Groups and Organizations
Student programs at the Earth Institute help students across the campus to connect and engage with the scientists and the research they conduct at the Institute. In addition to having an exciting array of research assistant and internship programs, we host events and panels that illustrate the issues our researchers face. We also work with student groups to help host events and campaigns focused on the issues and research we at the Earth Institute are engaged in.
To learn more about how students can connect please check out the links below. Click here to see a full list of student groups involved with the Earth Institute. For more information or to sign up for regular announcements about EI student programs, please email Louise Rosen at lar46@columbia.edu.
Green Umbrella
The Green Umbrella is a network of environmental student groups on the Columbia and Barnard campuses. Representatives from each group come together to network and improve communication, collaborate on campaigns, attend conferences and summits, and meet with the Office of Environmental Stewardship and other administrators. The coordinators of the Green Umbrella connect people and projects, serve as a nexus for information distribution, compile a comprehensive weekly email with green events and opportunities on campus and beyond, and facilitate large, multi-group event planning. Groups in the Green Umbrella include EarthCo, Barnard EcoReps, Columbia EcoReps, Students for Environmental and Economic Justice, Food Sustainability Project, Columbia University Environmental Biology Society, Core Foods, Columbia Students for Animal Protection, Jewish Theological Seminary EcoReps, and Consilience.
Contacts: Hannah Perls (hnp2103@columbia.edu) and Acadia Roher (ar2392@barnard.edu)
Barnard EcoReps
As a component of First-Year Focus, the ten student peer educators in the EcoReps Program head efforts to increase environmental awareness on campus, connect students and administrators, and reduce Barnard's negative environmental impacts. Opportunities provided by the EcoReps are specifically designed for first-year students living in the residence halls in order to influence decision-making during their transition to college with hopes that green living will become a permanent aspect of their lifestyle at Barnard and beyond. Monthly themes define residential programming and annual events such as Recyclemania, Green Move-in, Give + Go Green, and Local Foods Harvest Dinners at Hewitt Dining Hall. For the 2008-09 school year, the EcoReps will partner closely with the FYF Resident Assistants (RAs) on programming, planning, and informational signage, and act as a resource for ResLife and students on green living and other environmental topics. A new relationship between the EcoReps and the non-profit organization Rock and Wrap It Up will facilitate multiple Give + Go Green donation collections throughout the year. The EcoReps also work with ResLife, CAO, and other offices to decrease waste and source green products at campus-wide events.
Contact: barnardecoreps@gmail.com
Columbia CSA
This program through Roxbury Farm (Kinderhook, NY) allows students and community members to purchase a share of the farm. Shareholders support this small, local NY farm and receive a delivery each week of a share of the harvest from that week at the farm. Columbia student coordinators take find shareholders, organize pick-up locations, etc.
Contact: Alison Powell (ap2365@barnard.edu) and Megan McNally (mm3073@barnard.edu)
Columbia EcoReps
A group of students working in partnership with Columbia’s department of Housing and Dining in order to make Columbia’s campus more environmentally sustainable. Their work entails publicizing available environmental services, serving as a bridge of communication between students and the administration, facilitating campus projects for a reduced university ecological footprint. This year Eco-Reps will be working on a Green Licensing Program for dorms/campus buildings as well as continuing work with campus recycling, energy consumption, and purchasing of organic/local foods.
Contact: Prospero Herrera (pjh2111@columbia.edu) and Channa Bao (cb2537@columbia.edu)
Columbia Students for Animal Protection
This group supports animal-friendly policies at Columbia University and throughout the world. People of all diets and opinions are welcome and encouraged to come to weekly meetings and attend events. Last year, CSAP ran a successful cage-free egg campaign in Columbia’s Dining Halls and organized a free Vegan Thanksgiving Dinner.
Contact: Emma Lowrey (el2345@barnard.edu)
Columbia University Environmental Biology Society
CUEBS approaches the biosphere from an academic point of view and aims to to encourage environmental appreciation and education at all levels within the Columbia community. Their goals are to: network with other students, alumni, graduate students, and faculty interested in Environmental Biology; enrich the existing E3B and Environmental Science programs with events and trips that allow students to explore Environmental Biology outside of the classroom; and foster interest, education, and awareness in the Columbia community for Environmental Biology and, generally, the environment and its importance in our daily lives and our world. Their activities include film screenings, behind-the-scenes tours of the Aquarium, hikes, etc.
