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Student chosen as U.N. sustainability commission delegate

By Cate Grochala '06
May 8, 2006

Chloe Stull-Lane '07 has been selected as a youth delegate for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development to be held May 1-12 at the U.N. Headquarters in New York. She will be one of approximately 20 youth delegates from the United States. The commission meets every other year and is comprised of delegates from developed countries around the world.

Stull-Lane's interest in sustainable development started during her first year at St. Olaf when she took a course called "Environmental Policy and Regulation" with Associate Professor of Economics Rebecca Judge.

"I first heard of sustainable development in this class," Stull-Lane says. "I had always been interested in environmental and social issues, and learning about sustainable development combined both of these interests."

Inspired by her classes and conversations with faulty, Stull-Lane joined SustainUS, a national, nonprofit youth organization that advocates for sustainable development. It was through SustainUS, where she now serves on the steering community, that Stull-Lane heard about the opportunity to become a youth delegate at the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development and applied for the position.

Shaping Legislation
At the commission, Stull-Lane will represent U.S. youth, attend caucus groups, discuss ideas and read through proposed legislation. "It's powerful to have a group of young people come to the U.N. and be able to discuss what young adults would like to see in legislation and meet with youth from other countries," she says. She hopes from this experience to gain a better understanding of how environmental policy is written and to be able to apply some of what she has learned in her own experiences with grassroots activism to the new legislation.

While at St. Olaf Stull-Lane has designed her own major, Sustainable International Development, through the Center for Integrated Studies. She also majors in American Racial and Multicultural Studies and has concentrations in environmental studies and Africa and the Americas. She is active in the environmental coalition and the Cultural Union For Black Expression and holds leadership positions in both groups.

Last year, she spent a semester in Namibia where she interned with the South African Institute for Environmental Assessment, talking with government officials and writing a report assessing the nation's environmental position. Next fall, Stull-Lane will travel to Africa again to study water management in Kenya. Upon her return to St. Olaf, she hopes to combine her experiences in Africa, her St. Olaf classes, the U.N. Commission for Sustainable Development and in grassroots organizations into a final presentation for her Sustainable International Development major.

For Chloe Stull-Lane, connecting these experiences from around the world is important. To create change for sustainable development, she says, "I believe there has to be action on all levels."

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.