more efficient. Additionally, we created a collaborative “ideas” document that everyone could add to whenever they had ideas for events.

5. Hands-On Events Energize Everyone

We started doing craft-based/hands-on practical knowledge events last year and it resulted in an immediate increase in attendance from students. This includes events like our Upcycling Workshop where we teach people how to patchwork, sew, and other simple mending techniques. Last semester we also had students collaboratively make a mural to represent native plants. Students are consistently online and on technology because of school and social media, so we crave hands-on activities where there is a physical result.

 

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned from being an Eco Rep fellow and getting to work with the wonderful people at the Shi Institute. It’s made me a better leader and communicator and has given me a wonderful network that has already helped me pursue my goals and think about my future career.