Bright Ideas: Spotlight on Monique Gagne

As a CEEDS intern, one of my favorite topics to blog about is students focused on the environment. It is always interesting to see how they have woven their passion for the environment into their liberal arts education. Lucky for me, this campus is filled with confident, conscious women who are well on their way to changing the world. I met Monique Gagne, ’13 on my recent trip to Washington, D.C. and was impressed by her activism and dedication to environmental challenges like stopping the expansion of the Keystone XL Pipeline. She is not shy about standing up for the environment. On the trip to D.C. she was also one of a small faction of traditional-age students, or “trads” as we Adas call them, that went out of her way to make me feel comfortable, as I didn’t really know any of the students on the excursion. I liked her immediately.

As we talked about what fuels her passion for the environment, I learned that Monique is a former intern for the Office of Environmental Sustainability, also located here in CEEDS. Having that in common, her interview became more of a conversation. It was wonderful to chat about her experiences and how she plans on continuing to link her past, present and future to address the looming environmental concerns that face this planet.

Monique is an engineering major with a minor in landscape studies. As she began taking classes at Smith, she realized that the environmental engineering track was the one that appealed to her the most. She focused on the petroleum industry early in her studies, but was intrigued by advanced topics in water quality.  She began to delve deeper into the issue of water quality and the concerns that are certain to arise when water becomes scarce. Monique followed her new-found interest into a PRAXIS funded internship this past summer, which allowed her to work with sustainable water systems.

Ms. Gagne has already secured employment at Lutron Electronics after she graduates this year. This innovative company has been on the forefront of sustainability by using smart technology to save energy. The dimmers that Lutron creates use daylight to determine just how much light is necessary in a space. This simple element lowers energy consumption, which is a central step to creating energy efficient spaces. As we were talking, Monique pointed out Lutron technology in the lighting system above us in the Campus Center. Their energy-saving products are also in some of the other high performance buildings on campus, like Ford Hall. Monique will be able to use the know-how and environmental awareness she learned here to carry into her life after Smith.

How has her liberal arts education prepared her for her future? Monique noted that because of her Smith education she can no longer see the world through just an engineering or a landscape lens. Instead, she sees the nature of the world as multidisciplinary, which allows her to be creative as she seeks to effectively engage environmental issues– and life.  It is comforting to know that there are students like Monique here at Smith who care about the fate of the environment and who are thinking about what happens to the next generation as well.

– Liz Wright, ‘AC

Rallying Against Climate Change

“Don’t be a chump.” These were the words Van Jones, a senior policy adviser at Green for All and Obama’s former Special Adviser for Green Jobs, declared on February 17, 2013 at the Stand Up for Climate Change Rally in Washington D.C. By the end of his speech, he had everyone chanting this mantra, which had the simultaneous effect of making me smile as well as conjuring up a steely resolve to stand up to climate change.

The Smith College Green Team, with the leadership of Siiri Bigalki ’15, was able to fund and charter a bus that carried nearly fifty Smithies overnight to rally against climate change. It was not an easy trip, but we could not sit idly by and watch as others stepped out of their comfort zone to effect change. Leaving Northampton at 10:30 pm, we had to pack for overnight travel, sleep in cramped seats, and eat whatever we could carry, braving hours of frigid temperatures as we prepared to march on the nation’s capital. It was the least we could do to make our mark and represent Smith College in this peaceful demonstration. An estimated 40,000 people from all over the country joined the march on the National Mall in Washington D.C. It was by far the largest and most energetic rally for action against climate change yet.  The idea was to make Barack Obama take notice of the environmental concerns that accompany the continued extraction of fossil fuels with the specific goal of rejecting the further development of the Keystone XL Pipeline. It was not meant to be a demonstration of civil disobedience but rather a plea to our nation’s leaders to stand up to the status quo.

As one of more than two hundred and fifty colleges that attended the rally from all over the country, Smith College was invited to a youth gathering at the W Hotel blocks away from the White House. We met in the “great room” of the hotel to get energized and share information about each of our school’s environmental work. Smith’s Green Team members met with other like-minded individuals to confer about their fossil fuel divestment campaigns, and other topics like local solutions to global problems, how to keep the movement going into the summer and the most effective ways to take action now. The energy was contagious and, even though we had slept poorly on the bus the night before, we got caught up in the lively intensity created by the other rowdy college students.

Celebrity speakers at the rally included Rosario Dawson (Sin City), Evangeline Lily (Lost), Nolan Gould (Modern Family), as well as Chief Jacqueline Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation and Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nations. Some of their standout comments were memorable and I couldn’t help but jot them down. Bill McKibben stated that “we [the activists] are the antibodies that the earth is using to fight its fever.” That was on the heels of the comment from the Cree Nation saying that “we cannot eat money and we cannot drink oil.” In essence we have to look beyond profits and death and stand up for what is going to be healthy for the earth going forward. I was proud to stand up for my country, my college and my future. Although I have to come to terms with the fact that this rally might not yield the results I am looking for, I know that I at least stood up for the planet in the face of climate uncertainty.

-Liz Wright, AC