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JORDAN PATTERSON
Staff Writer
The sun slowly faded into the horizon around 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday night, but in the morning there would be one more garden waiting for its return. A few students played catch with a football in the distance, and some just simply walked by unaware of what was happening. Meanwhile, directly behind the Science Center, members of Sierra Club went to work.
Fredonia had finally approved the creation of a campus garden in the Fall. For many years, the Fredonia administration was wary of allowing the creation of a student-run garden, simply because of what happened the last time around.
“In 2009, when we put in the native plant garden, there was an initial small student garden that actually some of my honor students put [in], and then the students didn’t maintain it,” said Dr. Christina Jarvis of the English Department.
Jarvis teaches a course called Writing Sustainability and Social Change, which senior English and international studies double major Zachary Beaudoin has taken.
An announcement of a campus garden could seem like a mundane announcement to some, but it’s an extremely important one for Beaudoin.
“I didn’t start this. This started a long time ago … people started asking for a garden, faculty proposed it, students proposed it,” said Beaudoin.
Each time there was a proposal, the administration would find a reason to deny it. While taking the course with Jarvis, Beaudoin became more involved with sustainability. He also became more involved after meeting a few people on campus — including Hannah Farley, former president of Campus Climate Challenge — who had previously proposed plans for a potential garden.
Beaudoin jumped on the opportunity of a grant to help fund the garden and successfully obtained it before submitting a project proposal to the University administration. It was denied.
He was then told by the late Vice President Liz Praetorius that his plan needed to be more developed.
Sierra Club would then lose the grant.
Beaudoin started on his second attempt.
“It’s almost 40 pages. I have affidavits. I have signatures of all the students who want it. I started reaching out to faculty, getting emails. Both unions signed on to it. … it took a whole summer to compile everything,” said Beaudoin.
After going back and forth with a few questions for Beaudoin, the administration approved his second proposal at the beginning of last semester.
Being president of the Sierra Club helped him along with this process, and he was able to get it written in bylaws of the Student Association. That means there’s a solid plan for student maintenance of the garden, even after Beaudoin graduates — but he isn’t really worried about that anyways, given all the interest he’s received.
“I’m not concerned about that,” said Beaudoin. “The Sustainability Chair has to manage the garden,” he added.
On Wednesday, a 30-by-20 foot plot of land was slowly turning into the future garden Beaudoin had been dreaming about. Lined with donated newspapers, students began grabbing from the two piles of manure on both sides of the plot. The old newspapers quickly disappeared as they were soon covered with the mixture of soil and waste donated by none other than Beaudoin’s father, Andy Beaudoin.
Students, like sophomore environmental science major Morgan Bennett, were eager to help with what they see as one of the University’s biggest hang-ups: going green in a meaningful way.
“SUNY Fredonia is one of the least environmental [schools] in New York and it’s awful,” said Bennett. Some look to the University’s current STARS ranking of “Bronze” by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education as a sign that there is plenty of room for improvement. “This is a step to being better.”
According to Beaudoin, this is just the beginning. Sierra Club wants to build a shed with a lock. Groups that are approved for the garden will receive the combination. He is also working on a waiver of liability for people to sign before handing the garden off to groups and students.
Beaudoin is open to a variety of ideas when it comes to what can and can not be planted.
“Lettuces, tomatoes, melons, there’s cucumbers, there’s everything — we want to leave it open ended,” said Beaudoin. “We have international students who have interest in it because they want to grow things that are native to their homeland. If they have a little plot and they want grow something from Korea, let’s do it.”
A fence, stepping stones, and a sign that says the “Fredonia Grove” are all in the future for this garden. Beaudoin expressed that he doesn’t have any expectations because he wants to see it grow — figuratively and quite literally.