Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award
Joshua A. Smith was a one-time University of Louisville student who later pursued a career in the culinary arts. Happiest when creating something of value for others, he dedicated considerable time and effort to volunteering with the University's community composting project, helping turn food waste into rich, organic fertilizer to support another cycle of growth.
When Josh died unexpectedly on June 17, 2015, his enthusiasm for the composting project was so well known to his family that they requested mourners make donations to it in lieu of flowers. With those funds this award has been created to honor outstanding individuals and groups who, like Josh, give their time and resources to work in concert with UofL's sustainability efforts to strengthen university-community relationships.
A $250 cash prize and a personalized plaque is presented to the selected recipient at a ceremony during the spring Engaged Scholarship Symposium. From 2017-21, the award was presented in the fall during the University’s Farm-to-Table Dinner. The shift from fall to spring is why there was no award winner in 2022.
Nominees must be community members or groups operating alongside a University of Louisville entity (department, office, team, student organization, etc.) to directly facilitate projects related to sustainability. Submissions may come from within the University as well as from the general public; both self-nominations and nominations of candidates by other parties are encouraged and will receive equal weight. Current UofL staff, faculty, and students are ineligible, but nominations of alumni and former employees are welcome, along with staff, faculty, and students at other academic institutions.
Nominations are due by March 1st via email to the UofL Sustainability Engagement Committee Chair, Dr. Brian Barnes, at brian.barnes@louisville.edu. In your email, please provide the nominee’s name and contact information and explain clearly:
- What the project is and how it is connected to sustainability efforts at UofL,
- The role of the nominee in the project and their specific contributions to it, and
- Why you believe they should receive this award.
Please contact Dr. Barnes (brian.barnes@louisville.edu, 502-338-1338) with any questions about the award or the nomination process.
2024 Award Winner: Lauren Niemann
At a special ceremony during the March 22nd Engaged Scholarship Symposium, the University of Louisville Sustainability Council bestowed the 2024 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award on Fern Creek High School teacher, Lauren Niemann, for her outstanding collaboration with UofL in launching and operating a Dual Credit Sustainability 101 program wherein JCPS (and JCTC) students can earn college credit for taking an Introduction to Sustainability course. Alongside their environmental science teacher, Lauren's students have created an outdoor learning space at Fern Creek that solves campus stormwater management issues and provides habitat for wildlife, while being accessible to all students. The space even has wheelchair accessible picnic tables created from a community wide plastic bottle cap collection.
The Award was launched in 2017 after the untimely death of UofL alumni Josh Smith to honor outstanding individuals and groups who, like Josh, give their time and resources to work in concert with UofL's sustainability efforts to strengthen university-community relationships.
In nominating Ms. Niemann for this year's Award, Brent Fryrear, Director of the Partnership for a Green City and Chair of the UofL Sustainability Council, said "Over the past six or seven years, I have witnessed how Lauren Niemann is an early adopter, collaborating with UofL on initiatives that benefit students. Since summer 2021, I have worked very closely with Lauren as Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), UofL and Jefferson Community & Technical College (JCTC) signed a dual credit agreement for Introduction to Sustainability – SUST 101. I teach the course at UofL, and we started with three JCPS teachers in the pilot year, but Lauren was the only one to enroll students and teach the college-credit course. She has run head-on into the course content, working closely with me as we discussed topics and readings, to ensure that her students have the option to graduate from school with valuable college credit-hours. She has about 20 students again this year - the third year of dual credit - and her students keep getting better and better. They are socially conscious and committed to changing the world in a good way!"
In her own words, Lauren describes her experience this way: "Early this school year in my dual credit Introduction to Sustainability course we had conversations surrounding what people often believe sustainability is, and what sustainability actually is. Caring for the environment is probably the sustainable action best marketed to the public.
But sustainability is much more than composting food waste or planting pollinator habitat - by the way each are initiatives Fern Creek students have influenced decision makers at Fern Creek and at JCPS to support. But as students now know, sustainability is more than saving the environment. How can our actions reduce human impact on nature while simultaneously increasing social ties and providing economic benefits? Actions that meet these criteria are truly sustainable.
