Yale Honors F&ES Members for Contributions to Sustainability
Photo by Matthew Garrett
Lindsay Toland, right, receives her Certificate of Outstanding Recognition in appreciation for her contributions to sustainability at Yale.
Yale University honored Lindsay Toland ’15 M.E.M. and the staff of the Urban Resources Initiative (URI) with Certificates of Outstanding Recognition in appreciation for their contributions to sustainability at Yale during the 2014-15 academic year.
They were recognized during Yale’s State of Sustainability Breakfast held in the President’s Room at Woolsey Hall on April 22.
Toland, a second-year student at F&ES, has been sustainability coordinator for the School’s Environmental Stewardship Committee (ESC) since 2013. In that role, she has promoted environmental stewardship through education, research, and even a little humor. (She and other ESC members have produced a series of offbeat videos promoting sustainability initiatives, including Toland’s parody of The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World” that highlights the latest freebies in the school’s recycled “stuff site.”)
She also developed the School’s waste management initiatives, wrote a sustainability action plan that aligns F&ES’s plans with those of the Yale Sustainability Strategic Plan, and helped coordinate F&ES Earth Day activities — including this week’s “seed bomb” event.
Toland has also helped coordinate a program that recycles candy, granola, and energy bar wrappers through a partnership with the upcycling company TerraCycle. In exchange, TerraCycle has provided clean water to the equivalent of 10 people in needy areas across the U.S.
“It’s really nice to be recognized, but also just to be a part of the effort toward making strides toward sustainability on campus,” she said.
They were recognized during Yale’s State of Sustainability Breakfast held in the President’s Room at Woolsey Hall on April 22.
Toland, a second-year student at F&ES, has been sustainability coordinator for the School’s Environmental Stewardship Committee (ESC) since 2013. In that role, she has promoted environmental stewardship through education, research, and even a little humor. (She and other ESC members have produced a series of offbeat videos promoting sustainability initiatives, including Toland’s parody of The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World” that highlights the latest freebies in the school’s recycled “stuff site.”)
She also developed the School’s waste management initiatives, wrote a sustainability action plan that aligns F&ES’s plans with those of the Yale Sustainability Strategic Plan, and helped coordinate F&ES Earth Day activities — including this week’s “seed bomb” event.
Toland has also helped coordinate a program that recycles candy, granola, and energy bar wrappers through a partnership with the upcycling company TerraCycle. In exchange, TerraCycle has provided clean water to the equivalent of 10 people in needy areas across the U.S.
“It’s really nice to be recognized, but also just to be a part of the effort toward making strides toward sustainability on campus,” she said.
Courtesy of Colleen Murphy-Dunning
URI staff members, Colleen Murphy-Dunning, Chris Ozyck, and Margaret Carmalt, in the field.
The Urban Resources Initiative creates opportunities for our students to engage in community-based land stewardship and urban forestry in the city of New Haven. In particular, URI operates two core programs in the city: a community Greenspace initiative that brings together community groups to restore urban areas and “GreenSkills,” a green job-training program for local teens and adults with barriers to employment.
In the two decades since URI’s founding, more than 270 different community groups have participated in the Greenspace program. Each summer, more than 1,000 volunteers join URI staff and Yale students planting trees in parks and along city streets, and converting unused lots into small parks and maintaining those that have already been renovated.
“There are so many people in New Haven who want to make their neighborhoods better, connect with the land, and be good stewards,” said Colleen Murphy-Dunning, director of URI. “So it feels very powerful that we've been able to support the initiatives that these neighbors have taken, and to have Yale students work alongside them, learning from these neighbors and giving back to the community.”
Murphy-Dunning said Yale’s recognition of URI should focus on the staff and student interns who make it work, including Chris Ozyck, associate director; Margaret Carmalt, the GreenSkills manager; Anna Ruth Pickett, the development and outreach manager; and students such as James Stephenson ’15 M.E.M., who leads URI’s high school program.
“We’re extremely proud that Lindsay, as well as Colleen and the URI team, are being recognized for their tireless work in promoting more sustainable practices at our School and across New Haven,” said F&ES Dean Peter Crane. “This recognition is a wonderful acknowledgement of how important their leadership is, not only for Yale but also for the community.”
In the two decades since URI’s founding, more than 270 different community groups have participated in the Greenspace program. Each summer, more than 1,000 volunteers join URI staff and Yale students planting trees in parks and along city streets, and converting unused lots into small parks and maintaining those that have already been renovated.
“There are so many people in New Haven who want to make their neighborhoods better, connect with the land, and be good stewards,” said Colleen Murphy-Dunning, director of URI. “So it feels very powerful that we've been able to support the initiatives that these neighbors have taken, and to have Yale students work alongside them, learning from these neighbors and giving back to the community.”
Murphy-Dunning said Yale’s recognition of URI should focus on the staff and student interns who make it work, including Chris Ozyck, associate director; Margaret Carmalt, the GreenSkills manager; Anna Ruth Pickett, the development and outreach manager; and students such as James Stephenson ’15 M.E.M., who leads URI’s high school program.
“We’re extremely proud that Lindsay, as well as Colleen and the URI team, are being recognized for their tireless work in promoting more sustainable practices at our School and across New Haven,” said F&ES Dean Peter Crane. “This recognition is a wonderful acknowledgement of how important their leadership is, not only for Yale but also for the community.”
Courtesy of Colleen Murphy-Dunning
James Stephenson ’15 M.E.M. delivers trees to a crew of New Haven high school students in April, 2015.
– Kevin Dennehy kevin.dennehy@yale.edu 203 436-4842
PUBLISHED: April 22, 2015
Note: Yale School of the Environment (YSE) was formerly known as the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). News articles posted prior to July 1, 2020, refer to the School's name at that time.
