Student Work at College of the Atlantic

Lauren Nutter and Matthew Maiorana given environmental honor

Lauren Nutter and Matthew Maiorana in Bali

Each year, the Morris K. Udall Foundation chooses 80 outstanding college students from across the nation as Udall Scholars to honor Congressman Udall’s years of service his country. This year, two College of the Atlantic second-year students, Matthew Matthew Maiorana and Lauren Nutter at the UNFCC in Bali Maiorana and Lauren Nutter, received the scholarship for their commitment to a sustainable environment. Two more COA students, Brett Ciccotelli and Michael Keller, were among the fifty-one to receive honorable mentions.

Both Maiorana, of Detroit, MI, and Nutter, of Uxbridge, MA, hold leadership positions with the youth environmental organization SustainUS; both spent much of last December in Bali as youth delegates to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

As part of the process of determining whom among the 510 outstanding students nominated by 239 institutions would receive the awards, the students were asked to write a short essay based on a speech by Udall, or a policy he promoted. Maiorana wrote about Udall’s prescient speech, “Energy and the American Future,” in which Udall called for a sustainable energy structure, “even before the word sustainable was coined,” notes Maiorana.

In his speech, Udall wonders whether our nation will be led by its government or by the petroleum industry. Concludes Maiorana, “Drastic changes are necessary. It will take a lot of hard work and dedication, but together we can create a sustainable energy future which protects people and the environment.”

Nutter, too, finds a note of optimism in her essay on personal responsibility. She quotes from Udall’s speech, “Politics and Morality: Where Leaders Fail,” which concludes, “I am only one … but I am one. … I cannot do everything but I can do something … what I can do I ought to do … and what I ought to do by the grace of God I will do.”

Continues Nutter, “Optimism is essential to creating change and dreaming big. … The work that lies before anyone who wishes to create positive changes for the future of our environment must be embedded with optimism. Without it we are left in frustration without a vision.”

Fittingly, one of Nutter’s passions has been encouraging youth leadership. She was instrumental in coordinating the United States youth delegation to the meetings in Bali, and is soon headed to New York City to coordinate the youth delegation to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, which meets in early May.

In addition to the $5000 scholarship the students receive, Maiorana and Nutter will be flown to Arizona for a four-day conference with other scholars from around the country. Past COA Udall scholarship winners have found that these days spent with other similarly focused youth leaders has been one of the most rewarding parts of the honor. Nutter and Maiorana are especially looking forward to meeting past Udall scholars who, says Nutter, “are now doing some incredible things in the environment.”