Degrees That Make a Difference

In this episode of Three Degrees, host Steph Sundermann-Zinger speaks with three Towson University graduate students who are working to make the world a better place through sustainability, healthcare advocacy, and social impact. From environmental action and child life services to mental health advocacy, each guest shares how their graduate studies are helping turn passion into meaningful change.

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00;00;00
Bryonna Sieck
The following is a Towson University podcast.

00;00;11;20 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
People enroll in graduate school for all kinds of reasons. Some are hoping to advance in their professional fields. Others are looking to move into another profession entirely. And some people just want to learn something new. And then there are the students who want to change the world. I'm your host, Steph Sundermann-Zinger, and you're listening to Three Degrees, a podcast for people who are curious about the grad school experience.


In this episode, we chat with three students whose personal and academic goals are focused on making the world a better place. Although their graduate programs are based in wildly variant disciplines, these students all have a few things in common. They're driven, they're motivated, and they're deeply concerned about the world around them. First, we spoke with Hailey, a student in the environmental science program.


Hailey is a very active student on campus. She spearheaded numerous initiatives to help her fellow students become familiar with sustainability efforts. Her work is sometimes complex, but her goal is pretty simple. She wants to keep people from losing hope. And what drew you to environmental science?

00;01;15;02 
Hailey
Yeah. So actually it started when I was younger. My mom used to take me on these nature walks. I got a little nature box, and then we would collect little things. So it would be bug wings, cicada shells and stuff like that. And so that's kind of where the love of the environment came from. I feel like in high school there was a big environmental movement happening, especially with the straws and the no plastics.


So that kind of sparked my childhood interest into environmental science and something I want to do, something I kind of care for, and that's kind of where I ended up.

00;01;46;10 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
You've expressed a real commitment to sustainability throughout your life, and at this point, you've done a lot of investigation and a lot of research into sustainability. So as an expert, what are you the most concerned about right now in terms of our planet's future?

00;02;00;02 
Hailey
Honestly, I'm most concerned about people's hope. I feel like a lot of times there's a lot of negative news articles that come out about recycling is not actually helpful, or this is happening in this part of the world, and I feel like it feels very doom and gloom. And I think it's really important to still inspire people, like, because I feel like if people are motivated, small actions do make a difference.

00;02;23;14 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So what would you say an average person can do on a day to day basis to help the environment?

00;02;29;25 
Hailey
Yeah, honestly, simple things like walking to class, like some of these bus trips that students are taking, minus ADA concerns and accessibility. I think if you can like instead of driving or taking the bus, if it's just a five minute walk, that's something you can do or something easy is reusable water bottles um, plastic stays around forever on the environment, and that's kind of simple things, I think.


Turning off the lights is, of course, what everybody says. I believe in that. Electricity is really important.

00;02;59;14 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
And what about recycling? Tell us a little bit about that.

00;03;02;19 
Hailey
Um, I think it's really easy, especially on campus. We have the Oscar’s, which is a waste sorting system. And so I personally at home I try to recycle all my water bottles, kind of anything, glass jars, um. I love to reuse. So like I take my little jelly jars and I wash them out and I put plants, or I've seen people use them as coffee cups, uh, because they're spill resistant.

00;03;26;13 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
I, I hear a lot of misconceptions about recycling and about, you know what? What can be recycled, what actually is recycled on the other end of things, whether or not things need to be super clean, like all of that stuff. Can you address some of that for us?

00;03;39;21 
Hailey
Yeah. So the biggest misconceptions are the pizza boxes. Yes, they are greasy, but you can recycle them. Another thing is the water bottles. They say leave the caps on the water bottles because when you separate the caps, it kind of floats up and kind of gets clogged in the machine. Another thing that's a big misconception is you don't need to fully rinse all your products.

They already have machines at the recycling facility that wash them. So you're intentionally you're you're wasting more water by spending the time to separate them. And it's more timely. Um, reusing, too, is my other thing about, you know, let me just not purchase it at the beginning. And if I'm throwing out something, let me see how I can recreate it and reestablish it into something useful currently.

00;04;21;12 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Yeah, I know, um, the last time we chatted, we talked a lot about, um, like repurposing and reusing clothing. And you have an Instagram account actually that posts about, um, thrift store items. And so talk a little bit about that.

