The 2020 GEJ Scholars are selected as they exemplify LAJF’s mission of fostering a lifelong commitment to compassionate and responsible leadership for the betterment of our communities. This is the last of our blogs introducing the 2020 GEJ Scholars, we hope you have enjoyed reading them. To learn more about this and other opportunities for CRS alums, please visit our website.

Read our blog today to learn about the ways in which undergraduate students Monica Janvier ‘15, ‘16, Samantha Luca ‘14, and Olin Edwards ‘17 plan to further the mission of CRS through journalism, environmental justice, and music.

Monica Janvier ‘15, ‘16

Monica is a junior at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study studying a major that focuses on the intersection of media, mental health, and identity. Since attending CRS in 2015 and 2016, Monica has been actively involved with the NYC Alumni Association and LAJF, returning as a volunteer in several capacities and a LAJF Fellow from 2019 to 2020.

Monica has been a student leader at NYU for the past two years, serving as Director of Service of NYU’s Rubin residence hall and later Director of Recognition and Development (Vice President) of Second Street residence hall. In these roles, she facilitated events and activities aimed at bringing together the student community and improving overall residential life. One of her goals was to use art and self-expression to encourage residents to embrace their vulnerabilities, differences, and common humanity. Monica also used her position to organize fundraisers, donations, and volunteer activities to support local social justice initiatives, including a sock drive for the homeless and a fundraiser for RAINN, a non-profit that supports victims of sexual assault.

Professionally, Monica plans to pursue a career in journalism and social advocacy, where she can tell the stories of individuals who have been historically underrepresented and misrepresented. As a class project, Monica recently created a digital magazine, chronicling the stories of NYU students who are people of color and from low-income backgrounds. In the future, she hopes to expand her magazine to explore topics such as gender expression, sexuality, culture, and racial identity. One of her biggest life goals is to create a documentary film exploring the social, cultural, and political nuances of the global African Diaspora, inspired by her own heritage and experiences.

Monica says that her experience at CRS as a teenager helped her to become more conscious and proud of her identities and fueled her eagerness to combat social injustices. She also credits her time at Camp for inspiring her to learn new languages such as Haitian Creole, her family’s language, and Spanish. Her pursuit of Spanish has actually taken her to several different countries including Mexico and Spain, where she has immersed herself in local culture and grown her appreciation for diverse storytelling.

What are your thoughts after receiving the GEJ Scholarship and how will the scholarship contribute to your future goals and plans?

I feel incredibly grateful to have received this scholarship, which will allow me to reduce my work schedule and focus more on my studies this semester. This semester, I'm taking courses that explore Journalism and Film, the two industries I hope to achieve careers in.

Do you have any tips for prospective applicants to the scholarship or CRS? Do you have any advice for younger students in general? 

Don't underestimate your experiences. In general, applications (whether for scholarships, jobs, etc) require a certain amount of confidence in yourself, in your abilities, and in your accomplishments. If you don't believe in yourself while completing an application, it's going to be especially hard for application readers to believe in you.

Samantha Luca ‘14

Samantha attended CRS in 2014 as a camper from New York City. This year she will be a senior at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Sam began her undergraduate career intending to learn more about agriculture, however, she has since tailored her degree to focus on environmental injustices on regional and global levels, as well as food disparities and inequities between groups.

Sam has extensive experience as a naturalist. She previously worked as a gardener at her university’s Road Experiment Station as well as the Dai Bosatsu Zendo, where she practiced organic farming in a community permaculture operation and conducted intensive research on Zen Buddhism while living a monastery. She is also a volunteer for the Food Recovery Network at Syracuse University and helps to reduce food waste by bringing leftover food from the university to local charities. Most recently, Sam completed an internship as an Interpretive Naturalist at the Adirondack Interpretive Center, where she created trail signage, updated fern, and tree identification pamphlets, and helped to produce the Newcomb Naturalist Notes video series. 

Looking into the future, Sam wants to put her skills and knowledge in environmental sociology and human rights violations to good use through education. Although she enjoys working with elementary school students, she ultimately hopes to catch students who are at a critical point in their adolescence and positively impact them the way CRS impacted her in high school. 

Sam remembers attending her first Evening Program at Camp and how it completely changed her perspective on feminism, identity, and LGBT issues, encouraging her to challenge her own internalized prejudices and biases. Without her experience at Camp, Sam says she does not know if she would have set off on her current path, and she hopes to provide that turning point in the lives of young people in the future.

For now, Sam is focused on strengthening her own mind, body, and spirit as a yogi and student of Zen Buddhism. She recently studied abroad at the University of Ghana to learn more about environmental injustice through waste management and hygiene practices—an experience she says was partially strengthened and encouraged by the cultural sensitivity and bravery that she witnessed in her fellow campers. Above all, Sam has been busy trying to lead a more sustainable life herself, buying plant-based goods and participating in the local food economy, while spreading awareness of issues like environmental racism and searching for ways to improve the quality of life for everyone.  

What are your thoughts after receiving the GEJ Scholarship and how will the scholarship contribute to your future goals and plans?

Receiving the GEJ scholarship has affirmed to me I am well on my way to being an equitable environmental steward. This scholarship award motivates me to continue to challenge legacies of injustice and to get involved in the education sector.

Do you have any tips for prospective applicants to the scholarship or CRS? Do you have any advice for younger students in general? 

My tip for prospective applicants to CRS is to APPLY. I waited until the last day, almost the last hour of the deadline to submit my initial application. After all that hesitation, I wouldn't know who I am today without my experience and friends from Camp.

To younger students in general- I encourage you to continue to strive to excel in all of the work you complete. I will say though- I have come to a point in my life where I feel it is very important to be a human more than I am solely a student. Take the time to channel into your hobbies, hang out with friends, and soak up the sun. At the end of the day, the experiences you have outside of class (like CRS) will be the ones to motivate and focus you in your studies.

Olin Edwards ‘17

Olin is a former camper from 2017 and an active member of the Minnesota Alumni Association. Currently, Olin is a freshman at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities majoring in music education. Music has been a huge part of Olin’s life for as long as he can remember. In high school, he was a leader in several different musical groups, including marching band, drumline, jazz band, and orchestra. As president of a music honors society, he organized opportunities for musicians to volunteer around the city and share their love of music. He also enjoyed volunteering at his former elementary school, assisting music teachers, and accompanying the choir. 

In high school, Olin also lived and worked part-time at Driftless Farm Animal Sanctuary, an animal sanctuary he started with his mom. They decided to put the land they had to good use and take in farm animals that were in need of a home. Since opening, they have adopted four horses, a pony, a donkey, a mule, two goats, chickens and ducks, dogs, cats, and even bunnies. 

In his time in college and as a GEJ Scholar, Olin hopes to be able to expand his worldview by traveling more to other countries and meeting new people from around the world, like he did at Camp. He has one specific long term goal for himself, and that is to learn about traditional music from different cultures and bring it back to his future students so that they can be exposed to new types of music. With this knowledge and experience, Olin hopes to compose a music piece that incorporates traditional folk melodies and other styles of music with Western sounds. 

Olin says that this dream started during his time at Camp when he had the chance to meet other campers who broadened his musical horizons into new areas of the world and showed him non-Western, non-mainstream styles of music. Beyond that, however, CRS helped him realize his own potential to communicate with and impact other people.