published 9TH December 2022
Written by Izzy Nobili
Skye’s Story
CALIFORNIA
Sophomore majoring in Environmental Studies
Joining the Office of Sustainability for her first semester is Skye Neulight, an undergraduate sophomore who hopes to build community around sustainability and climate action through writing, media, and communication.
As a Communications Intern, Neulight will establish a newsletter that will include climate-related news, highlights from blog posts, faculty and student research spotlights, paid and volunteer opportunity postings, student organization details, advice columns, media recommendations, and more.
“It’s a completely new newsletter,” says Neulight, “So we get to shape it to represent the things that we want to represent and to highlight Hopkins sustainability.”
Skye’s Work
In high school, Neulight was a part of several environmental activist groups, where she primarily managed social media and outreach duties. While she is accustomed to such work in communications, she says that the Office of Sustainability represents a much larger platform whose reach extends beyond the Hopkins community. Neulight says that throughout this internship, she is excited to learn about how to effectively utilize a platform with so great of an influence in such a way that inspires change.
Climate change is not an individualistic issue. There is a lot more space to inspire collective action and value building.
“Climate change is not an individualistic issue,” says Neulight. “There is a lot more space to inspire collective action and value building, so I am hoping that with efforts like the newsletter, we can generate more community discussion and find ways for people to get involved with each other.”
Neulight is encouraged by the ongoing efforts of the Office of Sustainability and is excited by the current conversations being held among university leaders about institutional change. “It’s a really exciting moment for Hopkins to be getting involved, and I feel like this internship [at this moment] can teach me a lot about the ways to push for institutional change,” says Neulight.
Skye’s Inspiration
Through communications, Neulight feels that this change can be inspired. Her uncle, a poet and a writer, writes about climate change and the human relationship to nature. His writing, always dedicated to “the future,” inspired Neulight and “got her thinking about her future and the future of the world.”
Reading about the ways that as a society we are not responding to this climate crisis has been enough to jar me out of inaction.
“I’ve done a lot of reading,” says Neulight, “and that’s given me a sense of urgency. Reading about the ways that as a society we are not responding to this climate crisis has been enough to jar me out of inaction.”
This year, Neulight hopes to apply this inspiration to her writing within the Office of Sustainability.