00;04;33;28
Hailey
We're working on it again this year is a thrift store bus tour. So again, taking all those students around. I think thrifting is becoming more of a trend nowadays, which is really exciting and I love going with my friends. It's been really great to see that coming to light again.

00;04;49;01 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Yeah, that's super cool. What a fun thing to do. Um, switching gears just a little bit. Talk to me about your research. What's that about?

00;04;54;24 
Hailey
Yeah. So I'm doing research on soil seed banks and kind of how the deeper you if you look at ten different streams in Baltimore and looking at depth and seeing how different seeds change with depth. So I go out, I sample the top layer, the middle layer and the bottom layer, and then I grow those in the greenhouse.


And I want to see if what grows is invasive or native, kind of what is growing at those different layers.

00;05;21;17 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
We hear a lot, I think, these days about invasive species. Why is that a problem?

00;05;26;17
Hailey
It's a problem because when invasive species establishes themselves in an environment, they dominate, so they outcompete all of our native species. They reduce the different types of species we have. So they reduce their biodiversity. And they're really bad because invasive species or alien species are really great at capitalizing on these environments. Usually they can grow faster, they can seed more, and they can withstand certain conditions that our native plants can't.

And that's really harmful for our insects who need those native plants as a food source.

00;06;00;19 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
What kind of invasive species are you seeing a lot of around here?

00;06;04;20 
Hailey
Towson actually has a big garlic mustard problem. And so every year we do this thing called the garlic mustard pull, where we have students come to the glen just to see who can pull the most amount of invasive garlic mustard. I think we've gotten student groups getting 30 pounds.

00;06;19;19 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So you have spearheaded a lot of initiatives that to you to help make a more sustainable institution, um, including taking on a role as president of the urban farm. Talk to me about that. What is the urban farm?

00;06;31;12
Hailey
Basically, the point of our urban farm is to teach students how to be more sustainable and kind of full circle urban farming. One thing I found is a lot of students really don't know anything about planting one on one. And so it's been really interesting to be like, this is how you plant a seed and kind of see people get so inspired of, oh, it's that easy.

Oh, I can do this. And so honestly, it's just to get people's hands in the dirt, kind of see where their food comes from and kind of inspire people to say, this is accessible and this is something I can do.

00;07;04;03 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Recycling initiatives, group thrift store outings, seed bank research, urban farming. It's safe to say Hailey stays pretty busy. And that's not all she's done. She worked behind the scenes to help Towson University secure stars, gold status and a Plant Award, both in recognition of their sustainability efforts. And then there was the Food Summit. Last year. You were part of a food summit at To You.

Can you talk about that a little bit?

00;07;26;12 
Hailey
The Food Summit was great. It was hosted by Towson, um, and it brought a bunch of environmental people together, such as, uh, Baltimore County Sustainability. And we had a bunch of speakers come and talk about what they were doing in terms of food and food resilience and reducing food waste. It was really cool because I was able to make connections with different people.


And then we did also, it's called Weigh the Waste. So I'd stand there with my little bucket at the end and before people throughout their food, they would scrape it off and into the bucket, and so we could see how much food is getting wasted at this event.

00;07;59;18 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So talk to me about what people can do everyday people on a day to day basis to reduce food waste.

00;08;04;23 
Hailey
I always say start with smaller portions. If you're hungry, go back for seconds. My favorite hack if I'm cooking in the kitchen and I have vegetable scraps or a carcass for my chicken bone, I'll save, um, the rotisserie chicken or the vegetable scraps in a bag in the freezer. And kind of over time, once I get a big enough bag, I'll put it into boiling water, and that way I can make vegetable stock or chicken stock with it.


And so I think, um, saving your kitchen scraps or taking smaller portions are always kind of the easiest go to. Another thing I've been doing is this girl told me, prep all your things at once. So right when you get your groceries, cut everything up and then put it in the fridge. So that way I'm not waiting until my onions are sprouting or my potatoes have eyes like everything's already cut up and like, done.

And so that's been super helpful for me.

00;08;54;08 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So what do you want to tell people about saving the environment?

00;08;57;07 
Hailey
Oh my God, everybody can do it. A lot of days. Activism is really important, especially getting out there and kind of telling everybody what you can support.

00;09;08;00 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So what is next for you? What's your dream job? Where do you want to end up?

