In October 2021, Sydney Warner (23C), Clare McCarthy (23C) and Jack Miklaucic (23C) thought Emory University’s environmental action seemed “promising.”
The three students, along with four other leaders of the Emory Climate Coalition (ECC), a student-led environmental group, had just come off of a successful meeting with Emory University President Gregory Fenves. During their discussion, they convinced Fenves to join Race to Zero, a pact aiming to eliminate on-campus carbon emissions, and to sign an agreement that committed Emory to combating greenhouse gas emissions.
Almost a year later, however, Warner, McCarthy and Miklaucic were back in an administrative meeting for a different reason. In early August, they heard that the Ways and Means Committee, housed under the Office of Planning and Administration, slashed funding for the student intern program of the University’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI). As Emory’s most prominent environmental action organization, OSI directs sustainability operations for Emory’s campuses, in addition to Emory Healthcare facilities.
At the Sept. 21 meeting, Vice President for Campus Services Robin Morey confirmed to the ECC leaders that the recent OSI budget didn’t include funding for the intern program, according to McCarthy. Morey told the students that the Ways and Means Committee members incorrectly thought that OSI had enough funds to cover the intern program, so they didn’t allocate funding for the program in the budget, McCarthy added.
Morey told the students that “nothing nefarious is going on,” according to McCarthy.
Nevertheless, the ECC leaders — who mobilized roughly 130 students for a protest Sept. 23 calling for an increase in OSI’s finances — said they want to see change. Warner, McCarthy and Miklaucic learned near the beginning of this semester that OSI is using external funds this fall to pay its interns due to the lack of University funding, and the students said they find this unacceptable. On top of that, the ECC leaders said they felt administrators were not transparent as they tried to learn what was happening with OSI’s budget.
“It just really proves the original disconnect … of Emory promoting itself as a sustainability leader, but not really backing that up with action,” McCarthy said. “Sustainability is just not truly a priority.”
OSI intern program ‘zeroed out’ in budget
This past spring, Jordan Hasty (20Ox, 22C) heard a “whisper” that OSI was at risk of losing its intern program, which meant he might lose his position in the sustainability organization.
There are six OSI interns this fall, including Hasty. They work from five to 20 hours per week, preparing memos for OSI staff, helping manage Emory’s weekly farmers market and generally supporting OSI’s activities. OSI also has two sustainability & social justice post-graduate fellows and one climate solutions post-graduate fellow, all of whom began working in June.
The “whisper,” to Hasty’s and others’ distress, was not unfounded.
According to the ECC leaders, OSI Interim Director Taylor Spicer and Campus Services staff took action that spring after learning that the Ways and Means Committee had not funded the student intern program in the recent budget. OSI requested support letters from students and alumni, and then appealed to the Committee. However, the Ways and Means Committee denied the appeal, according to the ECC leaders.
Hasty said that in early August, Spicer confirmed to the interns at a meeting that it “looked like” the funding for the intern program and other programs would be gone.
“They reported that those things had been zeroed out in the budget,” Hasty said. “They were under the impression that those programs would not be funded for this upcoming fiscal year.”
OSI operates under a zero-based budget, which means that the Ways and Means Committee doesn’t take the Office’s previous funding into account when determining its budget.
“She said, ‘Potentially OSI has extra fundraise dollars that we can devote to this,’” Hasty said. “But basically, she was just warning us that we might not have jobs at the beginning of the school year.”
The Ways and Means Committee did not provide any further information to the Wheel.
At the beginning of this semester, OSI leaders, aware of the lack of University funding, decided to draw from the organization’s external funds — which come through donations — to ensure the intern program could continue through the fall. OSI is also paying two of its three post-graduate fellows with external funds.
However, while the intern program is still functioning, word spread among students that the University may have removed funding for OSI. At the start of the semester, the ECC began organizing the Sept. 23 protest — advertising it as an event to “fund OSI” — and distributed a petition with the same mission. In the document, the ECC leaders described the intern and faculty directors programs as “defunded.”
On Sept. 12, Morey emailed Miklaucic, writing that the University had ensured that the OSI intern program could continue. The ECC representatives met with OSI staff four days later for clarification, but the OSI leaders redirected the students back to Morey.
The ECC leaders received a Sept. 19 email on behalf of Campus Services that clarified that OSI was paying its six interns with external funds. The email also noted that while the Ways and Means Committee had not funded the intern program, the University allocated additional non-personnel funds to the sustainability group to help make up for the mistake.
On Sept. 21, Warner, McCarthy, Miklaucic and other student environmental leaders met with Morey, who confirmed that the Ways and Means Committee was not defunding OSI and that OSI was paying two of the three post-graduate fellows with external dollars.
Attempting to grasp OSI’s monetary situation took a toll on McCarthy’s well-being, she said.
