My Public Service Experience
"Citizen service is the very American idea that we meet our challenges not as isolated individuals but as members of a true community, with all of us working together. Our mission is nothing less than to spark a renewed sense of obligation, a new sense of duty, a new season of service."
~ President Bill Clinton
~ President Bill Clinton
Public service has been a cornerstone of my life, from working in Girl Scouts, to being a campus activist, to becoming a water quality scientist and working for water quality protection. Below are a few of my public service stories that have influenced my life.
Marshfield Cherry Blossom Festival Speaker and Presenter
2014 - 2016
Marshfield, Missouri
2014 - 2016
Marshfield, Missouri
CAC AmeriCorps - Water Quality Team
Knoxville, TN
August 2003 - July 2004
In August 2003, just three months after completing my undergraduate degree, I found myself back in Knoxville,TN living on my own and no longer in the residence halls, while working full time as an AmeriCorps Volunteer on the CAC AmeriCorps Water Quality Team. My first day was probably my toughest day in my water quality career. While accompanying a fisheries biologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, I fell in the stream, split my waders, and was generally embarrassed in front of my new teammates and fellow co-workers. I went home that night scared I had made the wrong decision about my degree, my career, and possibly even my choice in AmeriCorps service. Luckily, the year improved from that day. For the next eleven months I worked with local high school ecology teachers in implementing the Adopt-A-Watershed program in their classes. I watched high students, who were mostly disconnected and uninspired in school, become engaged in their local streams and environment. One school in particular, West High School, had the most profound impact on me. Mr. Tony Norman, was an avid aquatic ecologist and wanted his students working in or learning about streams several days a week. I had an immediate connection with his students and worked in his classroom at least twice a week. His students took an eager and active role in their ecology education, accompanying me on trips to third creek to take water samples, do cleanups, complete macroinvertebrate surveys or record stream walks. I watched high school boys become excited by connecting science to the outdoors while the young women were excited with discovering aquatic species or using test tubes and reagents to test the water chemistry. Several years later, while I was in graduate school, I was walking up the Hill on campus and had an undergraduate stop and ask me my name. When I told him, he said to me, "I knew that was you. You came and taught us stream ecology in Mr. Norman's class. I'm now working in environmental science because of that class."
In addition to my work in the classroom, I had the opportunity to accompany teams of fisheries biologists to collect and tag fish and assess the habitat and status of the flame chub in a restored wetland. We also went on a scouting expedition and found a pair of chucky madtoms, a rare fish thought to be on the brink of extirpation. Overall, serving on the CAC AmeriCorps Water Quality Team helped to define my career goals, provided me with wonderful field experiences, and connected me with my future academic advisor for my graduate degree in Geography.
Knoxville, TN
August 2003 - July 2004
In August 2003, just three months after completing my undergraduate degree, I found myself back in Knoxville,TN living on my own and no longer in the residence halls, while working full time as an AmeriCorps Volunteer on the CAC AmeriCorps Water Quality Team. My first day was probably my toughest day in my water quality career. While accompanying a fisheries biologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, I fell in the stream, split my waders, and was generally embarrassed in front of my new teammates and fellow co-workers. I went home that night scared I had made the wrong decision about my degree, my career, and possibly even my choice in AmeriCorps service. Luckily, the year improved from that day. For the next eleven months I worked with local high school ecology teachers in implementing the Adopt-A-Watershed program in their classes. I watched high students, who were mostly disconnected and uninspired in school, become engaged in their local streams and environment. One school in particular, West High School, had the most profound impact on me. Mr. Tony Norman, was an avid aquatic ecologist and wanted his students working in or learning about streams several days a week. I had an immediate connection with his students and worked in his classroom at least twice a week. His students took an eager and active role in their ecology education, accompanying me on trips to third creek to take water samples, do cleanups, complete macroinvertebrate surveys or record stream walks. I watched high school boys become excited by connecting science to the outdoors while the young women were excited with discovering aquatic species or using test tubes and reagents to test the water chemistry. Several years later, while I was in graduate school, I was walking up the Hill on campus and had an undergraduate stop and ask me my name. When I told him, he said to me, "I knew that was you. You came and taught us stream ecology in Mr. Norman's class. I'm now working in environmental science because of that class."
In addition to my work in the classroom, I had the opportunity to accompany teams of fisheries biologists to collect and tag fish and assess the habitat and status of the flame chub in a restored wetland. We also went on a scouting expedition and found a pair of chucky madtoms, a rare fish thought to be on the brink of extirpation. Overall, serving on the CAC AmeriCorps Water Quality Team helped to define my career goals, provided me with wonderful field experiences, and connected me with my future academic advisor for my graduate degree in Geography.
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Rally to support Higher Education
April, 1997 Nashville, Tennessee In 1997, I found myself on the University Center plaza on campus at the University of Tennessee as a freshman talking with members of the SGA about higher education funding, the state legislature, and government. Prior to that moment, I had never thought about how higher education was funded, beyond my tuition dollars, nor did I realize the state legislature was reducing and had been reducing support for higher education for years. I was asked if I would be willing to get on a bus and go to Nashville to stand up for higher education to our elected officials. I said yes, thinking it would be a fun trip and an opportunity to visit real people in office and see our state government at work. On April 21, 1997 we met at the UC and held a local rally in Knoxville before boarding a bus for Nashville. When we arrived in Nashville hundreds of other students from campuses around the state were already present in front of the capitol. I was surprised to learn those students held some resentment for us as UTK students because they had already been dealing with this issue for years prior to the students at the University of Tennessee becoming involved in the issue. Despite some of the early tension between the various groups of students, we came together and entered the state legislative chamber. Then state senator Steve Cohen, took the floor, speaking again about the need to adequately address higher education funding, including speaking in favor of an education lottery in Tennessee. He then welcomed students from his district to speak to the Tennessee State Senate about our concerns. The rally for higher education was a seminal moment for me in gaining a grass-roots experience in public engagement through democratic processes. I wish I could say this rally grabbed the attention of the legislature and the funding cuts stopped. Unfortunately, like other states around the nation, the state of Tennessee continued to slash higher education funding to the point that today student tuition is now responsible for covering over 60% of the budget. In 1997, at the time this photo was taken, student tuition was responsible for covering less than 40% of the budget. Additionally, the state legislature has continued to exert control over the university and programs that happen on campus, even as actual state dollars represent a significantly smaller portion of the budget. |
My sign turned out to be one of the most photographed signs at the rally and little did I know it would attract attention from reporters from across the state. The reference to "Don" was to then Tennessee Governor, Don Sundquist. On April 22, 1997, my photo and sign were seen in newspapers from the tri-cities to Memphis.
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