Rogers Takes Rhode Island Tiara

While many may consider Harvard the perfect preparation for a career in investment banking or law, Allison I. Rogers ’04 used the school to help her accomplish quite a different goal—winning the title of Miss Rhode Island.

Currently the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Resource Efficiency Program coordinator of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative, Rogers said that her experience at Harvard helped her snag the pageant honor on April 22.

Rogers credited the academic rigor at Harvard for helping her face the interview portion of the contest, during which a panel grilled her on everything from her platform to facts about her state.

“Talking with so many people—both as an undergrad and what I do now—was a great help in being able to clearly present my thoughts,” Rogers said.

Participating in the Harvard Team Fitness Challenge prior to the pageant prepped her for the bathing suit portion, she said. Rogers said she logged in 2,250 minutes of physical training during the challenge, as well as many more after it ended in March.

Rogers entered the pageant not to get in shape, but to raise awareness about global warming, an issue she championed as a Harvard undergrad and continues to work on today.

“I was friends with Laurie Gray ’03, and she was Miss Rhode Island in 2003, and so that really got me thinking about the power of the organization,” Rogers said. “I really wanted an avenue to bring the message that we had been working on at Harvard to a broader audience.”

Gray went on to be a top-10 finisher in the Miss America competition.

Rogers’ performance wowed her boyfriend, Michael B. Keating, a first-year student at the Business School. “It takes such guts to speak in front of hundreds of people and put your beliefs on the line,” Keating said.

But what set Rogers apart from the other contestants, Keating said, was her platform, which tackled the “timely and challenging issue” of global warming.

Other contestants overwhelmingly relied on what Keating called “First Lady issues,” focusing on soft topics such as increasing women’s leadership.

The platform issue of the current Miss America, Jennifer Berry of Oklahoma, is “building intolerance to drunk driving and underage drinking,” according to the Miss America website.

Rogers said she believed that while the issues of the other contestants were important, global warming was the most pressing. “If we don’t have the air we need to breathe in, if we don’t have a stable climate system to live in, all of those other issues really go out the window quickly,” Rogers said.

Rogers added that she was looking forward to competing in the Miss America pageant, which will be broadcast on national television.

“Rhode Island has never won, so I’m hoping this is the year,” Rogers said. “I would really love to take this message to the broader American public as well.”

Rogers, a former Mather House resident, was a Comparative Study of Religion concentrator.