CASE STUDY #7: STERLING COLLEGE. Goals: 2, 3, 11: Education, environmental stewardship, and buying locally

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1 CASE STUDY #7: STERLING COLLEGE Goals: 2, 3, 11: Education, environmental stewardship, and buying locally Overview: Sterling College exemplifies the future of the NEK s food system: an environmental stewardship college that leads the country in local food sourcing preparing students to be conscientious food producers and consumers. Sterling College: Changing Mindsets The College contributes to the food system through a number of mechanisms, from curriculum to local buying to environmental impact. Sterling College, Vermont s only environmental stewardship college, utilizes those mechanisms throughout its coursework, college operations, and partnership with the community. Located in Craftsbury Common, Sterling College was founded in 1958 and has an average graduating class size of students. It offers programs in five areas, including Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Food Systems. The Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems coursework are under the aegis of the Rian Fried Center for Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems (RFC). In alignment with the Sterling model of environmental stewardship education, the RFC is the instructional laboratory for an experiential and place-based curriculum that unites the farm, forest, and kitchen. The Center models food and education systems grounded in ecological principles that enhance nutrient recycling, support the biodiversity of species and genetics, increase the socioeconomic viability of communities, and build the practical skills and critical thinking capacities of Sterling students. Under the leadership of President Matthew Derr, the College opened the RFC and expanded and transformed the College s agricultural facilities. The RFC curriculum features courses such as Whole Farm Planning, Agricultural Policy, Introduction to Value-Added Food Products, Pollinator Conservation, and the Integrated Farm Practicum. The Practicum is required for the first year Sustainable Agricultural students and is designed to introduce the students to the Sterling Farm and Forest through a hands-on approach. This experiential practicum increases the beginning student s understanding of how the components of a working landscape function together to provide food for a community while maintaining key ecological services, said Charlotte Rosendahl, the Director of the RFC. Hands-on working is integrated into graduation requirements. Sterling College is one of eight federally recognized Work Colleges; all students at a Work College, regardless of financial aid, must work in various positions throughout the college. For example, Sterling students work in the kitchen and learn sugaring in the College s forest. Students are integral to the Sterling Farm; over 130 acres of farm, gardens, and hoop houses

2 produce 20% of campus food. Four staff and faculty manage the farm, which includes vegetables, nuts, fruit trees, hogs, sheep, steer, and laying hens. The integration of work learning extends beyond the classroom. About five or six students fulfill their work learning requirement in jobs throughout the community but transportation can be a challenge. The College has two All College Work Days per year where students and faculty participate in on-campus and community projects as requested by local organizations such as the Green Mountain Club. Often, class projects involve a community component, with Craftsbury Academy or other public schools coming to Sterling or Sterling s students providing service learning. For example, classes have partnered on farm-to-school projects, nutrition education, or using a consultant model to help Salvation Farms with a gleaning guide. Forty percent of Sterling s alumni are currently in Vermont. Today, more Vermonters are enrolled at Sterling than even ten years ago; about 20% of its students are from Vermont and 40% are from New England. Some faculty has noticed a trend with graduates leaving Vermont and coming back later to settle in Vermont and the NEK. Spreading the College s mission broadly is important, though, as its environmental stewardship focus aims to create conscientious adults. In 2016, the College launched the School of the New American Farmstead, offering continuing education classes for lifelong learners. Workshops, classes, and certifications cover a spectrum of topics from food writing and beekeeping to canning and butchering. Student courses, such as Regenerative Agriculture and the Integrated Farm Practicum, tie the value added production classes offered in the School of the New American Farmstead directly to the ecosystem of production. The School of the New American Farmstead broadens Sterling s reach, said Nicole Civita, Assistant Director of the RFC. It invites learners to give their passion for food and farming time and space. Through expanded agriculture and food system offerings, we will bring a wider range of learners to the Sterling community where they can explore a lifestyle or career that feeds the body, mind, and spirit. As we teach our continuing education students to replenish the land, relish its bounty, and revive time-tested rural arts, we hope to inspire many to identify and act as environmental stewards. Kitchen In its day-to-day functions, the College is a leader in buying locally and seasonally. In 2014 and 2015, Sterling placed first a national Real Food Challenge among college campuses for its commitment to making campus food more local, healthful, and sustainable. It currently sources 75% real food, according to the Challenge. The Sterling Kitchen sources from over 20 vendors, including buying direct from local producers, Black River Produce s Native selection, Green Mountain Farm Direct, and yes, even Reinhart, one of the country s largest distributors.

