Olivia Alsept-Ellis |
Senior Clair Dinsmore said she first imagined “a place where there is a bounty of good food, and everyone is involved and having a good time” when she became the president of the Student-Led Unity Garden (SLUG). However, the club is in need of active leadership to fill her spot when she graduates in May, and there has been waning student involvement. While there is much work to be done in the garden this spring, the club must now juggle recruiting some last minute student leaders.
“The crux of (our situation) is that the infrastructure is so fluid and the leadership is unpredictable from year to year,” Dinsmore said. “Instilling a plan and making it a consistent project is really challenging.”
Dinsmore herself assumed leadership in a similar situation. She said she became president because she didn’t want to see the land turned over to other uses or forgotten.
“I fell into being the president when, all of the sudden, there was no leadership,” Dinsmore said. “Either they had graduated or studied abroad. Everybody was just gone without warning last spring.”
On top of this transition is another. The club advisor, chemistry professor Raymond Bard, will be stepping down from his position due to his already busy workload. He said chemistry professor and Raymond’s wife Ronda Bard may become the new adviser, although Raymond says he sees the largest challenge of the club generating more student, staff and faculty interest.
“It’s a student-led garden, but that doesn’t mean it’s only students,” he said. “I think we need outreach amongst ourselves to get other people involved. Some people have some good things going here, that are staff or faculty, they just need to step up and get some interactions.”
Currently, the garden may not look bursting, green or beautiful, but post-winter beautification is not currently a SLUG priority. Small weeds bursts through the cracks, but the sprouts insist the ground is fertile.
While spring planting demands attention, student involvement has been less than electric. Balancing the garden with a student schedule has been a club challenge.
For Raymond, the club represents a way that the UP community can connect with the surrounding neighborhood and local gardeners.
“Some of the younger people have to step up and do something more,” Raymond said. “I just don’t want to see us isolated. But if you look around, there are a lot of people gardening. People came and dropped plants off for students.”
Dinsmore said her favorite part about the club is how it can change the urban college student’s perspective. Freshman Jessica Busek is an example of that. She said she got involved with the club as a way to learn about seasonal gardening, something different from her home in Hawaii.
“It’s just fun to come here and mess around -- get your hands dirty. It’s very different from my week, here, which is very structured and sterile,” Busek said. “But then you get to go back to nature and see living things, and bugs and creepy crawlies. It’s a nice reminder that there’s still the world out here.”
Dinsmore said, in her ideal scenario, the SLUG team could benefit from the support of a part-time staff member in the near future.
“I feel it’s a valuable asset to the community,” Dinsmore said. “Just being out there and gardening, it’s amazing how many community members will stop by and be like ‘what are you doing?’ and it starts that dialogue between the community and the students.”
Dinsmore is hopeful for the club’s future. After all, the sugar peas seeds have just begun to sprout.
