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Hello all!  My name is Dayo Ajayi, I'm a senior this year and my major is International Business.  I'm taking this course as an elective but also because environmental protection and rights have always been important and interesting topics to me.  I think that it is imperative that we not only conserve our natural resources, but also make sure that they're being distributed fairly.  I thought the idea of the external and internal perspective was a great way to think about this topic, and I liked the way that Cole and Foster explained it.  Something non-academic about myself is that I love to read!  You'll find me on J Lawn all summer with my nose in a New Yorker magazine or a new mystery novel.  I'm looking forward to responding to the readings throughout the course and seeing what thoughts you all have!

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Hello all!  My name is Dayo Ajayi, I'm a senior this year and my major is International Business.  I'm taking this course as an elective but also because environmental protection and rights have always been important and interesting topics to me.  I think that it is imperative that we not only conserve our natural resources, but also make sure that they're being distributed fairly.  I thought the idea of the external and internal perspective was a great way to think about this topic, and I liked the way that Cole and Foster explained it.  Something non-academic about myself is that I love to read!  You'll find me on J Lawn all summer with my nose in a New Yorker magazine or a new mystery novel.  I'm looking forward to responding to the readings throughout the course and seeing what thoughts you all have!

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Hi! My name is Nicole Vrabec and I am a senior psychology major! I am taking this course to finish my senior year and I have taken other classes in the science and sociology field, but I not really about environmental justice. That topic interests me a lot. This class interested me but I did not really understand what it was going to be about until I read the first reading. I have taken classes discussion the environment and policies to help the environment, but I did not understand how it went beyond that. In the reading on pages 10 and 11 Cole and Foster (2001) introduced the idea of having an internal and external perspective when looking at environmental justice. I thought environmental justice was just about preserving the environment and nature, but I learned that it is much more than that after the reading. I thought it was good that we had to read that first in order to understand the types of ways we will have to look at the different problems and concepts. Something non-academic about myself is that I love being outside and spending time with family and friends. I take two weeks out of the summer to go to our lake house in Michigan and we are always outside! (I am on the left in the photo.)

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Hey everyone my name is Alex Sorenson; I'm a senior marketing major with an accounting minor. I'm taking this class because I need credits to graduate and thought this class would be a different and interesting way to wrap up my requirements rather than another business class. The reading made me think about the environment in a way that I never really have before but after thinking about it for a while I found it very interesting. I've always just thought of the environment as something we all take care of and not really the consequences of it. It's unfair that race and class plays such a large role in environmental justice because to me it seems like everyone should have a right to live in a healthy environment and you should not be punished solely because you're poor. Social justice and environmental issues are things that I was never really cognizant of growing up but through my time in college I've learned more about them and I'm excited to further my knowledge in this course. To wrap up with something non-academic about myself I played basketball for all 3 of my years at North Central and was team captain 2 of those 3 years.

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Well hello! My name is Kaitlin Ballard, I am a staff member here at the College in the Conference Service & Camps office. I completed my undergraduate at North Central in 2012 and received my Masters from Illinois State University in 2014. Something non-academic is that I have a plot in the community garden on campus. I am taking this course for personal interest as a non-degree seeking student. I am passionate about sustainability and the movement towards a circular economy, I also have a strong interest in social justice advocacy. To be quite honest, a large part of my interest in the course stems from the fact that these two areas are causes that I care deeply about, yet I feel uninformed when examining where they intersect and where they diverge. It was quite disheartening to read that the second wave of the traditional environmental movement has gotten away from a social justice orientation (29). A common theme throughout the reading was a discussion of decision making power, who has it and who doesn’t. Although laws and policies aimed at protecting our environment are necessary, I was disappointed to read that the adoption of such laws and policies has only further excluded people of color and low income communities from having decision making power on environmental issues. My interest in Environmental Justice comes from a desire to see these two movements, the traditional environmental movement and the environmental justice movement, become one in the same – or rather to see the traditional environmental movement adopt (or re-adopt) a social justice orientation.

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Hello-I am Alice Dechene and I'm a staff member at North Central. I'm taking this class for the information as a non-degree seeking student. I have had an interest in Environmental Studies for a long time and an online class works very well with my work schedule. My background is in literature, culture studies, and counseling: I am currently an academic advisor here at NCC. I did career counseling and academic advising at another institution before NCC, and I've taught career planning, French, and Comparative Literature courses at other institutions. Environmental justice straddles the culture studies and counseling piece for me. In terms of counseling, everyone grows best in environments that support them physically, emotionally, and spiritually: obviously, people don't grow as well in toxic environments, whether it is physically toxic or emotionally toxic. And, from a counseling perspective, the environment means quite literally everything: family and support network, socio-economic class, race, and the physical environment, along with education level and access. Environmental justice for me is a very large topic: as the article points out, it "concerns itself with the cleanup of contaminated industrial sites, the elimination of occupational hazards, lead abatement, enforcement of existing environmental regulations, and the guarantee of representation in the environmental decision-making process. The movement for environmental justice is also about creating clean jobs, building a sustainable economy, guaranteeing safe and affordable housing, and achieving racial and social justice." (17)  Something non-academic but related is that I've been gardening with native plants for years. It was my way to acclimate to Illinois when I first moved here and change my aesthetic so that I could appreciate the prairie landscape. Gardening with native plants has also completely changed the animal and insect population in what had been a basic lawn-and-tree suburban yard. I do think the critters that should be living in Illinois definitely have a place in discussions of environmental justice; loss of habitat is an important piece of environmental justice to me.

