A team of UC Santa Barbara students has been working to update the Eternal Flame monument with L.E.D. lights. The renovation aims to honor the Black community and make a statement against climate change.

The Eternal Flame was gifted to the University by the class of 1968 and built in the 1990s. Jack Dindia / Daily Nexus

According to fourth-year political science major Lily Mejia, one of the members of the revitalization team, the Eternal Flame was gifted to the University by the class of 1968 and built in the 1990s. It memorializes assassinated political figures and activists of the 1960s, such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. It is frequently used as a gathering place for campus protests, including a recent walkout that drew a crowd of 700 people opposing the actions of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Feb. 4.

For many years, the monument has often been extinguished by gusts of wind, garnering the nickname the “Not-So-Eternal Flame.” Additionally, the concrete structure itself is cracking and chipping. Mejia said UCSB Facilities Management must be contacted to relight the flame every time it goes out.

According to a letter of support for the new monument, it costs $1,200 a year to upkeep and emits 2.376 cubic feet of methane an hour. When lit, the flame emits “carbon dioxide and other pollutants,” which is not in line with the University of California’s sustainability promise of utilizing carbon-free electricity. 

“We believe that this monument should be reinvested in today, to honor its original intent and to update it in line with our campus and community climate goals,” the letter read. “Further, reinvestment in this important monument will remind our community of our commitment to racial equality on our campus.”

The student team working to renew the monument consists of three other fourth-year students alongside Mejia — environmental studies major Matthew Schoen, environmental studies and political science double major Lilly Walsh and political science major Kai Purcell. According to Mejia, she and Purcell were first introduced to the idea of updating the monument in an “energy politics” class with political science professor Leah Stokes.

Mejia said a UCSB facilities manager informed the team that they had made more progress in revitalizing the flame in the past few months than anyone else had in a decade.

While the team has not settled on an official design, Mejia said the new monument will pay tribute to the original’s design and origins. They would also like to reuse the concrete and plaques on the current monument.

“[The new monument will have] a sculptural component that has a flame-like resemblance, because obviously it’s called the Eternal Flame, we want to stick to that as much as possible. Same with the change in design, kind of keeping that similar, three-pillar structure,” Mejia said. 

According to Schoen, The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) was originally going to fund the project’s $30,850 budget, but the team decided to secure funding from other sources as well. So far, they have secured $10,000 from the Associated Students (A.S.) Trans & Queer Commission’s (TQC) rollover and $2,500 from the A.S. Environmental Affairs Board. Schoen said they plan to request an additional $10,000 from the A.S. Senate or TQC, and TGIF will cover the remaining expenses.

The team aims to keep as much of the design and manufacturing for the new monument “in-house” by recruiting student designers and on-campus fabricators while having UCSB Facilities Management install it. They hope to have the new monument installed as early as June, but they said it will likely be installed by mid-summer. 

“It’d be really cool if we could get it done [by the] beginning of June before we graduate,” Schoen said. “That’s our final hurrah [on] campus.”

Schoen emphasized that investing in the monument would symbolize a sustainable transition away from fossil fuels and acknowledge the harm climate change does to minority communities.

“Marginalized communities are being hit the hardest by climate change,” Schoen said. “Environmental justice is such a critical aspect to the sustainable transition that society is undergoing right now and I think that’s also what this is symbolizing, that transition off of gas to L.E.D.”

A version of this article appeared on p. 4 of the March 5, 2026 edition of the Daily Nexus.