00;09;10;26 
Hailey
Oh, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I I'm not entirely sure. I'm kind of looking at something with hands on research because it's something I really enjoy. I want to be outside. I'm thinking about something maybe like corporate sustainability on the other end. And so, like, just kind of making a difference somewhere in the world is my goal.

00;09;35;16 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Hailey is determined to make the world a better place. Our next guest, Michelle, has a similar goal, but her area of focus couldn't be more different. She's studying to become a child life specialist so she can help hospitalized children navigate critical medical experiences. Pretty world changing work on its own, but Michelle has an additional goal she wants to bring more diversity to the field.

00;09;56;14 
Michelle
During the practicum course, we learned about how people in the hospital, you know, sometimes they are impacted by isolation, by hospitalization. And so as part of the course, also, we had to do a volunteer role. And after going into the hospital and volunteering and seeing the impact that play has on children, you know, you can see them physically get happier, like the goals that they have in child life of building resiliency, bringing coping skills and just overall supporting children through the tough times even though they might not be able to fix everything.

00;10;32;07 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
When we spoke before, you expressed a real commitment to specifically bringing diversity into the field of child life. What got you interested in that topic?

00;10;39;18 
Michelle
Yeah, so I noticed that there was a lack of diversity in the field. Currently, there are studies that have shown that around like 60 to 90% of white women that are currently the main practitioners in the field. And so I was wondering, how could I possibly bring some diversity to field? Because as we know, when you're in the hospital, the people that you're going to be helping and you're going to be serving, they're going to be all different types of background.

00;11;06;26 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds like we're talking about like a number of different sort of facets of diversity here. So would you say that your biggest concern, your biggest area of focus is, um, related to the diversity of the practitioners, diversity of populations being researched, diversity of the settings where child care might be being delivered or is it something else?

Is it all of those things?

00;11;28;22 
Michelle
Is all of those things? Because child life is also a really new field. Well, I wouldn't say really new, but it is a growing field. Actually. We had a speaker yesterday from Kids Grief Support and they were talking about diversity of settings. She was talking about the idea of grief deserts, in which there are a lot of grieving kids, but there is not enough support programs or organizations that provide grief support to these children.


And so not only in terms of clinical areas in which child life specialists help explain procedures, but then also how do child life specialists work in the community and help kids understand grief. And so that was one of the ways that I noticed that child life can be extended into community settings. And that really helped highlight one avenue in which Holly specialists can work in.


And so I think there can be a lot of support that could be brought into these communities, especially to help them build these coping skills from unless acute perspective. And so just finding the appropriate language to help them understand in the modality that they are used to, which is play. We use a lot of play materials that they are familiar with in order to deliver these explanations to them, so that they can then process these emotions.

00;12;41;01 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
That's really interesting. I think it's fascinating the way you're talking about approaching the issues that kids are facing through play, um. Can you give me an example? Can you tell me what that looks like?

00;12;52;00 
Michelle
A seven year old girl that I was working with. We were in the playroom and there was a little play house where it was exactly at their height, and so they knew that it was for them. As soon as we stepped into the playroom, she would immediately gravitated towards the playhouse, and she started entering the door by herself.


And she started, like, immediately engaging in pretend play and kind of acting out a scenario. And during this play interaction, one of the things that I noticed was she was fiddling around with the mailbox. There were these plastic cards that looked like envelopes

As soon as she looked at them, she was like saying, hey, can you put this through the mailbox?

And I said, okay, sure. And then I pretended to be the mailman. I say, ding dong, you have a mail. And I slipped it through the mail slot. And then she said, this is a letter from my mom. She says, I miss you a lot. I'm going to come visit you soon. And so even from that sort of dramatic role play scenario, I could tell like some of what her emotions were.

And so it can be a really good way for them to process their emotions, but and also for a child life specialist to look at that, observe their play and then understand what is there, what is that stressor for them right now.

00;14;06;28 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So talking about your time in hospitals as a volunteer, have you seen the lack of diversity across the field play out in real time and what does that look like?

