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Lindsay Campbell '02

Lindsay Kathleen Campbell, from Shaker Heights, Ohio, was a Woodrow Wilson School major who earned a certificate in environmental studies. She had a GPA of 3.78, received a Presidential Award for Academic Excellence, and was a second team All-American fencer. One professor described her as "intelligent, mature, sensible, socially committed, good-humored, hard working and highly motivated" – "a clear A plus as the best performer among thirty students," and in the top five percent of all Princeton students at her stage.

Like Aili, Lindsay chose a project spawned in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy – a project, as she told us then, that "presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me to be part of the healing." Here is Lindsay's own description of what she did.

"My fellowship consisted of being project manager of the Living Memorials Project, which is a unique program of the USDA Forest Service that was created after September 11, 2001. The project gave grants to community groups and municipalities to create "living memorials" to September 11, which ranged from single trees to entire forests, focusing in the New York metro area, SW Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C./Arlington, VA and Boston because of the connection to the crash sites on that day. It also focused on providing technical assistance and doing broader social research on the phenomena of living memorials. My duties on the project were varied and enriching, from creating content and the organizational schema for the project website (visit it at www.livingmemorialsproject.net) to assisting grantees, to conducting numerous interviews and site visits, to writing publications. ''

Due to time constraints, we were unable to receive a written statement from Lindsay's supervisors before this booklet had to be printed. But I recall speaking with them during the course of Lindsay's Fellowship, and they were very enthusiastic about the quality of her work and its significance to the project.

As evidence of the high regard in which Lindsay was held, after completing her first year on the project, she was invited to stay on with the Forest Service, working full time for the Northeastern Research Station in developing the social and site assessments of this project as well as doing nationwide research on living memorials. Together with a colleague, she continues to research, collaborate, and write jointly on this project and other issues of urban natural resource management.

Lindsay says of her Forest Service work that "It has brought me in touch with many inspirational individuals and organizations, from family members of September 11 victims to volunteer gardeners helping to transform their blocks in Brooklyn. It has also affirmed to me the power and importance of open space and natural resources in even the most urbanized areas."

Lindsay has since gone to graduate school at MIT, where she is currently finishing a Masters in City Planning with the Environmental Policy Group, focused on studying civil society and the environment, community based natural resource management, environmental justice, and sustainable development. "I am committed to continuing to explore issues at the nexus of the urban environment and community development."

After graduating, Lindsay plans to return to New York to help build the presence of the Forest Service as a leader in research on urban environmental issues. But, she says, there is a complication – "another life passion that tugs at my heart, my life of competitive international fencing. I've been fencing since I was nine years old and I continue to train and compete at the highest levels, having made US World Championship Team in 2005. I would like to continue to compete and train with a goal of becoming an Olympian, which may involve me needing to temporarily relocate to Europe. To this point, I've always been able to balance all of my passions, and the Forest Service has been extremely supportive of my athletic career, I will just have some difficult choices to make in the near term. But I would much rather have this abundance of options than any other situation."

Lindsey credits the ReachOut '56 Fellowship for launching her into a meaningful career that she continues to pursue today. "I deeply thank the Class of 1956 for allowing me an entry point into a world of real life activism, public service, research, and scholarship. I truly believe that without this opportunity, I might never have considered working for the federal government. The traditional paths to government service are often unexciting to young, recent graduates. Instead, I was allowed to work on one of the most innovative new projects the Forest Service has conducted in years, and I was treated as an equal and a peer rather than as an intern. Giving recent graduates opportunities to develop their own projects and to pick the institutions with whom they feel they fit best gives them an incredible amount of freedom and empowerment.

"The continued contact with other fellows on at least an annual basis has also been inspiring and I enjoy seeing the group of fellows grow. (And I loved singing standards with Jim at his home during a cocktail party a few years ago!) I hope to see the network continue to grow and support current and past fellows in new and exciting ways."

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