Your approach to teaching mirrors the many roles you take on at Emma Willard. Why is that important to you?

I've been teaching for so long that now I need to have this multifaceted aspect of teaching: how many times can I just teach conjugations? Since I arrived at Emma I have really found the ability to create opportunities and connections for myself and for students. It fills my cup, but I also think that the more connections we can make as individuals helps us not just to be super smart, but to be better rounded as humans: whether it’s live talks with students from the Ivory Coast, or connecting with somebody who grew up in Haiti while we are studying Haiti in class, or a connection to the environment through the outdoor education class. Sustainability is one of those areas, too. It's a blanket over so many departments, so many aspects of the community, so many aspects of life. So, I ask, “What kind of opportunities and connections can I help facilitate for the students?”

What has Emma Green been up to this year?

I want to make sure that I am building on the path other people have created, and that’s true with Emma Green (as well as with sustainability on campus). The students feel strongly—really strongly—about the environment and the world they are inheriting. They are thinking about how we can shape it differently, both on the small scale and in the much wider world. This year we participated in the Climate Change Youth Summit at the Wild Center (a natural history center in Tupper Lake, New York), and we’ve been talking with other departments to make our recycling, garbage disposal, and compost systems more sustainable and constructive on campus.At one point in the year, the club members were feeling in a slump, and that their work was going in all these different directions, so we looked at everything they did this year in the direction of making our campus more sustainable. Sustainability and climate change are permeating every part of our media right now, so they need tangible things to feel that little bit of a win. Having something to hold on to that is manageable is really important because I think a lot of them really struggle with feeling like everything is so big and you have to do huge things to have an impact. The Wild Center was phenomenal; they gave the students very clear steps to achieve their goals in their communities. It was very empowering.

What is the outdoor education (after-school physical education class) like?

Outdoor education is appealing, especially if you're a kid who doesn't want to do a sport. You have the option of getting outside, moving around, and engaging with your community, your environment, and your body in a different way. We look at how we can care for the Back 40 and think about how we can develop a relationship with the outdoors.In the beginning, we did a very simple activity for learning to read a map by orienting yourself on campus using maps and critiquing them: if I put a marker at the corner of the little indent of Slocum, that's not quite at the front door, so how do you find it? In the winter we organized a luminary walk to try to entice the community to be involved in being outside in a festive way (and then food, of course—we made it enticing with s’mores!).

How do you see sustainability as a theme in classes at Emma?

It’s so important that we explore sustainability not just in one elective that some students will take in 11th or 12th grade. We ask how sustainability can permeate throughout many courses so that students think of it as a part of their real life. For example, in French class, we're going to start a unit on the environment and ecology. The students will research a topic to debate with another student in French. Afterwards, we will have them reflect and give us their own opinion in writing: all in French. It's hard, but it's really using the language. And we tell them, you are welcome to go and talk to other experts and teachers on campus to get the content of the argument in favor or against, but when it comes to actually debating, it's going to have to be in French.

How does the work with the students intersect with the work of the Environmental Sustainability Taskforce at Emma?

There are a lot of people who have been doing this work for a long time: Jon Calos, Megan Labbate, Gina Egan, and Katie Holt are just a few. It made me realize we have many partners in the community, but it's really a matter of coordinating, and following the steps that had been created previously but realizing that if now is the right time to work on a project, then go for it! Scott Kosnick and I went to the Saratoga Sustainability Fair at Skidmore College, and honestly, I did not know until then that he was also interested in it as a topic! We started talking more and more, and then we started talking to those people who had done some of that work previously and building on those conversations. But I think as the adults on campus, I certainly see it as a great responsibility to find a way to create connections or open the window into them with students. And then what they’ll do as young adults is not up to me.

This piece was written for the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Signature Magazine.