Milestones: A new kind of field school opens

Training new environmental organizers

In the spring of 1992, a small team led by Gina Collins-Cummings and Leslie Samuelrich visited college campuses across the country.

Their mission was to recruit talented, motivated but inexperienced graduating students and others to sign up for an idea that was not yet a reality: a one-year experiential training program in organizing environmental campaigns.

The idea was the brainchild of Doug Phelps. Gina and Leslie, working with Ken Ward and other experienced organizers, shaped the idea and turned it into a curriculum that included theory and practice, readings and roleplays, the classroom and the real world.

By the summer of 1992, recent grads Adam Ruben, Sarah Forslund, Ted Halstead and other members of the first Green Corps class were in training at [Harvard University]. By the fall, they were organizing support for ballot initiatives on recycling and toxic waste cleanup, and organizing support for forest protection with the Rainforest Action Network. By the following summer, they were graduates of the Green Corps Class of 1993. Adam found a job as field organizer with Sierra Club, Sarah joined the Northern Forest Alliance, and Ted founded his own think tank called Redefining Progress.

This cycle – a recruitment drive; a classroom training; campaigns punctuated by more classroom training; a late summer graduation into new jobs and roles within the larger environmental and public interest communities – would repeat itself, with variations and evolutions, year after year after year. Soon, Green Corps had earned a reputation as the nation’s premier training program for new environmental organizers.

‘It’s about power’

The theory behind Green Corps was summed up in part by writer, activist and Green Corps guest trainer Bill McKibben: “It took me a long time to realize that while scientists had won the argument, they were going to lose the fight because it isn’t about data and science. It’s about power. At a certain point, it became clear that our only hope of matching money was with the currencies of movement: passion, spirit, creativity … and warm bodies.”

Natalie Foster, a graduate in the Green Corps Class of 2002, reflected on how the program taught new organizers how to amass and wield people power:

“In my year, I participated in a media training on running a press conference. Soon after, I was on my way to Georgia to target (the late former U.S. senator) Max Cleland and ask him to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I held my first press conference at the Carter Center in front of this big bronze caribou that indicated President Carter’s belief in protecting the refuge. My press conference brought together labor leaders, clergy members and reporters from across Georgia, and one of the reporters was from the Associated Press. His piece from the press conference on migratory birds and the refuge was picked up and reprinted in outlets all across the United States. 

“Green Corps gave me the training I needed to make this experience a success.”

David Brower (the former Sierra Club executive director, founder of Friends of the Earth, co-founder of the League of Conservation Voters, and founder of the Earth Island Institute) was a supporter of Green Corps before he passed in 2000. He said, “The Earth, which is taking a beating at human hands, is awash with people who express concern about it, but there is a drought of people able to organize to stop the abuse. Green Corps prepares university graduates for the essential commitment to end the drought.”

About this series: PIRG and The Public Interest Network have achieved much more than we can cover on this page. You can find more milestones of our work on Green Corps below. You can also explore an interactive timeline featuring more of our network’s Green Corps milestones.