3 The small size of Sterling allows the faculty and staff to work closely together. For the kitchen, the Executive Chef and the Farm Manager regularly discuss food availability for upcoming meals. The Farm grows staple crops (potatoes, onions, garlic, kale, etc.) for the Kitchen as well as other fruits and vegetables. The flexibility of menu planning and on-site production work well, with the kitchen staff being nimble when needed based on the Farm s harvest. The Farm also raises livestock chickens, beef cows, turkeys, and pigs. Poultry and rabbits can be processed on site but other animals are taken to Brault s Slaughterhouse in Troy. The Kitchen is able to smoke and cure meat. The pork produced at the Farm is almost the entire year s supply of pork. Farm The Sterling Farm at the RFC is multi-functional, serving as academic tool, laboratory, and food supplier. Students learn everything about growing and raising produce and animals, from starting seedlings to rationing and caring for livestock to pest management. The Farm is integral to the curriculum. Students use the farm as part of their research for projects. Soil science classes monitor changes in soil health based on testing agricultural practices. Blacksmithing is conducted on site, and courses that cover ethics use the farm as fodder for debate. The arts are integrated, too. Student murals hang from barns. Sheep provide fleece for fiber arts; the garden supplies crops for dyeing fabric. The hands-on teaching style of the Sterling Farm is to help students learn not only the systems approach to agriculture but also the resources that are required to sustain the system. This approach allows students to experience the real world of problem solving in food production rather than learning theoretical approaches a difference between Sterling and other campuses. Gwyneth Harris, current Farm Manager, is trying to develop a truly managerial role for herself so that staff and students handle day-to-day minutiae. The Farm practices humane livestock standards and is organic (although not certified since production is only for on-site consumption). Attention is given to pollinators and habitat concerns for those pollinators; the Farm is even starting its own bee colony. But Harris sees more integration of livestock with crop production, which are currently housed in two separate parts of the campus. She sees the Farm producing the hay for animals. She also envisions more inter- and cover cropping, more perennial crops, and decreased rototilling. The College has a systems approach to its entire operations. Weekly staff and faculty meetings provide the opportunity for all to assess what is happening in one part of the campus and how that impacts what happens in another part of campus. For the Farm,

4 the weekly meetings are an important function to keep it actively engaged in academics, the Kitchen, and the Work program. Challenges As a private college, Sterling has unique opportunities and challenges. For example, it is unable to access some grant programs available to land grant universities that allow them to purchase infrastructure or pilot programs. Sterling can control its costs but infrastructure investments or upgrades to equipment must be planned out well in advance. Its size is a challenge and a benefit. Being so small, if even one student decides not to attend in the fall, the budget for the school year needs to be adjusted. At the same time, adaptability and creativity are benefits because of its small size. Still, Sterling faces the challenge that many schools face: how to integrate a food systems curriculum across all disciplines and how to build understanding that eating is an environmental act. Our minds are constraints, Civita. Students and faculty tend to stay in their silos, so the connection between food and the environment gets lost in other academic courses. Students come to the campus from a variety of backgrounds and the limited culinary opportunities available on campus and in Craftsbury is a new experience for many. The Kitchen is challenged by that need to be adaptable. Simeon Bittman, Executive Chef of the Sterling Kitchen, is a professional chef with years in the restaurant business. Chefs are trained to generate a consistent product. Buying locally produced vegetables and fruits from relatively small-scale producers inevitably means there is variability among produce. Getting consistent quality can be a challenge and the kitchen then has to pivot to use the product; a well-planned menu now becomes a living experiment. The Farm and the Kitchen have learned not to set rigid expectations for vegetables; for example, a menu will read salad mix to provide flexibility among which greens are available in sufficient quantity on a given day. The Kitchen must be nimble to craft a menu with the given supply. Ordering from so many different producers is a balancing act for Bittman. But for him, and for many of Sterling s diners, it is one that is worth it to ensure they are living their mission. And, having a variety of vendors means the Kitchen is able to support its alumni; at one count, at least four alumni-run farms were included in the vendor count. In addition to the Farm Manager, there are two assistants (staff), and two associates (paid student workers), plus student workers and a draft horse manager. While student workers are exposed to the array of chores needed to keep the farm operating, they only have to work 80 hours a semester, less than the equivalent of one month of work. Keeping the farm going requires constant oversight by the Farm Manager. A barrier of Sterling s small size is its name recognition. The School of the New American Farmstead is helping Sterling expand its name further. While the College has been