Through classes like mine, Fern Creek students are committed to building a compassionate school culture where systems center care and the environment.
The Fern Creek students I have worked with are committed to questioning policies or decisions not in line with the tenets of sustainability, while also being determined to provide realistic solutions, not simply complaints. The Fern Creek students I know are committed to sustainable action by setting positive examples for others to help build a culture of sustainability. These cultural changes do not happen overnight and at times sustainable action is met with tremendous barriers. But my passion and the passions of my students drive us to seek a better, more sustainable version of ourselves, Fern Creek, and JCPS. 
I remember back in 2018, Fern Creek alum Jack Leppert was about to be surprised with a $5000 check to help bring to life a vision of our senior courtyard. His vision was unique among the solutions of others, in that it tied the mental health benefits of green spaces to the need to manage stormwater. I distinctly remember Julie walking Jack over to be interviewed, and looking over at me wide eyed and smiling as if to say “HE HAS NO IDEA!” I know if Julie were here she would be so proud of all that students at Fern Creek have continued to pursue and accomplish since students like Jack walked our halls. We are completely humbled and honored to accept this award, and will continue to bring honor to Julie’s name through our continued pursuit of more sustainable schools."
As the seventh recipient of the Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award, Lauren Niemann joins an illustrious group of community partners who continue to make a tremendously positive impact on the sustainability of Louisville.
2023 Award Winner: Eboni Cochran
To mark our 15th anniversary, on March 24, 2023 the UofL Sustainability Council hosted a celebration from 3-5pm to honor all of the people who have devoted their time, energy, ideas, and skills to advancing environmental, social, and economic responsibility on campus and in our community. In addition to recognizing our own students, faculty, and staff, the Sustainability Council took the opportunity to present our annual Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award. The following was shared by our Engagement Committee Chair, Dr. Brian Barnes during that presentation:
"While we have had a history of outstanding recipients for this award, the nominee pool for 2023 was the strongest it has ever been. There was a broad mixture of support for nominees across university constituencies, and the projects represented by those nominations supported education and activism in all areas of sustainability, highlighting environmental, social, and economic concerns in Louisville and Southern Indiana. 
The recipient of our sixth Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award is a well-known sustainability activist locally and across the country. Eboni Cochran is the founder of Rubbertown Emergency Action (REACT), which organizes stakeholders at the grassroots level to hold Louisville’s chemical companies and other polluter accountable for environmental, social, and economic harms. REACT’s mission extends beyond Rubbertown, though, back to our own campus. One of Eboni’s nominations for this award read in part,
“Her voice is a trusted one in the fight for environmental justice at both the local and federal level--she frequently is invited and participates in listening sessions with the EPA and is often the lone voice fighting for stronger regulation at local Air Pollution Control District hearings. She is frequently cited by local environmental reporters as an expert; she works as an external researcher for UofL's grant-funded "Air Justice" project; and she leads undergraduate students on "Environmental Injustice" tours across West Louisville. There are few individuals in this city who exemplify environmental stewardship and who uphold the "equity" leg of the sustainability stool like Ms. Cochran.”
The University of Louisville Sustainability Council is delighted to award the 2023 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award to Eboni Cochran."
2021 Award Winner: Shauntrice Martin
The University of Louisville Sustainability Council is thrilled to present our 2021 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award to Shauntrice Martin for her inspiring work for food justice. This Award, which includes a $250 cash prize funded by donors, is granted each year to a community member who has given back to UofL's Sustainability Initiatives in honor of an alumni, Josh Smith, who died unexpectedly on June 17, 2015 after giving so much of his time to UofL's Community Composting project. We honored Shauntrice with the Award at a brief ceremony during UofL's annual Farm To Table Dinner on October 14, 2021 (see photos, watch video).
Shauntrice is an abolitionist in Kentucky. She is the director and the founder of #FeedTheWest, a food justice program sponsored by Black Lives Matter Louisville and Change Today Change Tomorrow. After studying food apartheid in Belize, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, and across the U.S., she started Black Market KY to address food insecurity in Louisville's west end. Shauntrice has earned numerous other awards including Louisville Forty Under 40, The Coalition of Black Excellence Impact Award, and Silicon Valley Business Journal Woman of Influence.