Contact: Eiren Jacobson (ekj2103@columbia.edu)
Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development
A global online publication dedicated to promoting interdisciplinary dialogue on sustainable development. By providing a public platform for discussion, we hope to encourage a global community to think more broadly, thoroughly and analytically about sustainable development. This publication aims to bring students, researchers, professors, and practitioners from a variety of disciplines and geographical regions in direct conversation with each other through an online, academically rigorous medium. We aim to encourage students to become involved in research: an invaluable problem-solving tool that has the power to transform unfocused passion into focused solutions. Consilience is designed to allow different disciplines to converse with each other in the high hopes that this cross-pollination of methodologies will spark ideas that ultimately lead to a higher quality of life for all people.
Contact: Hannah Lee (hsl2103@columbia.edu)
CoreFoods
Core Foods is Columbia’s Student-Run Organic Food Co-op. Currently located in JJ’s Place, they focus on providing a wide selection of local and organic food right on Columbia’s campus.
Contact: Ori Sosnik (oas2108@columbia.edu)
EarthCo
A Columbia/Barnard student coalition working to improve the local environment by promoting recycling on campus, organizing gardening and clean-ups in local parks, sponsoring environmental forums, and coordinating Earth Week activities on the Columbia campus. Earth Coalition also gets involved with local and national environmental issues with other environmental organizations, letter writing campaigns, and trips to environmental impact sites in the area. EarthCo promotes environmental consciousness through outreach and service to the community. Campaigns this year include Earth Tutors (teaching environmental education in a South Bronx elementary school), community gardening, and peer education about recycling.
Contacts: Talia Arbit (ta2188@barnard.edu) and Prospero Herrera (pjh2111@columbia.edu)
Food Sustainability Project
CUFSP works to promote sustainable agriculture and a healthy, just food system at Columbia, Barnard and in the wider community. We are dedicated to constructing a campus garden open to all that serves both as a source of “real” food and an example of the potential for urban agriculture and community development through the act of growing food. We strive to improve our current food supply through introducing local food products from small, regional farms and educating the public about the importance of a sustainable food system both for the health of the individual consumer and for the health of the environment in which we live.
Contact: Becky Davies (rmd2154@columbia.edu)
JTS EcoReps
An environmental advocacy and action student group dedicated to changing the attitude and ways of the JTS community and infrastructure. While the administrative Green Committee will serve as the institutional support for greening JTS, the EcoReps will develop the agenda and implement the change. Goals include: working with Facilities to create an improved recycling system and to make the JTS buildings more energy efficient; collaborating with Dining Services to bring more sustainable food options and to reduce the amount of waste produced daily; and raising community awareness about the reduction of energy and water use, recycling practices, green purchasing, and ways to make Jewish living more sustainable.
Contact: ecoreps@jtsa.edu
Medical Students For Environmental Action (Public Health)
Medical SEA is established to promote environmental awareness at the medical campus. We want to be the voice of students for environmental concerns. This organization is dedicated to reforming inadequate recycling policies, devising strategies to decrease waste and energy consumption, improving energy efficiency, educating students and faculty on environmental issues, and decreasing the ecological footprint at the Columbia University Medical Center.
Contact: Nidha Mubdi (nzm2103@columbia.edu) and Melda Uzun (msu2103@columbia.edu)
SEEJ (Students for Environmental and Economic Justice)
Students for Environmental & Economic Justice (SEEJ) is a Barnard and Columbia group dedicated to advancing ecological sustainability and labor rights. SEEJ is non-hierarchtical and operates by consensus, so new members can become involved immediately. Last year the group ran a campaign to encourage Columbia to purchase wind power, began working on a responsible purchasing code of conduct for the University, and launched an anti-bottled water initiative. This year they intend to continue these campaigns as well as pursue other projects that new members are interested in. Meeting are held every Tuesday night at 9:30pm in Earl Hall (Dodge Room).
Contact: seejasaurus@gmail.com
Other Campus-Based Organizations
African Studies Working Group
The African Studies Working Group (ASWG) is a group of students committed to promoting awareness of challenges facing the state of education in Africa and the African Diaspora. ASWG is open to Teachers College community members with a personal, research, and/or professional interest in Africa and the African Diaspora. We are devoted to debate, dialogue, collaboration and social opportunities to build alliances for relevant education research and practice throughout the United States and abroad.
