Earth Day and Earth Week
Earth Day began as an annual holiday in 1970, and the University of Washington has participated in this tradition with a celebration for many years. In January I was charged with coordinating the annual Earth Day celebration on April, 19th 2013. Together with a coalition of students and staff, I initiated the planning of the event. Four months later, we had 40 exhibitors from student groups, campus departments, non-profits, corporations, and small businesses, three speakers from the local environmental community, a trashion show highlighting reusable trash as fashion, and hundreds of students and community members braving the rain to enjoy the festivities.
Originally we had hoped to do a single event on the official Earth Day, April 22nd, but UW Marketing offered to host us during HuskyFest and the KEXP Hood-to-Hood Concert. Gracious for this partnership, but concerned about the possible dilution of Earth Day's environmental soul, the planning coalition initiated a student-led, cohesive set of events during the following week - Earth Week. During Earth Week, a variety of student clubs led event ranging from restoration, a trash-in (waste audit), pizza bake, film, and climate change speaker panel.
Originally we had hoped to do a single event on the official Earth Day, April 22nd, but UW Marketing offered to host us during HuskyFest and the KEXP Hood-to-Hood Concert. Gracious for this partnership, but concerned about the possible dilution of Earth Day's environmental soul, the planning coalition initiated a student-led, cohesive set of events during the following week - Earth Week. During Earth Week, a variety of student clubs led event ranging from restoration, a trash-in (waste audit), pizza bake, film, and climate change speaker panel.
Self-Awareness of Leadership Style and Stress Management
In planning Earth Day I knew my strengths and weaknesses in planning, starting with limitations in knowledge about logistical planning and red tape in the UW bureaucracy. I also had a very busy quarter in Winter Quarter when I was starting the planning process. These limitations and understandings of my stress triggers encouraged me to extensively schedule my time to allow me to juggle multiple obligations while still putting my efforts towards Earth Day.
I also made sure to coordinate my efforts with others in the planning coalitions who could balance my strengths and weaknesses. For example, I knew I did not have the capacity to manage all the partnerships and gratefully accepted the help of another student to manage our partnership with UW Marketing. Throughout the planning process, clear communications of my limitations would have made it easier for the entire process and far less stressful. As I move forward with other events I hope to apply my new understandings of myself from the hours I can work to the particular triggers that induce higher stress to make these projects successful and maintaining my personal well-being. |
Conflict Resolution
To produce a successful event I had to balance the interests of different partners. For example, different campus partners wanted to bring different exhibitors to table underneath tents at the celebration. One group wanted more tables than I could allow, so I setup a clear line of communication to handle the conflict. By setting clear expectations and developing an intentional plan of action, we were able to fit all the exhibitors of the group, while also allowing other groups to have room for their tables. I helped transform a conflictual relationship into a collaborative one.
Nevertheless I learned that setting up clear expectations early, and having purposeful in-person meetings can be incredibly helpful to avoid conflict. We still had some issues on the day of the event between different campus partners, but were able to resolve them by quickly communicating with exhibitors. Looking forward I now know the power of communicating effectively, and not fearing direct communication (in-person meetings/phone) to resolve possible disagreement. |
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Implement and Execute Events
Earth Day 2013 required the planning, implementation, and execution of the celebration along with the following week's Earth Week activities. I coordinated the program of speakers, gathered the 40 exhibitors, and promoted the event. It started with a three page project plan based off of last year's celebration planning, and concluded with a widely attended event. Although I had project planning experience I had never done so much planning through e-mail, which was quite a challenging method of communication. Being my first time planning this event, I was challenged to execute the events under a tight timeline, and learned of the importance of setting up clear deadlines to limit the stress of planning.
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Develop a Support Network
Earth Day would not have been possible without the support of a coalition of students and staff who were willing to take on a variety of tasks and collaborate on making events happen. I worked extensively with UW Marketing and the Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Office to plan logistics for the celebration, while I worked through the Green Tea Party to develop Earth Week events with eight registered student organizations. Through the process I was challenged to learn from mentors in these different groups who possessed knowledge on producing successful events. In particular, Aubrey Batchelor, the program coordinator in the ESS Office provided vital feedback that I had to ensure to regularly engage with. After this experience I realized the value of forming a strong set of partnerships in projects who can support and provide critical knowledge for planning. Prompt, clear, and regular communication with mentors especially can keep me in check and successful.
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Mentoring Others
As I planned Earth Week I needed help from others to make the week of environmentally meaningful events happen. While I had support from clubs, I needed someone to coordinate these events. I enlisted the support of a freshman from UW Leaders who was interested in being involved. It was challenging to communicate the exact roles she needed to serve, but she helped insurmountably with the creative process and communicating important financial plans, marketing, and logistics between different student groups. It was a rewarding process to work with another student and encourage environmental leadership in others. Now I know how important it is to be an active listener in this process and checking my own mentoring in the process of these sorts of projects.
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Application, Evaluation, and Modification in Leadership Practice
Each week of planning Earth Day and Week I attempted to set aside time to reflect on how I was serving as a leader, and improving my leadership practices. In one instance I realized that I had not set up a strong plan for the program of speakers at the event, and determined that I needed to take direct action on the speaker portion of planning, while delegating other tasks like Earth Week event coordination to other individuals. I might have enjoyed certain tasks more than others, but for the event as a whole to be great for the community required me to take up tasks that may have pushed me outside my comfort zone, for example contacting important individuals to request their attendance at the celebration. Before the actual event, I assessed the strengths, struggles, and improvements in leadership that were learned from coordinating the celebration. While certain struggles could be attributed to forces outside my control, there were certainly aspects of my leadership such as open communication with mentors, deadline setting, and self-care that could have made the process much smoother. As I take on future projects I am determined to set aside time to evaluate and modify leadership so I can earlier recognize challenges and develop smart approaches to tackle my obstacles.
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