Honors Students Lead Effort to Plant Campus Garden

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Honors biochemistry student Emily Crossfield plants broccoli seedlings in the new campus community garden.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas Honors College students have led a campus-wide effort to plant a community garden that will provide fresh produce and flowers to the Full Circle Campus Food Pantry, a student-run emergency food assistance program recently honored at the White House. Two years of research and planning, along with countless hours of hands-on work with soil, compost and seedlings will culminate in the dedication of the new campus community garden at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, April 2.

Emily Crossfield, an honors biochemistry major in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences has led the effort to get the garden in the ground. More than 50 students from multiple disciplines have worked together to design and plant the garden, fostering connections across campus. Crossfield said for her the project is as much about the people as the plants.

“I’m meeting people I never would have met otherwise,” said Crossfield, who also serves as director of sustainability for the Associated Student Government. She sees the garden as an important tool for promoting community as the campus grows.

“As a freshman in a big class you can feel lost, but if you’re working with 10 other students in the garden, you’re going to get to know each other pretty well,” she said.

Inspired by community gardens that she saw while studying in Berlin, Crossfield decided to plant a campus community garden as the capstone project required for her minor in sustainability. Her efforts have revolved around finding a good site and building partnerships across campus. The Associated Student Government and Residents’ Interhall Congress have provided substantial funding for the garden, with additional support from the department of facilities management and two registered student organizations, GroGreen and the Horticulture Club.

“Emmy has worked hard to bring a lot of people together on this, and there have been lots of ups and downs,” said Curt Rom, a professor of horticulture and honors program director for the Bumpers College. “She has provided the leadership to get this garden going.”

 The new garden builds on research by Samantha Jones, a recent honors graduate of Bumpers College who surveyed 86 universities with community gardens and visited six of them to document best practices in her honors thesis. Her feasibility study, directed by Rom, was undertaken after an earlier garden located at the university’s Agricultural Research and Extension Center proved not to be sustainable.

The location of the new garden, close to two residence halls should help ensure ongoing support.

“You need the garden to be visible, where people pass by it, notice it and can easily take care of it,” Crossfield said.

The site is not without challenges. Sandwiched between two four-story wings of Maple Hill, the garden is short on sunlight in certain areas and hampered by poor soil. The students have divided the small plot into three zones based on the amount of sunlight received, planting shade-loving perennials and herbs such as basil, rosemary and sage in the back of the garden. Two truckloads of topsoil and one truckload of compost, some of it recycled from residence hall food waste, have created a rich bed for growing broccoli, peppers, squash and tomatoes. One-half of the fresh produce will go to the student volunteers, while one-half will be donated to the Full Circle Campus Food Pantry. The students will also plant day lilies, cannas, irises and hostas to donate to the food pantry and to the chancellor’s office for use at university events.

“The garden has been fantastic from a teaching standpoint,” Rom said. “And it’s all been developed by consensus. The students just worked it out, and I really like that. It’s a testament to Emmy’s attitude and her personal skills.”

“Dr. Rom helps if we’re stuck between two options, but generally we ask if everybody’s happy and then move on,” Crossfield said. “If you’re there, you get to help make a decision. It’s really been a group effort.”

Crossfield, Jones and Rom recently coauthored a paper about linking campus community gardens and food pantries, and Rom has submitted it in hopes that they will be invited to present the paper at the national meeting of the American Society for Horticultural Science, taking place in Miami Beach, Fla., next August.