“My understanding of what actually happened has shifted so many times, and that has been really emotionally draining,” McCarthy said. “I ended up crying in the environmental science department … because I was very stressed. It has been pretty emotionally taxing.”
After meeting with Morey, the ECC leaders removed their messages to “fund OSI” from Instagram and the Emory Student Center TV. They also updated their petition — which 163 students had signed as of Oct. 21 — to explain that OSI’s intern program was continuing. They wrote that they were refocusing their messaging to call for an increase in OSI’s personnel funding, as well as greater University transparency and action from the University on sustainability as a whole.
“It feels very childish for an entity like Emory to be kind of relying on us for this type of communication,” Warner said. “It seems almost like … since we’re convenient, they're using us for now.”
At the protest, students and staff mainly called on University leaders to take wide-ranging environmental action. Some speakers, like Assistant Environmental Science Professor Emily Burchfield, also mentioned a need for increased OSI funding.
Burchfield told the Wheel she didn't know how much the OSI’s funding changed in the recent budget, but she was emphatic in discussing the organization’s significance.
“I don't think there was a decrease this year from last year, but I still think it's an underfunded part of our University's mission,” Burchfield said. “To me, it’s just fundamentally important.”
There’s more work to do, students say
OSI’s overall budget has increased in recent years, even without University funding for the intern program. Assistant Vice President of University Communications and Marketing Laura Diamond wrote in an email to the Wheel that“OSI’s current Fiscal Year 2023 operating expense budget, funded by the university, has increased by a compound annual growth rate of 5.8% since the Fiscal 2016 expenditure baseline.”
Diamond added that she was aware that there was “confusion” surrounding OSI’s finances.
“Emory implemented a new budget development process in recent years and there was a misunderstanding about a request specific to the OSI budget,” Diamond wrote. “All teams continue to work closely together to ensure alignment going forward.”
Despite the uptick in OSI’s budget, and the continuation of the intern program, some student leaders said that the Emory community shouldn’t overlook the “miscommunication” about the group’s funding.
ECC leader and Student Government Association (SGA) Vice President of Sustainability Catherine Wang (24C) said they were surprised and distressed that the University might remove part of its support for OSI, particularly since Fenves joined Race to Zero and the Climate Leadership Network last year. Wang noted that they were not speaking on behalf of SGA.
“I was like, ‘Wait, I thought we met with the President, I thought we had two strikes last year,’” Wang said. “I thought Emory was doing better.”
OSI has a critical role as an Emory-sponsored organization that focuses solely on environmental action, Hasty said.
“You need someone in the University to question the status quo consistently,” Hasty said. “OSI is crucial, being one voice within the University that says, ‘Hey, I see you're doing this. … Here's how we can do this better.’”
The intern program is of special significance, Hasty emphasized, particularly since OSI staff are “trying to do 100 things at any time.” Hasty said that interns are often of particular help to the organization when they brief OSI leaders on environmental matters.
“Without them, OSI would have to narrow its focus of what it does extremely,” Hasty said.
While there are six OSI interns this fall, there were nine interns in September 2021, according to OSI’s Instagram account.
Bella Roeske (24C) began serving as an OSI communications and marketing intern this past January, but left the organization in July due to other commitments. She said it is key that OSI receives sufficient support.
“Our campus needs the Office to exist and to thrive,” Roeske said. “To do that, they need proper funding — which, while they do have funding currently, they could always use more to be considered an institutional priority.”
Warner, McCarthy and Miklaucic said they believe that the recent confusion over OSI’s funding represents a greater need for the University to dedicate more time and resources toward sustainability.
In October 2021, Emory launched a 2O36 fundraising campaign, which aims to advance student and faculty success and boost research at the University. Although donors can contribute to the Sustainability Initiatives Fund, improving Emory’s environmental efforts is not a primary part of the campaign, which Miklaucic said is worrisome.
“They're not even thinking about that in this very big vision for the future,” Miklaucic said. “If they don't give OSI more funding, we are going to be deeply culpable in the way that the world looks in 2036.”
Emory’s endowment was $11 billion as of June 2021, making it the No. 15 richest school — and No. 12 wealthiest private institution — in the United States.
“We're fighting … for an intern program for things like that, which is just an absolute travesty,” Miklaucic said. “I mean, if Emory can't uphold its own kind of commitments and really be a leader in this, then how can we possibly expect other entities that don't have $11 billion to do that?”
OSI Interim Director Taylor Spicer, OSI interns Claire Todaro (21Ox, 24C), Morgan Finch (23C), Faith Lopez (24C), Caroline McCormack (23C), and Caitlin McConaghy (23PH) and OSI post-graduate fellows Sofie diTommaso, Lydia Stubbs and Zoe Price (22C) did not respond for comment by press time. OSI interns Kamea Alleyne (25C) and Kendra Ding (23C) declined to comment.
