RECOMMENDATION Applicant: Award: Andrea Doukakis Udall Scholarship

Submitted by: Mark Stewart, Office of Sustainability, University of Maryland. stewartm@umd.edu Date: January 14, 2013

Dear Udall Foundation: At the University of Maryland, the word Sustainability is practically synonymous with the name Andrea Doukakis. In her freshman year, Andrea stood out as having a particularly strong interest in preparing herself for a career in the service of the environment. As shes matured over the years, her interest has transformed into an unwavering focus and she has become a sustainability trend-setter among her peers. She will undoubtedly make big waves through her professional pursuits. The Udall Foundation will be proud to be associated with this incredible woman, as I already am. I often joke when I introduce people to Andrea that she was the first student to sign up for the new Sustainability Studies Minor, and the first to drop it. After considering all the majors available to her, she realized the only way to learn everything she wants to know about how society and economics can work sustainably was to craft her own academic program. With the advice of faculty members, she created a major in Environmental Sustainability and will be the first student from the University of Maryland to graduate with that degree. The only sacrifice she had to make was to give up her beloved minor in Sustainability Studies since university policy precludes a student from earning a major and minor in the same discipline. Sacrifice, it seems, is something Andrea is willing to make if it serves the environment well. She has sacrificed countless hours to help the Office of Sustainability create programs that change peoples hearts and minds about critical environmental issues. I recruited Andrea this fall to serve as a Sustainability Advisor. In this role, she learned how to teach a compelling 60-minute lesson about sustainability to get first-year students excited about the subject and connected with campus resources so they can pursue academic, research, or personal pathways to sustainability. She is an exceptional peer-educator; she easily makes conversation with others and has a knack for relating their interests to contemporary environmental concerns. However, her service to the Office of Sustainability far extends her commission as a Sustainability Advisor. After successfully completing an internship encouraging offices on campus to adopt sustainable practices, Andrea accepted a position as a Sustainability Fellow, a paraprofessional position in the Office of Sustainability reserved for only the most exceptional former interns. In fact, she is the only student to whom we have offered this position in the last two years. I have met no other student whose interests and skillset align so well with the work of the Office of Sustainability, which makes Andrea unique and an incredible asset to our organization.

Andrea is now halfway through her junior year of college and starting to consider the professional paths ahead of her. The Udall Foundation has the opportunity to help guide Andrea along this journey and help her become the sort of environmental leader our communities, nation, and world need. She comes to you with exceptional passion and competency in the art and science of behavior-change; she is exactly the sort of person who can help a community transition to sustainability. I encourage you to take this opportunity to help her strengthen those skills and introduce her to the proud network of Udall Scholars who are working together to change the world for the better.

Sincerely,

Mark Stewart Senior Project Manager Office of Sustainability University of Maryland 3115 Chesapeake Building College Park, MD 20742 301-405-4633 stewartm@umd.edu