Her contributions to UofL's Sustainability efforts are myriad:
- Shauntrice has been inspiring us since she was a student here back in the mid-2000s in Pan-African Studies and Communication where she somehow found time to serve as president of the Association of Black Students and the Louisville Debate Society, while being historian for the Society of Porter Scholars, and a C.O.N.E.C.T. peer mentor to help support and build community among her fellow Black students.
- Then in 2019, she came back to UofL to serve as a Development Officer.
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Over the last couple years, she has offered our students, staff & faculty the opportunity to put in dozens of hours of community service through the Feed The West initiative. - We’ve been inspired to address fresh food insecurity in our Cardinal Cupboard food pantry and our Garden Commons by her Bok Choy Project for Root Cause Research Center demonstrating the ubiquity of food apartheid in Louisville, documenting the inferiority of produce sections in Kroger stores in black and brown neighborhoods.
- She inspired us all last November by speaking at our Sustainability Roundtable about her food justice work, which reached even more of the Cardinal family when it was highlighted in the Homegrown cover article in the December 2020 UofL Magazine.
- Then this past June, she knocked our socks off as one of the panelists for our “Becoming Antiracist” university-wide conversation.
2020 Award Winner: Shane Tedder
The 2020 Josh Smith Memorial Award goes to D. Shane Tedder, M.S., who has served since 2009 as the University of Kentucky's first Campus Sustainability Officer and now also serves as the Assistant Director of the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment.
Throughout his time at UK, Shane has always been willing to set aside conventional UK-UofL rivalry in favor of a supportive and collaborative relationship. He has been passionate about, supportive of, and instrumental to the success of UofL’s sustainability initiatives. Over the last decade, Shane has been a lead organizer of annual statewide gatherings for higher education sustainability staff to exchange ideas, information, and inspiration. He has hosted numerous visits and tours for us to learn from the sustainability efforts underway on UK’s campus. He co-organized the 2018 Kentucky Bike Walk Summit in Lexington, which helped recharge our statewide efforts to advance bicycling and walking as a sustainable transportation option. Most recently, in 2020, Shane has been instrumental in helping UofL consider investing in a large-scale, off-site solar installation that would help us achieve our Climate Action Plan goals. He and his team at UK have given generously of their time and information to help UofL administrators understand the opportunities available in the Kentucky renewable energy market through virtual power purchase agreements.
If there’s one person outside of UofL who we can always count on to offer assistance, sage advice, great ideas, and a good ol’ fashioned Kentucky Can-Do spirit to help our sustainability initiatives succeed, it is Shane Tedder. His kindness, selflessness, and eagerness to share have been a constant inspiration to us and we can think of no one else more worthy of our praise and gratitude. Shane received his award during UofL Sustainability Week at the October 30, 2020 EcoReps Workshop: A Conversation with our Josh Smith Sustainability Awardee. Watch video recording here.
Reflecting his generosity, Shane chose to donate his cash prize to Hood to the Holler, an organization founded by Kentucky Rep. Charles Booker, which is focused on leveraging the incredible momentum for positive change in Kentucky and nationally toward the aim of building broad coalitions, breaking down barriers of race and class, and fueling a people centered movement to build political power and transform our future. Hood to the Holler is a barrier breaking, coalition building, people-centered movement to ignite new political power and transform our future. They fight for political power to heal, transform, and build communities rooted in love and justice, rather than hate. Hood to the Holler works to: Remove Barriers to Democratic Participation, Empower a More Reflective Democracy, Engage Kentuckians of all stripes - from the Hood to the Holler, and Break Down Barriers Surrounding the Topic of Racial Justice, Generational Poverty and more.
2019 Award Winner: Erin Kurtz
At the Farm-To-Table dinner on October 17, 2019, the UofL Sustainability Council awarded the 2019 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award to one of our most dedicated alumni, Erin Kurtz.
In December of 2018, Erin was the very first undergraduate student to graduate from UofL with a degree in Sustainability. Yet she has certainly been no stranger to us and continues to stay engaged in efforts to ensure that the sustainability projects that she helped launch thrive with each new generation of students. We are so grateful that Erin continues to be spotted on campus with great frequency.
