Marissa Mitzner

integrity

If Marissa Mitzner were to give you a ride somewhere (she probably couldn't because she usually rides her bike), you might have trouble squeezing into her '95 baby blue Honda Accord. Smashed plastic water bottles, dented aluminum cans and piles of used newspapers spill over from the seats onto the floorboards. But it's not that this senior Coastal business major is a slob; she's leading the university's recycling charge by picking up the litter that others discard both on campus and off.

"Why not leave every place a little better than the way you found it?" asks the 21-year-old who is making recycling and improving the environment her life's mission. She eats, sleeps and breathes recycling. She bugs her friends so much about it that they text message her notes like "I just recycled!" which makes her enormously giddy. At 9 p.m. twice a week, she goes through the large recycle bins at University Place and sorts the items into proper recyclable categories. It can take up to two hours out of her already-overscheduled day.
"It's a natural high to know that people respond to something as important as recycling because you asked them to," says Mitzner, who believes that educating people about the environment and its precarious state is the most important duty we have.

A native of Charleston, W.Va., Mitzner chose to attend Coastal because of the marine science program's reputation, but then quickly decided that science was not for her. She changed her major to business management with a concentration in environmental studies. At the same time, she was struggling with whether to transfer to another college.

"I wanted a bigger campus, with more people," says Mitzner. "I got accepted at Virginia Tech, but then someone told me you can get your education anywhere, that it's how you apply it that really matters." That thought stuck with her, and she decided to stay at Coastal and become more involved—which is an understatement of what happened.

"I found my niche," Mitzner says simply.

Dan Abel, who is director of Coastal's Sustainability Initiative, first met Marissa at a recycling meeting two years ago. "She immediately stood out as a student who not only cared about recycling, but one who wouldn't accept no as an answer," he says.

"Why not leave every place a little better than
the way you found it?"

Mitzner applied for and was named Coastal's first Student Sustainability Coordinator, which means she's responsible for CCU's Eco-Reps, students working to make Coastal a greener campus. She makes presentations to freshman classes about recycling and trains her reps to do the same.
"A large part of any success we've had here at Coastal is due to her," says Abel. "Just give her an idea of what she needs to accomplish and step aside and let her figure out how to get it done. She has started recycling in several dorms where there was a history of failure. Her personality is almost electric. It's hard to avoid moving in the same direction she wants to move in, plus her value system is such that she knows this stuff is important."

It's not just professors who hold Mitzner in high regard. Wes Rowe, who is an eco-rep and resident assistant (RA) as well, is being trained by Marissa to take over some of the campus recycling duties.

"She has opened up whole new worlds for me," says Rowe, who transferred to Coastal from Newberry College.

When not hitting the books, however, Rowe is recycling in Mitzner's wake. "She's a great influence. We'll be walking around campus, and she'll see a bottle in the parking lot and pick it up. When you're around someone like that, it rubs off on you."

Mitzner is president of Students for Environmental Action (SEA), a Jackson Scholar, an active member of Students Taking Active Responsibility (STAR), works as a resident assistant (RA) at University Place and has made the Dean's List every semester she's been here.

Awards she's accumulated during her three and a half years include the statewide Melba McKenzie Volunteer of the Year Award in 2005, the Emerging Student Leader Award in 2006, the Student Leader of the Year Award last spring and the Recycling Super Star this past fall.

Last summer Mitzner interned at Captain Planet, a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that funds environmental educational grants for kids K-12 worldwide. Her future plans when she graduates in May include "definitely working with the environment," preferably in an action role as opposed to paper-pushing. What she'd really like is to stay at Coastal to finish the job she started here, that of sustainability, making the campus more green through recycling and energy-saving efforts such as replacing regular light bulbs with energy-saving fluorescent ones. "I have a passion for the environment," she says.
Abel agrees that her enthusiasm is hard to escape. "She's an incredible force for sustainability on this campus," he says. "It sounds like a cliché, but Coastal is very lucky to have her. Whatever endeavor she ends up doing, she'll do it well, and she'll make it sustainable."

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