5 working hard to increase its reputation outside the NEK, it is concerned that significant players in the food system do not know it exists. New partnerships with food producers, and with Chelsea Green Publishing, are helping Sterling expand its reach and offer mutually beneficial partnerships. Ability to replicate Scale is something that comes up when assessing whether or not Sterling s approaches to food system and environmental education can be replicated at other colleges or universities. Academically, Civita ties replication into the resources a college devotes to its curriculum integration. The principles of learning objectives and competencies are the same from college to college. It is the mindset that can be hardest to move. Sterling aims to be a node for collaboration and change, providing a cross-disciplinary education with service learning rooted in environmental stewardship. In that regard, many colleges and universities are halfway there to replicating Sterling s model. Breaking down the silos of an agro-ecological approach is about dismantling the solid walls of the silo. Sterling s advantage is that it is smaller and has a different level of bureaucracy that allows faculty to tear down those silos faster than larger institutions. In the kitchen, Bittman conducted a cost per plate analysis comparing Sterling College s meals with the national average cost per plate of campus meals. He found, much to his surprise, that Sterling s costs are on par with the national average. For Sterling, the costs of providing whole, local food to students is a trade-off. The Farm and the Kitchen work to balance the budget : just because food is grown on-site does not mean that it is free. The costs saved by the kitchen to use what is produced at the Farm go back into paying for Farm operations and are spent in the Kitchen through other costs, such as more labor needed to process raw ingredients and relying on a largely student-run staff. Other schools may be intimidated by the thought of using so much student labor for the farm or kitchen, or by processing raw ingredients rather than food that comes already prepared. It could also be a problem of scale: the number of students at Sterling compared to the size of other college campuses. Sterling has a large freezer that allows them to put up their products for the year, which other schools may not have. But the cost per plate analysis is a good place to start. So much so that Bittman and Harris are presenting at other colleges to share their lessons learned and train others in how Sterling College is able to make its system work. Finding the right people to fill staff roles is also key. Being a quick thinker in the kitchen may run contrary to Bittman s conventional chef training that not all chefs can withstand. Nor could all of them keep track of so many vendors, plus the Farm, plus the local producers who unexpectedly offer their surplus to the College. For the Farm

6 Manager, Harris s ability to juggle farm management, academics, visitors, student labor, and everything else in between takes flexibility, organization, and willingness are critical. Conclusion The struggle to nurture the agro-ecological approach to academics is real, even at Sterling. Take a perennial concern about jam: there comes a point each year where the budget for jam is expended and students vie for more jam. But this allows a campus discussion about food choices such as eating seasonally, food waste, and food costs. Students must learn to weigh their values. Open dialogue between staff, faculty, and students about food decision-making is part of the norm at Sterling College. Sterling College is setting a national example for how an academic institution can incorporate food systems into academic courses, help sustain local food producers, and be environmental stewards.