Erin Kurtz served as the UofL Sustainability Council's Zero Waste Intern from September 2017 through December 2018. 
During that time, she was instrumental in managing the UofL Free Store, and innovating the use of pop-up temporary Free Stores at events around campus in order to increase the visibility of the store and expand awareness about this student-run opportunity for keeping useful stuff out the landfill and helping those in need. She expanded upon that ethos in 2018 by helping launch the UofL chapter of the Food Recovery Network and the Cardinal Cupboard free campus food pantry, two student-run initiatives designed to capture and redistribute surplus food.
Erin has always been tireless in her efforts to divert useful things from the landfill and into the hands of those in need. She continued that work even after graduation and continues to make a lasting impact on the campus and community. We are so proud of her contributions and her ability to lead by doing and inspire others!
2018 Award Winner: Tonya Summerlin
At the Farm-To-Table dinner on October 18, 2018, the UofL Sustainability Council awarded the 2018 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award to our incredibly dedicated community partner, Tonya Summerlin. Tonya is a member of the Bellarmine University Class of 2018 who has gone on to graduate school in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was thus unable to be present at the ceremony. Her mentor at Bellarmine's School of Environmental Studies, Associate Professor of Geoscience, Dr. Kate Bulinski, accepted the award on her behalf and spoke eloquently about the positive and inspiring impact Tonya has had on our community.
At Bellarmine, Tonya was an Environmental Science Major; Chair of the Rachel Carson Environmental Learning Community; Director of the Bellarmine Food Recovery Network; member of the Student Success Leadership Board; member of the Bellarmine Society; and active participant in the Student Government Association. As impressive as all that is, what is truly amazing about Tonya is that she was always extremely generous with her time, knowledge and talents.
Tonya was an essential resource for the UofL Sustainability Council as we launched two exciting new student engagement initiatives over the past year. She tirelessly met and consulted with us as we established: 1. A UofL chapter of the Food Recovery Network to capture leftover food on campus and deliver it to those in need; and 2. A brand new Living-Learning Community in Sustainability. Her practical expertise in both of these areas and her sage advice has been instrumental in showing us the way forward and helping us trust that we can do it, too! We cannot thank Tonya enough for her support!
2017 Award Winner: Dave Barker
At the Farm-To-Table dinner on November 1st, 2017, the UofL Sustainability Council awarded the inaugural Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award to our friend and community partner, Dave Barker. Dave is a neighbor to UofL's Shelby campus and first approached us in 2014 to inquire about tapping some of our campus trees to make maple syrup at his home sugar shack. That initial, innocent inquiry has since blossomed into one of the most fun, visible, and dynamic Campus As A Living Lab for Sustainability projects at UofL.
Throughout the years, Dave has selflessly given of his time, tools, equipment, and muscle to help spread the word and his enthusiasm for tapping untapped resources and turning them into delicious sustenance. In the springs of 2016 and 2017, Dave worked intimately with Dr. Linda Fuselier and her team in the Biology department to integrate tree tapping into new Sustainable Community Engagement sections of BIOL 104 - Laboratory for Introduction to Biological Systems for non-science-majors. The students experimented with tapping trees on Belknap campus to gather sap for syrup, learn about the process, and study the environmental conditions that influence it. 
UofL's maple trees on campus had never been tapped before, so students, faculty and staff were involved in learning about a new urban agroforestry resource on campus.
Dave returned to campus multiple times to offer instruction both in the classroom and in co-curricular workshops and pancake parties that have helped spread the joy of maple sugaring in Kentucky! We salute you, Dave Barker! Some outcomes of the project are listed below:
- EcoReps Lunch & Learn: Making Maple Syrup from UofL Trees (Pancake Party!) (Friday, April 21st, 2017 at Ekstrom Library). Photos.
- A hands-on Maple Tapping Workshop for the whole campus community and general public was held Feb. 13th, 2017 at the Garden Commons.
- Five things we learned about syrup during on-campus workshop (UofL News, Feb. 17, 2017)
- UofL’s campus serving as a sustainable living laboratory (UofL News, Feb. 3, 2017)
- Poster presentation by instructor Melissa Michael and Dr. Justin Mog at the Oct. 2016 conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) in Baltimore: Sticky Sustainability: Tapping Untapped Resources on Campus #ULMapleMadness. Photos. Video.
