Raychel Santo

Udall Scholarship, 2012-2013

The Udall Scholarship provides a small stipend towards undergraduate tuition, but more importantly, focuses on connecting young environmental and Native American scholars, activists, and other leaders throughout the country. Although no formal academic project or degree is associated with it, this scholarship has helped me contemplate complicated tribal sovereignty and/or environmental issues with others who are deeply immersed in these fields. Through an in-person summer orientation and subsequent online interactions, I’ve gained a framework for more fully understanding the deep-seated roots of many of these issues, and with the skills and resources to design more effective responses to them. The alumni listserv is also a particularly fantastic perk – it not only introduces one to a vast number of job, research, and volunteer opportunities, but also provides an instant network of like-minded people to meet up (and often flat-share!) with wherever in the world one may be.