Name: Nik Bowman
Hometown: Southern Oregon
Nik Bowman isn’t afraid to get stung. In fact, the first thing she wants to do when we all get back to Hanover is check on the beehives at the Organic Farm. Nik says that she first began beekeeping through Farm Club, and it has since become a pretty big part of her life. In fact, she spent this past winter working for The Bee Girl Organization, a non-profit organization that educates kids and communities on pollination and conservation. While working under the founder of the organization Nik says that she was able to learn not only more about beekeeping, but also about non-profit management. Nik describes Bee Girl as small with a limited amount of team members, meaning she was able to lend a hand in multiple areas of the organization.
Inspired by her time as an EcoRep her freshman year, Nik decided to pursue sustainability at Dartmouth further and found her way to the Environmental Studies department. Once she came back from the Environmental Studies FSP this past fall, she knew she wanted to continue her pursuit of environmentally centric work as she moved onto her off term.
When asked what brought her to Bee Girl in particular, she explained that she had actually gone to a class run by Sarah Red-Laird, now founder and executive director of Bee Girl, many years ago. Inspired by her time at the Organic Farm, Nik reached out and was able to secure a position as Sarah’s assistant for the winter. Nik says she was able to learn a lot about the undertaking that is non-profit work and what it means to be the leader of such an organization.
These days, Nik is at home in Southern Oregon but is still keeping up as many sustainable habits as possible including eating as much locally grown food as she can and composting her food scraps. She says that food is a great place to start in terms of living sustainably, but that the most impactful sustainable action is to vote in the favor of sustainable policy changes.