Contact: Matthew Thomas (mt1187@yahoo.com)
Amnesty International
AI is a non-partisan, volunteer-driven, global organization which works towards the vision of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other international human rights standards.CUAI seeks to keep the Columbia community informed about human rights violations around the world and to promote student actions aimed at ending and preventing them. Our actions include letter-writing and petitioning, hosting speakers, showing relevant films, facilitating discussions, posting information around campus, building coalitions with other student groups, and fundraising through various events. This semester, CUAI's focus is on ending torture, war-on-terror related abuses, and child soldiers.
Barnard-Columbia Undergraduate Public Health Society (BCUPHS)
BCUPHS' mission is twofold: (1) to engage the undergraduate community in public health issues through education and service projects; (2) to provide pre-professional support for students interested in public health careers with medicine, academia, policy, or any other field. The group is made up of several task forces with the overall goal to address public health issues. These task forces include: Povertees Campaign and the Public Health Newsletter.
Contact: Alexis Wazenberg (adw2124@columbia.edu)
Columbia Political Union
The Columbia Political Union, organized for and by the students and faculty of Columbia University, seeks to enhance involvement in the political process, domestic and international, and draw every member of the campus community into an ongoing discussion of political ideas. As a nonpartisan group, we collaborate with other groups on campus, working to incorporate all points of view and voices from a variety of political backgrounds.
Contact: cpu@cupolitics.org
Columbia Students for International Service
Columbia Students for International Service (CSIS) is committed to promoting global service and global citizenship through international volunteer and internship experiences. CSIS works to articulate the importance of cross-cultural learning and exchange, citizen diplomacy, and the idea that service abroad is an essential duty shared by all humanity. Via its membership and group resources, CSIS strives to offer students support and insight into all aspects of international service as well as to encourage Columbia University to support experiential learning overseas as part of its goal of becoming a global university.
Contact: csis-eboard@columbia.edu
Columbia University Partnership for International Development (CUPID)
CUPID is a student-led effort across Columbia University to facilitate multidisciplinary dialogue, awareness, and action on international development. Recognizing the University's excellence in this field, CUPID serves as a channel for individuals interested in international development to take advantage of the University's wide-ranging human and institutional resources in their academic, extracurricular, and professional endeavors. Encouraging a collaborative spirit among students, professors, and alumni with diverse specialties, CUPID aims to explore and demonstrate how a multidisciplinary approach to international development can produce innovative, holistic solutions for developing country issues.
Contacts: cupid-owner@columbia.edu, Elise Roberts (emr2143@columbia.edu), and Kye Mesa Barnard (kmb2144@columbia.edu)
Energy Club
The Energy Club is committed to educating Columbia Business School students about the energy industry, increasing awareness regarding career opportunities, and helping members take advantage of those opportunities. The Energy Club periodically hosts panel discussions and speakers on topics that are shaping the future of the energy industry. We also offer a symposium and speaker series each Spring. To assist our members in their job searches, we distribute a resume book for first- and second-year students and invite prospective employers to host on-campus presentations. Finally, we strive to create a network of students and alumni who are committed to working in the energy industry through the Columbia Business School Energy Network.
Engineers Without Borders
The Columbia University chapter of Engineers Without Borders aims to address the problems facing people both locally and abroad by leveraging the skills, talents and passions of Columbia University students and the partnerships formed with our organization. Our members come from all engineering and arts backgrounds, sharing the desire to do meaningful work in improving the lives of others through creative, sustainable, engineering solutions. We are currently working on three major projects in Ghana, India, and Uganda.
Contact: cu-ewb@columbia.edu
Environmental Law Society
The Environmental Law Society (ELS) is a student-run organization whose purpose is to promote: the furthering of skills and knowledge in environmental law; discussion about current and pressing legal environmental issues; dissemination of new academic scholarship relating to environmental law; information on careers in environmental law; extracurricular learning opportunities for students; input to the law school administration on curriculum and clinical offerings; collaborative efforts with other Columbia affiliated schools and groups; and resource conservation at the Law School and surrounding communities. To this end, ELS hosts a variety of speakers, panels, social events, field trips and outings and maintains a diverse, growing membership comprised of students, staff and faculty from the Columbia Law School community.
Contact: Anna Fleder (asf2128@columbia.edu)
Global Justice
Columbia Global Justice, the Columbia-Barnard chapter for the Student Global AIDS Campaign, is a student group dedicated to promoting health, human rights, and sustainable economic development globally by raising awareness, inspiring effective advocacy, and engendering student political will throughout the Columbia community.