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Hello! My name is Taylor O’Neill. I’m now a second year Religious Studies major with minors in Environmental Studies, History of Ideas, and English Writing. Something non-academic about me is that I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was six years old, when I wrote my first (terrible) fantasy story about monstrous gods living on an alien planet. I’m taking this course because Dr. Erin Bergren introduced me to the concept of environmental racism in her class American Culture and the Environment; I want to learn more about how humans relate to the environment from a cultural perspective, and how people can fight back if their world is being threatened. I want to understand how people’s personal and cultural relationships with their environment will affect their responses to the world as a whole. I’m also interested in finding subjects for a creative writing project or even my thesis, so I hope to get some good material from this class. Something that caught my attention from today’s reading was the connection between the Civil Rights movement and environmental justice; I had never put much thought before into how environmentalism and social justice were related, but it makes sense when one considers the inequality of environmental racism and how it contributes to the cycle of oppression. I want to learn more about how environmental justice is an unrecognized factor in social injustice, and how we can use it as a pathway to improving everyone’s lives even beyond the obvious aspects of the environment. The idea of  “environmental protection as a ‘right of all, not a privilege for a few’”(Cole and Foster 21) is really appealing to me as a real life issue and a prompt for creative writing, so I want to study how we as a society have commodified the environment and turned it into an issue of entitlement. Environmental justice is not just about the environment: it is, at its core, a conflict of humanity, where we must demonstrate exactly how much we value one another's lives and acknowledge who pays the price for our actions.

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I am transfer student, coming from the Shimer program. I am now a senior, and I am majoring in Political Science with a minor in Social Science. I am taking this course because I have always been interested in social justice. I like to learn and read about things that happen and why things are happening in poorer communities, being that's where I come from. I also wanted to take this class because I want to see learn about the environmental policies and factors on a larger scale. I eventually want to be one of the people who attempted to change and help fix the problems occurring. The assigned reading gave a broad view on environmental justice and racism, things that I am interesting in learning about. A non-academic fact about myself, I am a mother of the coolest 5 year old son you'll ever meet and his name is Ajay!

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I am transfer student, coming from the Shimer program. I am now a senior, and I am majoring in Political Science with a minor in Social Science. I am taking this course because I have always been interested in social justice. I like to learn and read about things that happen and why things are happening in poorer communities, being that's where I come from. I also wanted to take this class because I want to see learn about the environmental policies and factors on a larger scale. I eventually want to be one of the people who attempted to change and help fix the problems occurring. The assigned reading gave a broad view on environmental justice and racism, things that I am interesting in learning about. A non-academic fact about myself, I am a mother of the coolest 5 year old son you'll ever meet and his name is Ajay!

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I am a Senior, Majoring in Political Science and double Minoring in Conflict Resolution and Leadership. As a Political Science major who wants to work with non-governmental organizations, like the Sierra Club or Organizing for Action, I have always had an interest in Social Justice and the Environmental factors that can play a key role in it. I wanted to take this class because not only am I interested in the law, but I also want to understand these issues from more than a political perspective. I want to dig deeper, outside of how politicians deal with the debate on environmental issues, and learn how I can be an advocate for Social Change.The reading by Cole and Foster provides the exact broadening viewpoint that I hope to gain through the class, touching on what empowers these grassroot organizations to begin to mobilize and looking at the Environment as something bigger than just protecting the wildlife, but as also protecting one another from unequal treatment, when we all have the right to live a free and healthy life. Digging deeper, the reading as well as the introduction video (describing the cancer epidemic in Florida) reminded me of Erin Brockovich and the health of the citizens of Hinkley, California, which was a movie that really opened my eyes to the injustices in the world, and how important it is to face it head on. I’m not sure if the first would be considered academic, so I’ll put two! I have been on the Mock Trial Team at North Central College since Freshman year, and I have had the opportunity to serve both an Attorney and a Witness role, and also as the teams Public Relations director. Something else about me is that I have an uncanny ability to memorize things. I can list off all the Kings and Queens of England in order and the dates that they ruled. I can also list off all the countries in the world, and I am able to create an entire family tree of different European Royal families. It’s a little strange.

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I am a transfer student, roughly still a junior but will be completing my final year of my Bachelors by spring 2019! I am an Environmental Studies major and Sociology minor. I'm taking the course as a requirement for ENV major but it also relates directly to my minor as well. I'm extremely passionate about the environment and environmental policy as well as social problems in contemporary American society. I think soc and env tie together really well through environmental justice and I think my interest in social problems is a huge part of environmental justice explained through environmental racism which was discussed throughout the assigned reading. Something non-academic about myself is that I have a pet corn snake named Maize!

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This is the summer following my first year at NCC. Previously, I have taught at four other institutions of higher education and was an elementary school teacher before that. My specializations are environmental sociology and race and ethnic relations. Environmental justice (EJ) merges these two interests quite well; as you will soon learn, EJ has a heavy focus on race and class. I have taught courses on both of my specializations separately, but I am excited to be teaching EJ for the first time. I have some more information about my background in the introductory video.
Something non-academic: I am vegan. I love animals so much that I do not eat them! And actually, this lifestyle is closely related to environmental sociology, as animal agriculture is detrimental to human, animal, and environmental health and contributes more to climate change than transportation. We discuss this in more depth in my other courses.