Chloé Monet Miller
Mitakuye Oyasin
As my myriad sustainability-related life experiences have taught me, humans are biological and cultural creatures. I am dedicated to understanding the dynamic, synergetic relationship between anthropogenic forces, human biology, and the natural landscape. The mission of my work is to return lost cultural history to the living and to right social and political wrongs. I represent a different perspective of sustainability that recognizes the need to not only understand how humans are affecting the environment but also how we our affecting ourselves.
Roots-n-Stems
As an extant member of a complex Native American community, there has always been talk about the imbalance of the world and how it will affect all life in the future. I was taught that it is part of my responsibility as a human being to help return balance to the earth for the sake of future generations, which has inspired me to become an agent for sustainability.
My cultural upbringing inspired me to help the earth anyway I can. As a child, I participated in many highway cleanups, Habitat for Humanity events, and rehabilitation of injured and/or orphaned wildlife. As a teenager, I even organized and executed a recycling drive for my neighborhood in western Pennsylvania due to the lack of education of and resources for recycling. With the nearest recycling center being over a ten minute drive away, recycling was not required or practiced where I lived. Therefore, I created flyers explaining the importance of recycling and how to properly sort waste. For ten weeks, my father and I would drive around every Sunday, picking up the recycled waste of houses along my street. My grandparents were one of those households, and since my drive they still recycle their paper to this day. As a young girl, I was not familiar with the term sustainability, but protecting the earth for future generations was an essential part of my childhood.
My childhood passion for sustainability was one reason why I chose Dickinson College. Through my time at Dickinson as an Anthropology/Archaeology major and as a Baird Fellow, I have developed a better understanding of sustainability within academia and a professional market.
