By: Carissa Heine, senior, Nutritional Science, Dietetics, Spanish, Civic and Community Engagement
As both an intern on the farm and a co-director of the Student Farm Club (SFC), you may be able to guess what I’ve dedicated a lot of time to this semester! This fall has been full of excitement for the Student Farm and it’s been a great way to start my senior year.
One of the biggest things on my mind, and the minds of many others, this semester has been the future, permanent site for the farm. Discussing potential sites with the SFC exec team, communicating with administrators to gain their support, and dreaming of what the farm could look like in 10 years have been mind-stimulating and stretched me beyond my comfort zone. Right now the most exciting thing about graduating is thinking that someday I will come back to Penn State as an alumna and see a beautiful, productive, and educational student farm that generations of students have developed.
There’s always time and opportunity to grab a quick snack during a shift at the farm! Photo: Carissa Heine
An experience that got me dreaming big for the student farm was a one-day conference at Chatham University’s Eden Hall campus, a campus focused on food systems and sustainability and located about 40 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. The 10 Eden Hall Fellows, graduate students in the Falk School of Sustainability & Environment, planned the conference around the themes of food and climate change. It included tours of the beautiful campus, keynotes by Frances Moore Lappé and Julie Guthman, panel discussions with local farmers, nonprofit organizations, and research scientists, and a delicious local, vegetarian lunch (my favorite part of course), partially sourced from Eden Hall’s own on-campus farm.
I couldn’t help but get (more than) slightly jealous at Eden Hall’s modern yet comfortable, LEED-certified buildings (sorry Student Farm sheds, you don’t quite measure up!). I would LOVE to study, eat, sleep, learn, and experiment with sustainability and food systems in a space like that at Penn State. Sadly I came too soon for that personal experience, but the possibility of creating spaces like that for future Penn State students is what motivates me to continue doing my part to ensure the future of the Student Farm at Penn State. For me this is about more than producing food to sell to the dining commons, though that certainly is important. This is about creating a space for people from all backgrounds and interests to work together to teach and learn about food systems issues and sustainability (even in a sense beyond environmentalism – the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals include education, gender equity, human health, and peace*).
The main building (complete with a state-of-the-art kitchen, not pictured) where most of the conference activities took place. Notice the wall of windows that provide so much natural light! Photo: Carissa Heine
Despite the past bumps in the road, and the many more to come, I believe the Student Farm will find a permanent home at Penn State. I will look back on these four years with the Student Farm with great fondness and am so, so, so excited to see what will draw me back as an alumna in the years to come!
The most recent exciting news — an endowment for the Student Farm was chosen to be one of three Class of 2018 Class Gifts! Photo: Carissa Heine