A Conversation with Former Student Engagement Director, Clara Fang

Clara Fang recently stepped down as student engagement director at CCL, a role that she has performed since 2016. During that time, the number of student supporters at CCL has increased from less than 1% to 12%, with 25% of new supporters joining in the last year under the age of 25. The programs she developed helped thousands of young people learn advocacy skills, organize climate action in their communities, and lobby their elected officials for carbon pricing. 

Clara was also instrumental in CCL’s diversity and inclusion work, presenting many conference workshops on the topic and serving on the diversity strategic committee since 2018. She is currently senior fellow at Citizens’ Climate International, a PhD candidate in environmental studies at Antioch University New England, and serves on the board of the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences. 

What have you learned from working at CCL and being a student engagement director? 

Working with CCL has been a most rewarding experience. I think the CCL values of respect, appreciation, integrity, and relationships are so valuable in any workplace and in life in general. Some of the most helpful skills for me have been motivational interviewing, facilitating inclusive and productive meetings, and effective communication through a variety of platforms, from writing letters-to-the-editor to presenting to large conference audiences. 

 Why is student engagement important? 

I probably don’t have to say that young people are the future, and we do this work primarily for their benefit, but there are some very strategic reasons for engaging young people in climate advocacy. First, Millennials and Gen Z are now 51.4% of the U.S. population. Their votes could change the entire political landscape, not to mention move us forward on climate change. 

Second, young people are more concerned about climate change and more inclined to take action than older generations. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found in 2019 millennial or younger adults are more likely to support and/or identify with climate activists who urge elected officials to take action to reduce global warming than older generations. They are more willing to volunteer or donate to an organization working on global warming, as well as engage in other forms of climate activism than older generations. They also found that the young Republicans are more willing to take climate action than older Republicans, and there is less partisan difference between young Republicans and Democrats on climate change.  

 At CCL, we’ve observed members of Congress pay more attention when young people are in our lobby meetings, and they have a power to be persuasive in a way that older adults aren’t. We have many stories of youth lobbyists convincing their members of Congress to join the Climate Solutions Caucus, co-sponsor the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, and passing climate resolutions, even when their adult predecessors failed to do so. 

 But the most important reason to engage young people, I think, is the impact that engagement can have on their lives. They are at a point in life where they are discovering what their priorities and interests are, what they want to do for their career, and what kind of communities they want to be a part of. CCL is a supportive community to learn civic skills and relationship skills that would serve them for the rest of their lives no matter what issues they care about. 

 Finally, volunteering for CCL is a great resume builder. We have high school students who have gotten admitted to top ranked universities because of their involvement with CCL, and college students who have decided to pursue a career in climate and gained admission to top graduate schools in the field. CCL opens amazing opportunities for young people who step outside of their comfort zones. 

 What barriers do students face in engaging with climate action? 

Students today are facing different barriers from those a generation ago. In addition to juggling the demands of school and social life, students are dealing with tuition rates that are double or triple what they were 20 years ago, leading to unprecedented amounts of student debt. More and more students are finding it necessary to take on part time and even full time jobs while studying, which makes it harder for them to do volunteer activities. Students are also more concerned about being able to find a job when they graduate, so activities that they can put on a resume are going to be more attractive than those that are just “do good, feel good.” 

 Understanding these challenges and meeting students where they are is critical to engaging them on climate action. I look for ways that students can reap co-benefits while working with CCL, for example, partnering with college professors to do climate action as part of a class project. If students are doing climate action on their own, find a way for them to earn academic credit or turn it into an internship that they can put on their resume. Pay them whenever possible. Offer a mentorship experience. Community is also an incentive so being part of a peer group and having fun are really important. 

 Finally, keep in mind that students are exploring and experimenting. They may come to a CCL meeting and then a Sunrise meeting the next week. They may do CCL for a semester and something else the next. They may transfer schools, study abroad, disappear for a long time or decide that they don’t want to do climate at all. That is all good and healthy and we shouldn’t fret if they are not consistent or long lasting. 

 What should students do to have the most impact?  

