Hours per Week: 6 hrs during fall semester

Job Description:
The Sustainability Office is offering a paid Garden Internship to a qualified student starting in late-August 2015 until November 2015 (the end of the growing season). The garden intern will help manage and promote the one-half acre vegetable/herb garden and greenhouse on campus. This is a physically demanding, yet very rewarding job. Work includes exposure to outdoor elements (e.g., heat, sun, rain, etc.). The student intern is expected to coordinate and organize volunteers and student work parties. The Garden Intern will report directly to our garden manager (Beth Roy) and work in close collaboration with another garden intern and other Colgate students, faculty, and staff. The student intern will gain life-long skills and knowledge in harvesting and maintaining a garden, organizing events, and supervising volunteer workers.

Required Skills and Experience

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with garden manager (Beth Roy) to plan and manage the garden during the fall season. Specific tasks may include preparing soil, cultivating, planting, weeding, and harvesting.
• Organize and supervise volunteer work parties.
• Coordinate with Green Thumbs presidents to schedule a weekly time for volunteer work parties, and be at the garden during those scheduled times to supervise the work parties.
• Provide continuity for work on the garden throughout the 2015 growing season.
• Prepare for and help run a weekly Farm Stand to sell produce from the garden.

Recommended Qualifications and Skills:

• Strong work ethic and self-motivated.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Preference will be given to those with experience and firsthand knowledge in farming and/or gardening with vegetable crops; though previous garden experience is not required.
• Experience organizing and supervising the work of others.
• Tolerance for hard work and exposure to outdoor elements.
• Excitement about promoting local farming and local food production

Work Requirements and Benefits
The garden internship position is rewarding but demanding work that involves physical exertion and exposure to the outdoor elements.

Starting Hourly Rate: Fall semester – $8.50/hour (estimated because Financial Aid determines pay rate)

Supervisor: Beth Roy, Garden Manager

Key Contacts: John Pumilio, Director of Sustainability; Christopher Henke, Associate Professor and faculty advisor to the garden; Beth Roy, Colgate Community Garden Consultant

To apply, send a resume and one page cover letter to the Garden Manager, Beth Roy (eroy@colgate.edu) and fill out an application on the Colgate Portal.

The application deadline is August 14. Employment will begin on or around August 24.

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Article by Beth Roy, manager, Colgate Community Garden

The Colgate Community Garden team has been hard at work this summer in our new location just south of the Colgate Townhouses on route 12B.  The garden is thriving, and there are several events in July and August that we would like to share with you.

OPEN HOURS
Come to the garden for a tour or to lend a helping hand! One of the members of the garden team will be there to greet you.

• When: Mondays 5:00-7:00 p.m.; Fridays 2:00-4:00 p.m.

WEEKLY FARM STAND
Purchase fresh, organically grown produce from the Community Garden each week at the Farm Stand.

• Where: 104 Broad Street (through August; will move to the COOP once the semester begins)
• When: Tuesdays from 4:00-5:30 p.m.

COMMUNITY GARDEN PLOTS
Interested in gardening but don’t have a lot of space to garden where you live?  Interested in being a part of the Colgate Community Garden?  The garden has a community plot program where you can rent a space in the garden each year for a small fee.

Think it’s too late in the year to start a garden?  Think again!  We will supply you with the information you need to plant a successful fall garden.  Individual and group applicants both encouraged.  This could be a great opportunity for your campus group to come together to learn about growing your own food!

If interested, please contact garden manager Beth Roy (eroy@colgate.edu).

GARDEN UPDATES

• Email List: Contact the garden team (communitygarden@colgate.edu) and we will include you in our weekly email update.
• Facebook: Like the Colgate University Sustainability Facebook page for ongoing updates and events.

We hope to see you soon!

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By: Lindsey Sagasta ’16 (Tonawanda, NY)

Class of 2019: At this point in your life, you have chosen your college, been assigned a roommate, and have registered for your fall semester classes, so what’s next?

Soon, it will be August 23^rd and you will be moving into your room at Colgate. Choosing what to bring with you, especially when it’s your first year, can be pretty intimidating. Back-to-school ads have been flowing through your mailboxes, and in every store there is some sort of dorm-room display to remind people of the purchases that need to be made. You might have already experienced a move-in or move-out day for a sibling or friend, and it’s highly probable that you also saw the giant mounds of trash produced by each student moving in. On move-in day, this trash largely consists of packaging that is no longer needed. On move-out day, this trash can be used notebooks, empty pizza boxes, worn out shower shoes, broken electronics, or anything else you don’t want to keep for the summer or the next few years.

Although the large amounts of trash produced during move-in and move-out day is highly upsetting to sustainability-minded students, it is actually quite minimal compared to the waste and resources used throughout the year due to inefficient and unsustainable packing. Think about all the energy used for cramming for exams, watching TV, and hanging out late at night with music. Now imagine all of the trash that’s made from snacks, drink containers, and items that you thought would be useful, but have proved otherwise. What you purchase and bring to Colgate will heavily effect your impact as a first-year student on Colgate’s carbon footprint.

