UC Santa Barbara became home to the only California Green Business Network’s certified Greek Life chapter house in the state two years ago. Since then, the university has added the second and third green certified chapter houses in the state to that record, largely due to the hard yet quiet work of Sociology major Hudson Pollack.

Set to graduate this spring, Pollack is president of Gauchos Go Green (GGG), a UCSB environmentalist club that does everything from organizing trash clean ups and fundraisers to providing “guidance on energy-efficient lighting, water conservation measures, waste reduction and recycling programs, eco-friendly purchasing policies, and more,” according to its mission statement.

Pollack said she was motivated to join the organization and run for president because she wanted to alter her own behavior to align better with her personal standards and beliefs. “Otherwise, there was a gap between mindset and action,” she said.

Pollack worked with Kappa Alpha Theta, Pi Beta Phi, and Delta Gamma’s sustainability chairs to implement energy-efficient solutions, waste reduction strategies, water conservation measures, and other sustainable practices to meet the numerous requirements of the California Green Business Network.

Pollack credits her sociology major for exposing her to notion that human rights that are threatened by different interconnected conditions, including climate change, and by helping her to find diverse opportunities where she could effect change.

“One of the big things about sociology is understanding, studying different intersections of life through the lens of intersectionality,” Pollack said. “I think specifically as a sociology major, because it is so broad, you can cater your education to your own interests — which has brought me to where I am now in this endeavor of social human rights, public policy, wanting to change just the way that things are currently run.”

Sociology student Hudson Pollack, left, at a presentation to recruit GGG volunteers at last fall’s Fraternity & Sorority Life (FSL) Conference.

Pollack’s efforts to change the status quo extend to gun violence as well. She serves as a research assistant for the Mass Shootings in America project, under Sociology and Feminist Studies professor Tristan Bridges and Sociology professor Tara Tober. This research aims to classify mass-shootings by how many people are shot, rather than by how many people are killed, the measurement generally used by the FBI and the majority of past mass shooting researchers.

The UCSB project expands upon an existing database maintained by the non-profit Gun Violence Archive (GVA). Pollack adds context to each event, examining location patterns, motives, and the types of language used to describe shooters in news coverage in an effort to better understand these events.

“They’re trying to add a sociological perspective as to why mass shootings occur and change the federal government's definition of what constitutes a mass shooting,” Pollak said, “because the one that is currently in place does not account for all of the mass shootings in the U.S.”

And Pollack’s work goes beyond the environment and gun violence to LGBTQ history. She is helping Jarett Henderson, lecturer in the department of history, with research towards his new book: “Unnatural Sex and Uncivil Subjects: A Queer History of Straight Settler State-Making in Early Canada.” It contrasts white settler self-government in the early Canadian colonies with efforts to re-criminalize sex between men in the first half of the 19th century. Pollack primarily reads court cases and writes case summaries regarding trials concerning ‘unnatural sex crimes,’ which were often a way to prosecute homosexual men. 

“I care about the public health issue posed by gun violence and mass shootings, and I want to learn the history of queer litigation and how things have evolved in law,” Pollack said. She hopes to pursue her growing interest in public policy, and eventually tackle these issues at a federal level.

Pollack credits the myriad academic opportunities available at UCSB with helping her realize she wanted to pursue a career in policy. “I don't think I would have learned, or even come to terms with the idea that this was what I was passionate about, unless I exposed myself through my education and took advantage of the opportunities that were presented to me,” she said.

Kellen Beckett is a fourth year UCSB student majoring in Political Science and Writing and Literature. This profile was written for his Writing Program course Digital Journalism.