Portraits: Jamie Henn ’07, Cofounder, 350.org; Founder and Executive Director of Fossil Free Media

Dozens of alumni who helped launch Middlebury’s Sunday Night Environmental Group (originally known as the “Sunday Night Group”) returned to campus recently for SNEG’s 20-year reunion and a two-day conference exploring the question, “What Works Now?”
 
We asked a few of them to reflect on their time as Middlebury students and to offer some advice for today’s generation of college climate activists. 
 

Come forward with bold ideas.

Jamie: We wanted a space where you could come and be part of this conversation about, ‘What can we do to make the world a better place?’ Climate was a lens that we looked through, but really we wanted people to come from all disciplines and all walks of life to be in community together. That openness and experimentation was at the heart of the Sunday Night Group.

Coming forward with bold ideas, but doing it with a spirit of humility, gets you a long way. Don’t hold back to experiment, to put ideas out there—to try and fail. The real genius comes out of community and that’s what Middlebury is so good at fostering. So being brave enough to put your ideas out there and find friends to share it with is what I’ve found has allowed me to do this work and move forward.