By Katie Koenig
Introducing Amy Rinaldo
Amy Rinaldo is the Associate Director of English Language Learning (ELL) in International Student Affairs at Emerson. She supports English language skills and skill development for multilingual students, especially for multilingual international students. Even if they aren’t international students, Amy works to provide support for those that may struggle with academics in English. She teaches just a few of the many ELL classes, helping develop students’ English academic writing.
Work with Emerson
One of Amy’s many passions is working directly with students in her classes. She has a lot of flexibility about what topics her students write about to develop their skills, and she likes helping them uncover the many surprising connections students’ interests have with sustainability if they’re interested in it.
Since she herself is incredibly invested in sustainable living, Amy likes providing examples for her writing prompts that are related to a climate topic, although her students have complete freedom to choose any topic they like. One particular assignment she described to me was one where students had to write about an aspect of their field or interest that’s commonly misinterpreted. Amy’s example? There’s a general assumption that recycling is easy and simple, but there are still some big issues with the recycling infrastructure and the waste produced from single-use plastics. Her revised solution is to simply reduce single-use plastics, rather than justify continuing to buy them by saying they’re recyclable.
Another assignment is a free writing activity, where students receive a prompt like how climate change is viewed in their national community. The distinctions between students who discuss the U.S. and other countries provide Amy with insight on her students’ perspectives towards the topic, and also helps her stay in touch with what they think and how they discuss such topics.
She described this kind of encouragement for her students as “planting seeds.” If they’re interested or become interested in these types of topics, then it may lead them to continue exploring sustainability outside of class. Even if they aren’t, they still develop their language skills and learn more about their interests in an academic setting.
Work Outside of Emerson
Amy also volunteers outside of Emerson for English conversation groups, which sometimes include members with lower English proficiency than multilingual Emerson students. Members are also sometimes older than Emerson students. One activity for those groups is that everyone is assigned an object in English and has to arrange themselves in the order of how long each object takes to decompose.
These kinds of activities all foster language skills, but it also encourages critical thinking about our environment and the things we interact with on a daily basis.
Through her work, she’s seen how closely ELL and climate change actually overlap. There’s a lot of natural overlap between the environment and different career fields and interests, although they may not be obvious at the start. She really feels that empowering students to practice their language and critical thinking skills help them develop a sense of authority to be able to participate in social and environmental issues. “For better or worse,” Amy told me, “English is our lingua franca.” A lot of political discussions and movements are English-based in the U.S., so ELL is incredibly helpful to encourage any English language learners, whether at Emerson or elsewhere, to participate.
Personal Strategies
On a personal level, Amy embraces sustainable living in all aspects of her life. One major aspect is plants, which I was not surprised to hear. I interviewed her in her office, and sitting on the windowsill were at least half a dozen thriving plants in various pots—impressive to me, since I’ve managed to kill every succulent I’ve ever held in my hands despite my best efforts. When I mentioned that, Amy brought up that plant growing isn’t the entire point, for her. Instead, it’s interacting with nature. She loves getting out in nature in any way, whether that’s walking in the Common, going to a community garden, or hiking in the Middlesex Fells Reservation to the north of Boston.
One of her favorite experiences of her community encouraging an interest in nature came from a library near where she used to live. In one nook, there was a great deal of sunlights and window design that allowed for a community garden. There was a clear watering schedule, tons of plants, and overall served as a way to participate in gardening with little stress.
She currently has a small plot in her community garden, which is more impacted by climate change than she had expected. Last year, the Department of Agriculture released the most recent Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Essentially, it measures the average low temperatures in an area to see what areas different plants can survive the winter in. In just the last decade, the zones increased by one level even in Massachusetts. She explained that this kind of connection is everywhere, once you look for it. Skiing and snowboarding is a big one—snow in Massachusetts has been terrible the last couple of years. Even recently, Emerson students got a snow day practically without snow on campus.
Getting involved in sustainability can be daunting, at first. To Amy, it helps to find a selfish reason to keep up the momentum for climate activism, such as an interest in gardening or love of winter sports. It can be difficult to maintain passion about something really removed from your life. Finding connections to your own life is important.
It’s also partly a matter of rethinking our lifestyles. During Covid, a lot of people had friendship walks to just spend time with people outdoors while still social distancing. It just takes getting a little creative.
Another form of sustainable living is biking to work. Amy doesn’t do it every day, but she explained how much faster it is for her—it cuts her commute time in half! Even disregarding the environmental benefits, it’s much more convenient for her. Relatedly, it’s important to have good bike infrastructure in any city. Boston has Bluebikes, but any city should have at least accessible bike racks and bike lanes for commuters. Biking has also been a way for her to meet more people who share similar interests.
Of course, she’s spent several years building up her current lifestyle. It’s not an immediate change, and is much easier to start slowly to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Suggestions for Students
Amy mentioned several things that are actionable even in a dorm situation. She always brings a to-go mug for her coffee. The benefits are numerous: her drink stays warm, it doesn’t spill (and she outright said she wouldn’t risk taking a paper cup on the T), and it can sit in a bag. Biking is another one, of course, and getting off campus is always easy with the Common right outside.
To Amy, it’s important to question the lifestyle that we’ve been raised on. Even if saving a few disposable cups a week might not help as much as other things, it’s still a way to be critical about the lifestyle that we’re fed. If it’s convenient and helpful on multiple levels (like biking in a city with Boston’s level of traffic), why not? It’s not about judging anyone who does use single-use cups or takes transatlantic flights (especially for international students or anyone who’s visiting family, but even for those who are going on vacation). It’s just being considerate and putting thought into our choices. What works for us? What’s convenient in our lives, and what really matters?
Still, she emphasized that, to succeed, she feels it necessary to avoid an ‘all or nothing’ mentality. She tries to bike instead of drive to get places, but sometimes she does drive and doesn’t guilt herself over doing so. Although she tries to have as plant-based a diet as possible, she still has some dairy. The way she put it is that “it can be very demoralizing to feel like you’re not doing the right things, and that’s just not helpful for anybody—for you personally or the wider movement.”
Voting
Before we finished talking, I asked Amy if there was anything we hadn’t discussed that she thought was important. Almost immediately, she brought up voting. Not just on a national level, but getting involved in local elections can be an exciting way to see cities make changes. What you care about in your life—in your city—is most likely to be changed on a local level. Getting better bike infrastructure in Boston or even improving the T—all of that changes on a local level.
Amy mentioned the fatigue we all see with current governmental chaos, especially at a national level, while butting up against the statement ‘your vote is important.’ Local politics is particularly eye opening to see how things get done, and to actually affect change that you can experience. It takes effort to know what’s happening and what (and who) are on the ballot, but it’s worth it. To Amy, the local level is where a lot of climate justice starts. Plus, for those of us with the privilege of voting, it’s important to take advantage of that opportunity.