LOCALnews
A Look at the Greening of the UDC Van Ness Campus By Dorvall Bedford
The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is becoming more green. As part of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES), students are now growing their own edible plants in shared gardens all over the Van Ness campus, even up on the rooftops. The gardens signify an important change to the Van Ness campus, according to Professor Sabine O’Hara. Over the past few decades, much of the ground and roofs were concrete and asphalt. Now they’ve been replaced with permeable pavers, which help with collecting rainwater that will irrigate the greenery around the campus. “An exemplar of green infrastructure,” she said about the change. A few gardens on the main level of the campus (which is actually the roof over the garage levels), are home to some of the plants that the students are growing and can be seen as one walks around. One of these is tucked into a corner and surrounded by buildings, and is tended to by a garden club consisting of students, faculty, and staff. It’s entirely communal, so there are no individual plots. Instead, everyone in the club says what they want planted and takes care of the whole garden together. They share the bounty from the arugula, parsley, and other plants.. Nearby is a group of gardens that the CAUSES school calls the “Gardens of the Senses.” These gardens are filled with plants that stimulate touch, taste, and smell, according to O’Hara. 8
WASHINGTON GARDENER
MAY 2022
The garden club is not limited to students and staff, O’Hara said. Community members also joined during the pandemic. “They will tell you it was like their lifeline during the shutdown,” she said. “A lot of us garden because we enjoy it.” Up on the roof top of UDC Building 44, where there was just gray concrete, there is now a blanket of green plants. Since the roof was not originally designed to hold a garden, CAUSES had to calculate how much weight it could bear. An interesting bonus of the rooftop food gardens is that they reduce the heat of buildings, saving on the costs of air conditioning.
According to O’Hara, this is the only agriculture program in the country where architecture is part of the education. “And there is a reason: because it’s the architects who calculate these kinds of things,” she said. CAUSES also has a kitchen where gardeners can take their harvests to process them. O’Hara says the school teaches more than how to garden and compost. They also provide education about food safety, sanitation, and nutrition. And the education is not limited to university students. On April 25, mem-
bers of the SNAP-Ed program provided lessons to senior citizens about eating a variety of colors in their diets. According to acting Senior Program Coordinator Miranda Desmarais, SNAPEd works with local public schools and childcare centers to provide young children nutrition education. “We work on exposure,” Desmarais said. “We work on getting people comfortable with trying something that they’re not used to.” Program Coordinator and Chef Herbert Holden has been working closely with parents as well to promote healthier eating habits. His method of sculpting penguins out of eggplants has helped children convince their parents to cook with eggplant at home. “I help children teach their parents,” Holden said. O’Hara said there are two goals with the addition of community gardens to the Van Ness campus: environmental and social sustainability. Not only are the gardens promoting healthier diets and a greener school environment, but they are also bringing people closer. “People who have not been on the campus in a number of years will say, ‘Oh, my goodness!’ when they come now,” O’Hara said. “This is a complete transformation.” o Dorvall Bedford is a journalism major at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an intern this semester with Washington Gardener. He is a native of Frederick, MD.
