by Eco-Rep Assad Akhlaqi ’16

On Sunday, November 16, 2014, I went to the Power Shift Vermont conference held in Landmark College in Putney, Vermont. The conference was hosted by the Vermont Student Climate Coalition (VSCC), which is a “network of Vermont students committed to fight for sustainability and climate justice as a medium for intersectional social and economic progress”(VSCC).

I participated this event as a student and as an Eco-Rep representing Champlain College among the ten colleges in Power Shift Vermont. The point of VSCC is to “foster a community that supports campaign at both the institutional and statewide level and develops strong leaders to sustain long-term action for systematic change” (vtstudentclimatecoalition). The Power Shift Vermont was fully organized and run by the students from colleges in all over Vermont.

I would say the Power Shift was not only one of the best conferences I have ever attended since 2009, but it was an eye opening for me to see the student’s power in their community and institutions.

The participants in Power Shift Vermont talked about many institutional and statewide issues. The participants went through many discussion, training and workshops run by both students and professionals. The event began, at ten o’clock in the morning, with an introduction by Dr. Andrew Stein, Professor at Landmark College. The first session I went to was called “who holds power on campuses” which was about exploring the power dynamics on college campuses. In this session, we picked Middlebury College as an example and discussed on how to reach the top level or the decision makers of the particular college. The goal was to channel through the complicated system of this institution to get their attention on students who tries to bring change in college.

I went to many sessions and workshops such as: Effectives of Activism, Politics in Vermont, Food Justice, Starting a Campaign, Fundraising Strategies and many other fun activities. In sessions I went to I learned something completely new. The keynote speaker Seth Itzkan ,the President of Planet-TECH Associates, showed and amazing powerpoint and talked about global warming which he was really optimistic about.

Although it was a long day event, I really liked it and obviously I learned a lot. By the end of the event I wished I knew about VSCC in my first year of college. The other thing about this event was almost all students from ten colleges were majoring in environmental studies and I was the only one who was a computer science major. I strongly encourage students to go to these kinds of events because smart students come from different colleges to talk about the current issues and you get to know your own power.