A primary focus of campus wide sustainability initiatives is student engagement, with an emphasis on leadership development and experiential learning opportunities. The community garden meets these needs by providing four graduate positions, one garden coordinator, and three volunteer garden liaisons, who oversee the community garden program and provide programmatic support for the community.
Our Graduate and Family Housing community is a truly international one. We have over 80 nations represented in our graduate population, and many of the graduate students living there are sacrificing a lot financially, as well as culturally to attend CU Boulder. By providing them with space where they can grow their own produce, we are providing them with an opportunity to find community among other passionate gardeners, to grow herbs and veggies they are familiar with and know how to cook, and to save money on produce they would spend a premium on to buy organic in the store.
Newton Court garden spaces were redesigned with the help of Kelly Simmons’ permaculture design course in the summer of 2018, which used Residence Life and Housing Grounds as project consultants. The garden is also considered a child friendly space, as many of our graduate students have children and families.