 For pretty much all of the levers of political will, young people have an advantage in being young. Lobbying is more effective when young people talk to the elected officials, letters-to-the-editor and op-eds are more interesting when they are written from a young person’s perspective. Grasstops outreach is more engaging with young people. Students also have access to a peer network through their schools where they can get their friends involved in activities they are a part of. Any way that they can tell their stories and make their voices heard use their youth to their advantage. 

 What are some effective ways to engage students? 

A lot of our volunteers are interested in working with college students. Here are my recommendations for being strategic in your outreach: 

1. Consider your network. If you teach or work at a school, you already have an in. Your approach might be to integrate climate action into your classroom, getting your students involved, or reaching out to faculty who might be interested in doing so. CCL has resources to help you do that. 

2. If you don’t teach or work at a school, you will need to develop some relationships first. Think about what you are offering before you go about asking. Is there an upcoming conference or lobby meeting that you could invite faculty and students to? Is there an Earth Day program that you could contribute to? Can you offer an internship or scholarship opportunity? 

3. Start with the sustainability coordinator, or civic engagement coordinator. These people are liaisons to community organizations. Through them you can get an introduction to faculty interested in climate opportunities. 

4. Student organizations can also be an in. Get the right contacts through the sustainability coordinator, or the student government association. 

5. Start early. Faculty need to start the prior semester in order to make changes to their curriculum for the following semester. Planning for Earth Day starts in September. 

6. Do not try to engage them at the end of the semester (December and May)! The best times to reach out to faculty are January and June. 

 How has the pandemic affected student engagement? 

Student lives were turned upside down by the pandemic. Undeniably this has been incredibly stressful for them and we saw a decline in involvement and willingness to take on leadership roles. However, they have also been resilient, adapting easily to the virtual environment and utilizing social media to connect with their peers. Unlike some climate organizations, CCL does not rely on rallies or in-person forms of advocacy, so our lobbying and outreach efforts have translated pretty well to virtual, in most cases increasing accessibility and engagement. 

 The pandemic has shifted engagement, but there is still a lot of it. We saw a drop in interest in our Campus Leaders Program, which is centered around campus organizing, and a huge surge of interest in our Climate Advocacy Certificate Program, a 15 week training program where students learn CCL advocacy methods online at their own pace. Our internship program also experienced a boost since people who would have applied to in-person internships became interested in our online remote internships. 

 What are some tools and resources CCLers can use for student engagement? 

Start with our website citizensclimatehighered.org. Subscribe to our newsletter and join our action team on CCL community. Promote our internships, Campus Leaders Program, and Climate Advocacy Certificate Program. If you’re a staff member, group leader, or action team leader, learn how to host an internship for your local chapter or action team. If you’d like a young person to give a presentation at your school, let us know at highered@citizensclimatelobby.org. 

 CCL’s new student engagement manager, Steffanie Munguia, will continue to lead our work in this area. 

 What do you see as opportunities for CCL on student engagement? 

With Millennials and Gen Z being the largest generations and most willing to take action on climate, I believe student engagement should be at the center of CCL’s grassroots outreach efforts. Doing so would not only drive CCL’s growth and effectiveness over all, it would also improve our racial diversity and conservative membership. To do that would require more resources than is currently being given to the program, such as having more than one staff person dedicated to student engagement, and more funding for our fellowship and internship programs. For example, I would love to see full-time fellows dedicated to student engagement in each of our regions or target states. The truth is, students are looking for ways to engage with climate. If CCL does not prioritize them, they will go elsewhere--to Sunrise Movement or Our Climate, for example. We need to work with those organizations but also let people know that we offer something valuable and unique. 

 What’s next for you? 

I’m enjoying my fellowship with Citizens’ Climate International where I am developing a fellowship program and training program for them. I’m also working on my PhD dissertation on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the climate movement. This year, I’ve given talks on this topic at Antioch University, Smith College, the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences conference, and more. I’m also writing a memoir about the pandemic! 

  To learn more about CCL’s higher education program, go to citizensclimatehighered.org, or contact ccl.highered@citizensclimatelobby.org

 To learn more about Clara’s work on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the climate movement, go to https://climatediversity.org. She can be reached at clara.fang@citizensclimatelobby.org.