7 Reasons UTC Needs A Teaching And Learning Garden

"No-one is born with a green thumb, but everyone can attain one" - Dr. Barbosa

1. It serves a purpose

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A Teaching and Learning Garden, if nothing else, does one main thing: it teaches students how to grow food. Most of the younger generations have no idea where their food comes from and would have no idea how to grow their own food if required to. This is why Dr. Barbosa started the garden at UTC. Dr. Barbosa has several goals for the garden. These goals include encouraging people, starting with college students, to grow their own food which will in turn drive down the price of food, and to allow people of all ages to consume food that has not been coated with chemicals that cause health issues. The garden is a practical, positive use of UTC's land.

2. It allows for experiential learning in all departments

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The garden provides hands-on learning experiences for students in all departments, not just those interested in the natural sciences. Dr. Wilferth is a prime example of this. Dr. Wilferth is the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as a professor in the English Department, who was able to incorporate the garden into his curriculum.

"I like the way the TLG offers an opportunity for hands on learning and connecting with our environment. We can do learning inside the classroom, but often we forget that we can also do learning outside of it, and that engaging with our environment and our local community is a form of substantive scholarship as much as reading texts is." Dr. Auchter, a professor in the Political Science department, said about incorporating the TLG into different disciplines.

3. It gets UTC students involved with the community

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As of now, the garden is assisting in providing fresh produce for the Chattanooga Community Kitchen and will provide over 1,000 pounds of sweet potatoes alone for Thanksgiving at the kitchen. As a university we are always trying to find ways for our students to be more involved in the community. How great is it that we have the opportunity to support such a knowable organization by not only giving food but or also are time?One of UTC's Panhellenic's two philanthropic partners, yet most of the university doesn't know we have this opportunity on campus. Think with all the many different service organizations we have on campus it would be a great opportunity to see our whole university to come together to support our community by volunteering in the garden.

4. It is successful at other universities

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Teaching-Learning Gardens have been successfully sprouting up at Universities all across the United States. Schools such as Auburn University, Texas A&M University, and Rutgers University all operate successful student gardens. We want are students to have the same opportunities as students at these larger universities and if it is feasible for us to provide this opportunity to are students, shouldn't we do everything in our power to provide it?

Kennesaw University has even incorporated the fresh veggies from their garden into the student cafeteria.

5. It attracts undergraduate students

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Having our university grow is so important not only to administrators, but students as well. When it comes to picking universities we look for schools that give us the most opportunities for us to get hands-on learning in our fields. When it comes to STEM students TLGs are very beneficial to their curriculum, but the TLG benefits many other majors as well. How exciting would it be for History majors to learn about agricultural societies by actually learning how the produced food? How about learning about the psychological benefits of garden by actually experiencing them as a Psychology major? Think we could have our marketing majors do projects promoting the garden or our business majors developed funding ideas for the garden, so we can build structures to have outdoor classes in the garden. Being able to talk about this type of hands on filed work experience is exactly what would make UTC's students graduate applications stand out. However, we have to educate our faculty on how it can benefit their curriculum as well as the students to make this a successful program.

6. It makes UTC students more marketable to graduate programs

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Graduate school is becoming increasingly harder to get into and we owe it to our students at UTC to give them as many opportunities to standout to grad schools as possible. Which is exactly why our TLG is so important, especially to those majoring in our science fields, the garden gives our students to the opportunity to learn about genetics and do soil tests, among other things, that they could not do without the garden. This makes their experiences unique and valuable especially when compared to other students applying to graduate school. Having this type of experiential learning credit is exactly the kind of experience that would make UTC students stand out to graduate schools when reviewing applications. This makes UTC more marketable to graduate schools which in turn draws in more students. Let's give UTC students an educational experience that not only teaches them skills they can use for the rest of their lives, but that also gives them the upper hand when continuing their education.

7. UTC students want a Teaching and Learning Garden

With the current plans, the TLG has been eliminated, however, there is enough land to incorporate the garden. Students want the TLG, but we'll let them tell you that.

Thank you to UTC Executive Vice Chancellor, Dr. Richard Brown, and students.