- Maple tapping project a first for Belknap Campus trees (UofL News, April 25, 2016).
- Melissa Michael describes class project to tap maple trees on campus for syrup (starts 23:08) (UofL Today with Mark Hebert, 93.9 FM The Ville, April 12, 2016). VIDEO (starts 20:08).
At a special ceremony during the March 22nd Engaged Scholarship Symposium, the University of Louisville Sustainability Council bestowed the 2024 Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award on Fern Creek High School teacher, Lauren Niemann, for her outstanding collaboration with UofL in launching and operating a Dual Credit Sustainability 101 program wherein JCPS (and JCTC) students can earn college credit for taking an Introduction to Sustainability course. Alongside their environmental science teacher, Lauren's students have created an outdoor learning space at Fern Creek that solves campus stormwater management issues and provides habitat for wildlife, while being accessible to all students. The space even has wheelchair accessible picnic tables created from a community wide plastic bottle cap collection.
The Award was launched in 2017 after the untimely death of UofL alumni Josh Smith to honor outstanding individuals and groups who, like Josh, give their time and resources to work in concert with UofL's sustainability efforts to strengthen university-community relationships.
In nominating Ms. Niemann for this year's Award, Brent Fryrear, Director of the Partnership for a Green City and Chair of the UofL Sustainability Council, said "Over the past six or seven years, I have witnessed how Lauren Niemann is an early adopter, collaborating with UofL on initiatives that benefit students. Since summer 2021, I have worked very closely with Lauren as Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), UofL and Jefferson Community & Technical College (JCTC) signed a dual credit agreement for Introduction to Sustainability – SUST 101. I teach the course at UofL, and we started with three JCPS teachers in the pilot year, but Lauren was the only one to enroll students and teach the college-credit course. She has run head-on into the course content, working closely with me as we discussed topics and readings, to ensure that her students have the option to graduate from school with valuable college credit-hours. She has about 20 students again this year - the third year of dual credit - and her students keep getting better and better. They are socially conscious and committed to changing the world in a good way!"In her own words, Lauren describes her experience this way: "Early this school year in my dual credit Introduction to Sustainability course we had conversations surrounding what people often believe sustainability is, and what sustainability actually is. Caring for the environment is probably the sustainable action best marketed to the public.
But sustainability is much more than composting food waste or planting pollinator habitat - by the way each are initiatives Fern Creek students have influenced decision makers at Fern Creek and at JCPS to support. But as students now know, sustainability is more than saving the environment. How can our actions reduce human impact on nature while simultaneously increasing social ties and providing economic benefits? Actions that meet these criteria are truly sustainable.
Through classes like mine, Fern Creek students are committed to building a compassionate school culture where systems center care and the environment.
The Fern Creek students I have worked with are committed to questioning policies or decisions not in line with the tenets of sustainability, while also being determined to provide realistic solutions, not simply complaints. The Fern Creek students I know are committed to sustainable action by setting positive examples for others to help build a culture of sustainability. These cultural changes do not happen overnight and at times sustainable action is met with tremendous barriers. But my passion and the passions of my students drive us to seek a better, more sustainable version of ourselves, Fern Creek, and JCPS. I remember back in 2018, Fern Creek alum Jack Leppert was about to be surprised with a $5000 check to help bring to life a vision of our senior courtyard. His vision was unique among the solutions of others, in that it tied the mental health benefits of green spaces to the need to manage stormwater. I distinctly remember Julie walking Jack over to be interviewed, and looking over at me wide eyed and smiling as if to say “HE HAS NO IDEA!” I know if Julie were here she would be so proud of all that students at Fern Creek have continued to pursue and accomplish since students like Jack walked our halls. We are completely humbled and honored to accept this award, and will continue to bring honor to Julie’s name through our continued pursuit of more sustainable schools."
As the seventh recipient of the Josh Smith Memorial Sustainability Award, Lauren Niemann joins an illustrious group of community partners who continue to make a tremendously positive impact on the sustainability of Louisville.
