Overstretched yet optimistic

Heather Spalding has a lot on her plate these days. She is the Student Senate pro tempore, works as campus sustainability outreach coordinator Noelle Studer-Spevak’s assistant and is the administrator for the new Portland State Ecowiki.

Spalding, 24, said it is often an overwhelming amount of work, but the Roseburg, Ore., native attacks it with gusto.

“I think I may have overstretched myself this year,” she said with a chuckle. “But it’s been a good learning experience. The hard part is that I can’t just focus on one thing. One thing that makes it work is that my jobs are kind of interrelated.”

Spalding’s close proximity to campus helps as well.

“I don’t think I could do it if I didn’t live two blocks away,” she said.

Spalding works a careful balancing act that includes revamping the senate.

“One of my friends said I should join the senate,” she said, “I got recruited. I get pretty involved in things.”
Over the summer, Spalding helped organize a weeklong retreat for senators where they bonded over their common goals for the coming school year.

“I got pretty interested in what we could do,” Spalding said. “I think in the past, the senate hasn’t been very solid.”

Spalding was elected pro tempore fall term, and she has used her position to strengthen the senate’s leadership, including helping to create the Coordinating Committee, the new oversight committee aimed at giving the senate more autonomy while increasing communication.

“We’re starting to have more leadership development in the senate,” Spalding said, adding that weekly trainings and monthly check-ins with other branches of ASPSU have become routine.

She said her goal is to raise the bar “quite a bit” for senators and what they are expected to accomplish. Spalding is excited about the creation of a “learning garden,” one of the senate’s campaigns that would allow groups and classes to study sustainability up close.

She is also passionate about the senate’s new zine, which will help acclimate incoming freshmen to Portland State.

“I think it’s a lot more work than I expected,” she said of her job with the senate. “But I think it’s going to be more successful than I expected, too.”

Running the senate isn’t the only thing Spalding occupies herself with. She is also deeply passionate about sustainability. She is considering applying for a new position funded by the James F. Miller Grant, sustainability leadership coordinator for the student body.

“I think that’s going to be really exciting,” she said.

If she doesn’t apply for the new job, Spalding said she would apply to enter a master’s program in leadership for ecology, culture and learning at Portland State. Her work with Studer-Spevak made Spalding realize that she wants to work in sustainability in her career.

“It’s great. It’s been a really good experience,” she said. “It made me realize I really do want to be a sustainability coordinator.”