So what should you bring?

All over the Internet, there are checklists that were created with first-year college students in mind. Some of these can be overwhelming, some can be a bit excessive, and others too vague. At this point, you need to think about yourself, and what you really think will be necessary at college. It might be helpful to reach out to upperclassmen that you know, or those who have made themselves available to make your transition as easy as possible. Knowing the position that you are in, I am here to help. Below is a list that has been compiled by the Office of Sustainability that advises you on what to bring, leave at home, and consider when you are shopping (it can also be found on the new students section for sustainability). Here I will unpack this information for you, and add more suggestions to avoid the eco-disaster that college dorm rooms can become.

What to bring:

• Reusable water bottle. Avoid plastic, single-use water bottles. There are plenty of places up-the-hill and down-the-hill that you can refill a reusable bottle, and every time you do refill it, that is one less plastic bottle being made and discarded. If you do end up with a bottle, make sure you recycle it! Check out Klean Kantean, Hydro Flask, and Earth Lust products for some great options.
• Power strips. Plug electronics into smart, energy-efficient, power strips that you can turn off when you leave the room. Using power strips allows for the avoidance of “vampire energy”, also known as “phantom load”- energy that circulates through devices that are plugged in, even though they are not in use.
• LED light bulbs. LEDs may be a bit more expensive than tradition incandescent light bulbs, but they will not burnout while you are at Colgate (they have a much longer life!) and a much smaller energy and carbon footprint.
• Water filter pitcher. Pitchers are another option in case a water fountain isn’t immediately available to fill up your reusable water bottle, but a sink or tap source might be. Although Colgate water doesn’t need to be filtered, if you find peace of mind by doing so, this is a much more cost-effective and sustainable option than one-time use bottled water.
• Reusable grocery bags. Tote bags can be brought from home, or purchased once you arrive. By opting out of single-use plastic grocery bags, you are eliminating the large amount of chemicals and waste it takes to make the bags, as well as avoiding pollution that can occur by improper disposal.
• Reusable cutlery/dishes. Reduce waste and pollution from one-time use plastic cutlery or paper plates if you choose to eat food in your room.
• High-efficiency (HE) detergent. HE detergent results in clean clothes with less waste and pollution. All of Colgate’s washing machines are high-efficiency machines.
• Green cleaning products. Harsh chemicals and bleaches are bad for the environment and our health. There are several green and sustainable cleaning products such as Method, Ecover, and Seventh Generation.
• Recycled notebooks. If you have half-filled notebooks – use them again! There’s plenty of paper left to get through another course. This is also a great tip for your entire Colgate career. If you want to avoid paper completely, taking notes on a laptop or tablet is a great option, just check with your professors in each class to make sure its allowed.
• Bicycle. Although first-years are allowed to have cars on campus, it can be a pain, trust me. Bikes are an awesome alternative. If you can’t bring a bike, you can apply to rent a Green Bike through the Office of Sustainability. The bike will get you where you need to go, and use your power, instead of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
• Clothes drying rack. Drying racks will eliminate the need for a drying machine and the energy needed to run one. It will also greatly reduce the chance of messing up your favorite clothes!
• Organic bedding. Organic bedding is free from toxic chemicals and healthier for the planet and you!

Leave at home

• Printer. There are plenty of places to print for free on campus, so it is not necessary to bring a printer from home. It is also increasingly popular for professors to post all articles online and allow you to use digital versions in class instead of printouts.
• Car. At Colgate, you will have access to several forms of free and accessible modes of transportation.
• Bed risers. Bed risers are a waste of plastic since all Colgate beds can be raised to your liking.

When buying supplies consider…

• Energy Star® appliances. Although appliances are not needed in first year rooms, if you happen to need one, Energy Star® rated appliances use 1/3 less energy.
• Post-consumer recycled content notebooks. There are plenty of notebooks that have been made from recycled content, just read the labels when you go to buy a new one.
• Renting textbooks or buying used copies. There is no reason to buy a new textbook- by doing a small amount of searching online, you can find cheap used textbooks in great condition, and you can even rent the textbooks from places such as Amazon, Chegg, and the Colgate Bookstore.
• Coordinating with your roommates to avoid bring duplicate appliances. Always talk to your roommates before hand, this will avoid duplicate purchases and in the end will save you money.
• Purchasing used furniture from Hamilton yard sales. Local purchases not only help the Hamilton/Colgate community, but will also reduce shipping costs or gas costs to bring it to campus.

Further, you can use an app such as GoodGuide to search, scan, and browse products that are healthy, green, and socially responsible. This app will rate products and companies for their health, environmental, and social impact.

There is also this incredible green dorm checklist– with everything you might need and companies or products listed that are some of the most sustainable options.