00;14;15;20 
Michelle
So when I'm in hospital settings and in these large metropolitan areas, there are people that have so many different levels of English proficiency. And I think while child specialists, they are very aware of that and they do an excellent job of advocating sometimes maybe I'm looking from more of like a trauma informed lens of just how immigrants and people of color in this country are often, especially in the current state of our country,

it's almost as if they're not welcome in these spaces. And as much as child life specialists who don't share the same background as them, they do a great job of advocating. I think there can be extra support that can be given. When child life specialist of color, I've seen, are able to build like a deeper sense of trust in those relationships, is one of the things that I would like to see more in hospitals, just so that people, that enter these hospitals don't have to feel like they are not welcome in these spaces and just, I don't know, I think it's a different sense of trust and of different like a level of rapport that can be built.

00;15;29;25
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
I think that's so true. I mean, I'm trying to imagine myself in a hospital where everybody speaks a language I don't speak. There's a difference between being able to get the information you need, which is already sometimes a challenge and having a conversation. Right. What do you hope to do after you graduate?

00;15;46;12 
Michelle
I am really looking forward to just becoming a certified child life specialist and really honing my skills and working in an area where there is a diverse population, because I think I can provide so much more support to people in these areas, and also have the chance to learn from people of different backgrounds and continually challenge myself to stay curious and to stay aware of my own biases so that I can improve as a practitioner.

00;16;21;29 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Our last guest, Zorica, is taking a somewhat unusual approach to making the world a better place. She came here from North Macedonia on a Fulbright scholarship to enroll in the Communications and Advocacy program at TU. She's in her final year, and her thesis topic is joy.

00;16;36;21 
Zorica
I actually started working in the nonprofit sector while I was in high school, so I was a volunteer in a nonprofit organization at that time. Our country, my country, North Macedonia, was on the verge of a civil conflict. So it felt like people are not understanding each other. We were sort of a hub of a group of people that were building projects for intercultural understanding.

Then I continued my education and marketing. I got a job in advertising, but something felt like I missed something. I keep telling people that what you do in social impact, at the end of the day, you are like, wow, I did something. Kudos to me. High five. Now I can go to sleep. It's not that you don't do that in advertising, which is a very hot, fast paced work, but I feel like the spark is missing.

00;17;33;20 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So when you left advertising, where did you go?

00;17;35;25 
Zorica
I got a job, which was not a nonprofit at that time. It was a ministry of environmental protection. I did like the job, but eventually I ended up in the Agency of Youth Sport in North Macedonia, where I kind of find myself, because that meant working with nonprofit organizations, young people. And then I slowly moved to the nonprofit sector once again. So like a full circle.

00;18;01;20 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So what is it about advocacy work that's kept you coming back?

00;18;06;27 
Zorica
It's all about human connections. Just talking to people, trying to understand their stories, doing your best in communicating that with different, um, groups in the society, and sometimes with your own supervisor, and just making them to come on board with an idea. I think that is something that will probably keep me coming back again and again to to the advocacy sphere.

00;18;35;05 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
You've expressed a real commitment to advocacy, and I think to justice throughout your life. And at this point, you've done a lot of investigation, a lot of research into this sort of area. What are you the most concerned about right now? What's the biggest problem that you're trying to fix?

00;18;49;09 

Zorica
Well. This is a big question. Something that I find very valuable is mental health. Not only mental health as our thoughts, but in general how people are becoming more and more isolated. But I think that people are struggling a lot in how they connect with each other, sometimes even how to connect with themselves. And I also believe there is a lot of advocacy work that can be done in that area.

At the end of the day, I feel that our own well-being is the essence of everything. You cannot focus on your environment or you cannot focus on eating healthy or supporting others if the well-being is not there.

00;19;33;11
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So what drew you to the Communications and Advocacy program?

00;19;37;03 
Zorica
There is a community of support, which is quite different than how I studied in my undergrad program. And also the students are people. There is this blend of people who are professionals and already work in communications and advocacy, and also other students who are continuing from their undergrad program to grad school.

00;19;57;26 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
So talk to me about the research you're doing and the faculty you're doing it with.

00;20;02;28
Zorica
My current research is my thesis is about, uh, happiness of social entrepreneurs, women social entrepreneurs. I want to cover the emotions and the expectations that these women who are actually change makers, have in their lives, how they communicate their emotions and maybe provide recommendations for, uh, future work and research in this area. After reading one of the bell hooks books, I realized that joy as resistance is something that is very common in the lives of many women who are changemakers.