Contact: globaljustice@columbia.edu
Green Business Club
The Green Business Club engages students, the Columbia Business School community, and business leaders across industries on the intersection of business and sustainability. We educate our members on emerging triple-bottom-line business issues through events and discussion forums. We connect students with employers though networking opportunities, career resources, and business and alumni contacts. We advocate and model sustainable practices in our own community through campus greening projects.
Contact: Kate Grossman (kgrossman09@gsb.columbia.edu)
Human Rights Working Group
The Human Rights Working Group is comprised of three subcommittees: Human Rights in Practice, Events and Education and Curriculum. The Human Rights in Practice committee is working to inject practical elements into the SIPA human rights education, such as by creating opportunities to do volunteer work with HR orgs in the city during the school year and by preparing fieldtrips to human rights organizations in the area. The Events and Education committee is working to "educate to liberate." it is responsible for putting on panels, movies, brownbags, and other educational events. the group also has an outreach/ACTION component working toward engaging the SIPA human rights community with the broader Columbia and New York community through action and education, and by becoming a strong channel for dialogue, support, and activism. The Curriculum Committee is working on reshaping SIPA's human rights curriculum offerings. they are currently campaigning for a skills-based human rights course that would be a two-semester course, with a workshop component in the spring and a project placement in the summer (possibly modeled on the EPD or CR workshops).
Contacts: hrwg.sipa@gmail.com, Christen Dobson (cnd2109@columbia.edu), and Shannon Mullins (sjm2148@columbia.edu)
Microfinance Working Group
The goal of the group is to do everything related to microfinance. The group plans events such as featured speakers, career fairs, and workshops. Events planned for this year include a post-conflict microfinance workshop, an information session about microinsurance with Bear Sterns, as well as field trips throughout
Postbac Premedical Association Global Medicine Group
The Global Medicine Group is an organization for premedical students interested in global health and social justice. The GMG is committed to promoting health and human rights among aspiring medical professionals. Through activism, education, and collaboration, the GMG hopes to contribute to humanitarian causes both globally and locally while helping members pursue their unique interests in international medicine.
Rightslink
Rightslink is a human rights law research organization based at Columbia University School of Law in New York City. Rightslink provides free legal research services to human rights and public interest law groups both domestically and around the world. Our goal is to assist organizations that lack the financial and tehcnical capacity or political freedom to conduct their own research.
SIPA Energy Association
The SIPA Energy Association is dedicated to complimenting the education of the International Energy Management and Policy concentration, connecting SIPA students with practitioners in the energy sector, and educating students about career opportunities in the field. SEA's activities include arranging visits to SIPA by actors in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors, as well as trips for students to see aspects of the energy industry in person. The organization aims to aid its members in finding jobs and internships within the energy sector while building a network of SIPA alumni working in the various facets of shaping the world's energy future.
Contact: sipaenergy@gmail.com
Social Enterprise Club
The Social Enterprise Club empowers students to create social value in private and public enterprises. The Club provides networking opportunities and educational experiences for a range of social enterprise careers including: nonprofit management and consulting, corporate social responsibility, for-profit entrepreneurial endeavors, venture philanthropy, government and public finance, microfinance, and community and international development. Our members share common visions and values that support lasting personal and professional relationships.
Contacts: Justin Browne (jbrowne09@gsb.columbia.edu) and Joseph Chmielewski (jchmielewski09@gsb.columbia.edu)
Society for International Education (SIE)
The goal of SIE has been to promote an academic, professional, and social network for students and alumni/ae within the communities of Teachers College and Columbia University who share a special interest in the field of International Education Development, Comparative Education, and Human Rights. SIE also has a student-run Journal that is dedicated to publishing the scholarship of graduate students at Columbia and its affiliates.
Contacts: Tavis Jules (tdj2101@columbia.edu) and Hakim Williams (haw2102@columbia.edu)
Sustain US
SustainUS is a national network of young people organizing around the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in their schools and communities. SustainUS is committed to increasing youth participation in sustainable development issues, demanding government accountability to its citizens and adherence to international agreements, and working with all stakeholders to establish sustainable development practices.
Contact: Sam Krevor (Sam@SustainUs.org)
Students can also connect with nationwide campaigns to support the MDGs:
High school students in the New York Young Conservationists class determine the approximate near-shore marine biodiversity.