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How many college residence halls do you know of that have their own gardens that double as a learning lab and a source of food for students?
Count Carolina's Green Quad (formerly the West Quad) as among the first. Its garden, which students created and planted last fall, has already produced enough vegetables for several group meals and promises to figure prominently in the Green Quad's programming for the spring semester.
"This has been a great resource for us," said Green Quad faculty principal David Whiteman, noting that the garden is actually just one small part of a much larger agenda of the residence hall, "and is something that attracts involvement from students, and from the community."
The 30 by 30-foot plot on the south side of the quad across from the California Dreaming restaurant on South Main Street produced an autumn bumper crop of okra, butternut squash, oriental asparagus beans, broccoli, collards, carrots, and radishes. This spring Whiteman expects a cornucopia of kohlrabi, broccoli, kale, collards, carrots, and parsley.
Students and members of the community planted the garden with the assistance of Matthew Kip of Columbia who helped design the plot in accordance with permaculture principals that replicate natural patterns. "The idea is to create a 'human-managed' organic growing system in which every element interacts positively with other elements and there is little or no waste," Kip said.
During the spring semester the garden will be used as part of an honors course on the ethics of food taught by Kevin Elliott. Over time, Whiteman and Kip also anticipate expanding the garden's size and implementing a plan of "edible landscaping" for the rest of the residence hall's south lawn that will feature fruit trees and other plants that produce food.
The garden is the latest development in the advent of the Green Quad, which came on line three years ago as part of the vanguard in green programming at colleges and universities nationwide.
Other activities at the residence hall this past fall included creation of the Green Learning Community, a new experimental group of 16 students who, through a variety of programs, help define what sustainability means for future generations; the start-up of a two-course seminar on green exploration and green engagement for first-year students that strengthens the University's offerings in environmental studies and creates a structure within which faculty can collaborate on teaching and research; the arrival of several visiting faculty members; and expansion of green living programs to introduce students to more ways they can adopt more sustainable lifestyles, including cooking classes, grocery store tours, nutrition consultations, smoking cessation classes, and workshops on conflict resolution and effective communication.
"This has been exciting," Whiteman said. "We're really beginning to see the potential of the learning center here, and it has been fulfilling appealing to all of the different constituencies we serve.
"It's been fun working with the students and, after my first year, I think we're really clear on what we're about. It's exciting to be in this position because we're picking up on a movement that is on the upswing nationally and we're seeing more people who are aware of these kinds of issues."
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Columbia permaculturalist Matthew Kip, left, examines plant seeds with faculty principal David Whiteman in Carolina's Green Quad vegetable garden. Plans call for the garden's expansion and other "edible landscaping" on the dorm's south lawn that will include fruit trees.