So that was my final decision that I want to wrap up my whole Fulbright journey with something of that kind.

00;20;49;07 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
I love that you bring up bell hooks. I love bell hooks, and I love that that was a sort of an inspiration for you. You talk about joy as resistance. Talk to me about what that means to you.

00;20;58;12 
Zorica
I think there are many expectations from women, especially women changemakers, that they should be happy and that you should constantly be happy and you should do extra emotional labor for, um, those people that you are actually working with. But that is not always easy and that is not always achievable. So joy as resistance is something that comes from the idea that we should pay attention to how we feel. Um, when we are dealing with adverse circumstances,


joy can be a force that can, um, move this forward to achieving what we want, helping others, but also helping ourselves. And what I also try to discover in my thesis is how we communicate about joy, about resilience, about burnout, about pain with those people that are in our surroundings, our partners, our closest friends, and whether change makers can actually go through their work by not only finding meanings, but also finding joy in what they do.

00;22;11;06
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Got it. And when you say our partners and our work, I'm assuming you're speaking about women?

00;22;15;12
Zorica
Yes.

00;22;15;28 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
And why do you think that women particularly are asked or required to do this extra emotional labor?

00;22;22;13 
Zorica
There are a lot of expectations, um, from women coming from their partners, from the society in general, from the norms that exist. So a woman who is a social entrepreneur is also a mother. She's also expected to oftentimes not be a housewife, but also do the main work in in the household. There's still all these norms that women should smile, that they should carry the burden of bringing the positive mood in the family, bringing the positive mood in the workplace.

And this is also something that I felt that myself and I have also heard from other people, women who are working in the social impact sector, that when you work with groups of people that that need your help or need some sort of support, you constantly need to show up. As someone who is positive, who is strong, who is resilient.

But we are human beings and that is why I am mentioning that aspect of communication. Because oftentimes, especially for women who are working in social impact, how their friends or even their partners, they do not have an exact idea what that means. How are you changing the world? How are you supporting others? That is not measurable?

00;23;48;22 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
Yeah, I'm really interested to think about how you answered that question. You know, at the end of the day, like what did you do today? How do you answer that without sounding, I don't know, two idealistic maybe.

00;23;58;06
Zorica
Yeah. I want to share an example, a personal example. I had , uh, a partner in the past, and I told him once that with my group of students, we went to visit the young people who were in the, uh, children's clinic um, at the Kansas Department. He said, why are you doing that to yourself? Why are you trying to change the world?

You're not going to change the world because you're only torturing yourself. So I think that is just one example of how when the other person cannot hear or doesn't understand about your work, then you stop sharing about that, and you carry that, and you continue doing the work thinking that other people don't understand or that they will not be able to understand the scale of the work.

I think there are many examples out there of women who are doing extraordinary work, um, and working tirelessly to support others, but if that is, there is no space for them to communicate that, then the burden is even higher.

00;25;11;15 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
What would you say? I mean, broadly, I guess to anybody who's thinking, I wish, you know, I just don't like the way things are, and I wish I could do something to make the world a little bit of a better place. What might you say?

00;25;22;28 
Zorica
I will tell them that they can do anything, and I really mean it. So I think this field of advocacy and social impact is one of the most beautiful ways for people to connect with each other, find their spaces, and contribute to just building a better world. And it doesn't necessarily mean changing the planet. It can be. Even if you change the life of one person, that's still making change in the society.

00;25;57;11 
Steph Sundermann-Zinger
The guests on today's show all came from different places with different passions, but all had one thing in common the courage to see past what is, to what could be, and to push for the change they want to see. If you've been thinking about a problem in the world that you're not quite sure how to solve, I hope their stories inspired you to take the next step and dig a little deeper.

You've been listening to Three Degrees, a podcast produced out of Towson University by myself and my co-producer and sound engineer, Brianna.

00;26;30;02 - 00;26;57;17
Bryonna Sieck
Founded in 1866, Towson University is a top ranked comprehensive public research university recognized as Maryland's number one public institution by The Wall Street Journal. As Greater Baltimore's largest university TU proudly serves as an engine of opportunity for nearly 20,000 students, the state of Maryland and beyond explore more than 190 top ranked undergraduate and graduate degree programs and make our momentum yours at Towson.edu