October 17, 2019

Know more about...SEED!

Read about what your peers are doing in SEED!
Interview with Nell Decker ’22, Gretchen Schowalter ’22 and Amanda Brady ’22
  • From left to right Nell Decker' 22, Gretchen Schowalter’ 22 and Amanda Brady’ 22

Interview with Nell Decker ’22, Theater major; Gretchen Schowalter ’22, Physics and Mathematics major and Amanda Brady ’22, Environmental Studies major.

What is SEED?

Amanda: SEED stands for Students Engaged in Eco-Defence. Our goal is to improve environmental leadership on campus and to tackle different environmental issues that are within the PDX community and to find a way to connect students to those different interests varying from engaging in different protests, or working on campus to improve recycling, composting and other issues.

Gretchen: A lot of the things that SEED works on are student-driven, so depending on how many students want to participate each year and depending on their specific interests, stirs our club in different directions. This year we have a lot of interest in getting a beehive on campus and we also have a lot of students who are interested in being politically active in the climate movement right now. We organize a lot of the stuff for the climate strike that happened a couple of weeks ago. SEED helped get free bus tickets for students and helped facilitate that process. Right now, we’re also working on composting in different areas of campus. We’ve got a lot of different small projects going on right now but it’s definitely driven by what the students want for each year. 

Nell: I think that it’s also a little bit about connecting the L&C community with he bigger world environmental activism so kind of a bridge.

How did you become interested in SEED?

Amanda: I joined at the beginning of my freshman year and was involved on and off. We just increasingly got more involved. The size of the club has grown a lot which has made it more efficient because we can actually tackle a lot of these bigger issues that are very important. 

Gretchen: I joined in the second semester of my freshman year because I knew that the former president. Our big project last semester was getting people involved and so we started tabling and we were also trying to promote the Waze Carpool app so that students could carpool from and to different places around Portland. We’re still working on it. 

Nell: Gretchen told me about SEED and it sounded very exciting, then the three of us would just talk about it and we knew that the leadership was graduating last year and so it was kind of an exciting opportunity to step in and do something that we could be excited about. 

 How does seed related to your academic interest?

Amanda: I’m an Environmental Studies major and I had been involved in an environmental club in high school so I knew coming to college that I wanted to look for that and continue to be part of that.

Nell: I’m a theater major so if not super directly involved but it’s cool that even if I am not an Environmental Studies major, I am still able to be a part of SEED.

Gretchen: I am Physics and Math major and I am not as directly involved but I can see my career going into geophysics realm which is more environmental and earth sciency but I also think that it’s important. You don’t have to be an ENVS major or as a career to participate. We want everyone who loves the earth and wants to protect it and who is willing to put in a little bit of effort. 

Amanda: We have a lot of student with different backgrounds and everybody is able to find their own project that they are passionate about and can contribute in the own way so I think its good that we have that outlet where we can create all these different projects that can be going on simultaneously. 

How do you think being part of SEED has impacted your life on campus?

Amanda: It’s nice having a community passionate about the environment and have these conversations and know familiar faces as you’re walking around campus. I would say personally with being an ENVS major, it has been exciting and a really good way to make connections outside of the classroom and expand my learning.

Gretchen: It’s nice to know that you can make a difference. I think it’s great to have a community. It’s also fun, I’m a planner, I enjoy it. I don’t think I need any other reason.

Nell: It’s just made more grateful to be al L&C