It was an easy choice for students Emma Mastroianni and Madison Quinn to take on leadership roles in the Michigan Sustainability Community. Both couldn’t let go of the group they’d been a part of since their first days on campus.
The Michigan Sustainability Community (MSC) — formerly the Sustainable Living Experience themed community — is an experiential living-learning program for students to explore, engage, and develop leadership skills in sustainability and environmental justice issues.
Mastroianni is the resident advisor in Noble House of the Oxford Houses, where MSC resides. She plans two events per month for and with the students. She’s also a peer mentor, along with Quinn, who lives off campus but returns frequently to work with the MSC students.
The former roommates are both pre-med students. Mastroianni grew up gardening and growing produce with her family and was familiar with sustainable practices before college, but Quinn was not. Coming into U-M, Quinn says she struggled to see how her personal interest in sustainability could intersect with her future career in medicine. Now, she helps other students navigate the same questions she once had.
“We get a lot of questions, especially being pre-med, from students that are on the similar path. . . . I’m really excited to see the kids figure out what I figured out for myself,” Quinn says.
Students in MSC take two sustainability courses and pursue two projects that tackle sustainability on campus. During welcome week, new MSC students begin to choose their sustainability projects. For Quinn’s cohort, the major project was vermicomposting, where worms are used to break down organic matter. Mastroianni’s cohort began cultivating mushrooms in the dorm’s basement.
“The impact we have . . . you’re really doing things that are having an impact on the direct community, especially at the dorm, a lot of our [projects happen] here, so you kind of improve where you live,” Quinn says.
But the students pursue many different projects. The current cohort tracked their water use, including water they drink and use for hygiene, and (though not required) were encouraged to see if they could carry that amount of water from the river in the Arb back to their dorm, a reality for many countries without running potable water. Similarly, Quinn remembers carrying her trash with her during the first week of school.
Welcome week projects and activities serve as icebreakers for MSC students.
“The transition is really hard. It can be daunting. You want to meet people right when you come in so you’re not alone. I always try to mention welcome week for MSC is really fun. We do a lot of things, you meet people and your floor because you’re just in the community already, doing mushroom cultivation, like we did last year, either planting, vermicomposting, making t-shirts. And with that, you just have an icebreaker, an easy way to talk to people because we’re all here for the same reason,” Mastroianni says.
Quinn and Mastroianni will continue their leadership positions this fall.
“I’m so happy I get to live here every day and see the plants, take care of them, see the students, see their passion,” Mastroianni says. “It’s so great, as peer mentors, just to see students grow from the beginning to the end.”
Katherine Fiorillo is the senior editor of Michigan Alum.
