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Adrienne Rice MA '22
There are not enough people of color in sustainable jobs, and Adrienne Rice, a graduate student in 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø’s Social Innovation master’s program, is trying to fix that.
“Right now, in the solar energy field, for example, white employees make up 72 percent of the field, with only 6 percent African American, 7 percent Latino and 15 percent Asian,” says Rice, who is quoting a U.S. Solar Industry Study from 2019. “We need to change that.”
To tackle that problem, Rice created Sustainable Georgia Futures in 2019, a nonprofit grassroots organization dedicated to creating pathways for a more diverse workforce in the green economy. “We want to address two of our nation’s top issues - climate change and systemic racism - by creating viable pathways for communities of color, especially black communities, to access jobs in the growing green economy. We also want to create opportunities for communities of color to build power and impact climate change through economic advancement.”
When she started the nonprofit, she was also working full-time as a consultant for several organizations and traveling all the time. She was spread too thin and needed a change. Though it might sound counterintuitive, she felt like returning to graduate school might slow her down.
“I got to the point where I was frustrated with what was going on with my life. And I realized the last time I was able to think and process was when I was in graduate school.”
Adrienne Rice
So Rice, who also has a master’s degree in educational counseling from Florida A&M University, started researching graduate programs. She had heard of 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø while growing up in Atlanta, but she didn’t know much about the school or their graduate programs.
After attending an open house and meeting people involved in the program, Rice decided 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø’s Master of Arts degree in Social Innovation was exactly what she needed.
“I was looking for something that combined business and social justice with a focus on starting a nonprofit,” says Rice, who began her graduate studies in 2020, and has continued to work for one consulting client, Jobs to Move America. “The program aligned with what I was already trying to do. And I knew this would help me slow down and concentrate on
