Moey Newbold

During my second week as a freshman at Vassar, my new friend Molly asked me if I wanted to go on a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C. with her and a campus organization I had never heard of before called Operation Donation. I did not know what the Farm Bill was, and I had certainly never lobbied before, but I was eager to take advantage of any new opportunity presented to me. Within a week I was in a carful of young idealists headed down the Garden State Parkway to the nation's Capitol. The next morning, we went to Oxfam America's D.C. Headquarters to learn how to lobby. Before I could sit down they told me I had to leave in order to make it to my 9:30am lobby appointment. I rushed to the Senate Office buildings, and ended up, sweaty and nervous, at my Senator's office. To my surprise, the meeting actually went well. I realized that I didn't have to be an expert in a suit to make an impact. I was inspired to put what I had learned about political activism into action.

A native Oregonian, I had always had a deep passion for the environment, so when I got back to campus, I became a dutiful member of the Vassar Greens. I tabled when nobody else wanted to and I went to Do It In the Dark (back when Joss Parlor could still be used as an event space). During the meetings we talked about environmental problems we saw in the world, but we never really did anything. The sense of empowerment I had felt in D.C. was gone. Still, I stuck through to the end of the year because I wasn't ready to give up on my hope to make change during my time at college. It was precisely because I was one of the few freshman still attending Greens meetings at the end of the year that I was appointed co-president for the next year.

This inspired me to apply for a summer program with Oxfam America called the CHANGE Initiative. There I learned about how to organize on campus. I dreamed that through my leadership, the Greens were finally going to become the active, involved organization that I had hoped they would be. Implementing this vision was harder than I had expected. The Greens remained the same low-energy, low commitment group focused mostly on organizing fun events with only the slightest environmental bend. My biggest accomplishment that year was organizing a lobby day in D.C. about climate change, modeled after the one Jimmy had organized my freshman year. However, we weren't able to bring the momentum from that event back to campus.

Instead of going abroad for my junior year, I went to the University of Oregon in my home state. Luckily for me, I was able to jump straight into action by helping to plan and execute a regional climate change conference, Powershift West, that was being held at U of O that fall. I then helped to co-found a new campus organization at U of O called the Climate Justice League (you KNOW we wear capes!). It was from these peers that I learned how to organize successfully on a college campus.

When I came back to Vassar for my second year as co-president of the Greens, I applied what I had learned off-campus to organizing on campus. With the right organizational framework, I was amazed with what Greens members were capable of. This year, we expanded our executive board by four-fold, ran three campaigns simultaneously, passed a by-law through the VSA, and created a community of engaged activists on Vassar's campus. My experiences this year have taught me that every person has unseen potential that is just waiting to be tapped. Working with the Greens has helped me find my passion for empowering other people to discover their own potential. I am excited to pursue this passion outside of Vassar's grounds, and I feel my unique college experience has prepared me to do just that.

—Moey Newbold is the outgoing president of the Vassar Greens.