Colgate will soon become a user of the TradePal app, where you can look through things that are being locally sold on campus, and can work with the seller on a price!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at lsagasta@colgate.edu. Also, if you haven’t checked out the new students sustainability page mentioned before, I highly advise that you do before August 23^rd!

What you bring in your dorm room can have an impact on our carbon footprint; we hope you make the right choices to make it a positive impact. See you in August!

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Urban gardening is a very useful practice to learn. It is a skill that can be used at nearly any home in any location, no matter the size of the yard you have to contend with. Gardening this way maximizes the efficiency at which space is used, therefore allowing very small places to contain much more than they could with normal gardening techniques.

One example of this style of gardening that we use in the Colgate Community Garden is the potato tower. To make a potato tower, you start of with 3 to 4 feet of wire fencing formed into a cylinder. Next you create a barrier of straw all around the cylinder to keep the soil from falling out of the openings. Then you place about 6-8 inches of soil in the bottom of the cylinder, atop a little “nest” of straw, and place several small seed potatoes in a circle around the inside of the fencing.  Repeat the soil and potato layers until you reach the top of your cylinder. The potatoes will begin to grow out of the sides of the potato “tower” and be ready to harvest once they have flowered and the plants begin to die back. At this point, you simply tip the tower over and let all the potatoes fall right out. You can usually expect about 10 potatoes to grow for every one you placed in the tower!

One of the primary goals of the Colgate Community Garden is to educate people about gardening practices.  Recently, members of the Colgate garden team went to Hamilton Central School to show students there how to build these towers. After a brief introduction about the garden, 15-20 students from two different classes built four towers for their own garden at the high school.

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By Kimberly Duncan ’18 (Charlotte, NC)

In most cases, people think plastic waste ends its journey in the trashcan.  It is rare that we consider our waste’s next steps or the harm it may cause. Our society has obtained an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality about the things we throw away because we are often too involved in our own lives and problems to be concerned about a plastic bottle. That, in addition to our high consumption rates and throwaway society, poses an issue for many ecosystems. Specifically, marine ecosystems have experienced much pollution from carelessness in plastic waste disposal in quantities that are too abstract to our minds.

Artist Chris Jordan has closely observed the high rates of plastic consumption in America and the effects it has on Marine ecosystems. He addresses many issues relating to consumption that have social, economic, and environmental themes in his artwork. His focus is to take “statistics from the raw language of data, and to translate them into a more universal visual language, that can be felt” (Jordan 2008). In his series Running the Numbers and Running the Numbers II, he transforms objects that remind us of “the environmental footprints 1,000 miles away of the things that we buy [and] the social consequences 10,000 miles away of the daily decisions that we make as consumers” (Jordan 2008). In several of his pieces, he shows the egregious amounts of plastic we waste in just seconds, minutes, and hours.

Jordan’s website shows his pieces from far away and, upon clicking on the image, it zoom in to show the composition of the piece. Here are a few examples from Running the Numbers and Running the Numbers II of America’s plastic consumption.

Running The Numbers:

Plastic Bottles, 2007 (60×120″)

From far away, this image is unrecognizable. However, upon looking closer, you can see that this image “depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every fifteen minutes” (Jordan 2007)

Plastic Bottles, 2007 (enlarged)

Caps Seurat, 2011 (60×90″ in one panel, and 88×132″ in 3 panels)

This image “depicts 400,000 plastic bottle caps, equal to the average number of plastic bottles consumed in the United States every minute” (Jordan 2011).

Caps Seurat, 2011 (enlarged)

Running the Numbers II:

In this series you begin to see the direct relationship between plastic waste and the rate at which it enters the ocean.

Gyre, 2009 (8×11 feet, in three vertical panels)

This “depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world’s oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean” (Jordan 2009).

Jordan is effective in creating jarring images that accurately represent the amount of plastic waste Americans create. He takes abstract statistics and shows them in a more understandable way to evoke a response in his viewers. In his series titled Midway, Jordan reveals the direct effects of this plastic waste circulating in the ocean gyres on birds. These harrowing images document the plastic from the ocean that was consumed by birds that most likely died as a result.

Chris Jordan created these images as an attempt to make Americans more concerned about improper plastic waste disposal and its effect on marine ecosystems. It pays to take a little extra time to make sure you correctly dispose of plastic waste because, even though you may not experience the effects, ecosystems are being polluted. You can start by finding recycling plants in your area and become familiar with recycling protocol for curbside pickup! For more information on the artist Chris Jordan, visit his website.

At Colgate, we recycle all plastics #1-7. For more information, read our post on the FAQs of recycling at Colgate.

References:

Jordan, Chris. (2008, February). Jordan: Turning Powerful Stats into Art. Retrieved from: https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats/transcript?language=en
All images were retrieved from Chris Jordan’s website. www.chrisjordan.com

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