Fort Lewis College
EN-3: Student Life

The Environmental Center is a student-driven organization that works to develop environmental leadership amongst the students of FLC by engaging them in hands-on, high-impact sustainability projects on campus and within the community. This organization is guided by a 40% student Board of Directors who provide direction for two professional staff, 30 student staff, and 100 volunteers. Recent accomplishments include:

Fort Lewis College has many options for students to gain experience in organic agriculture and sustainable food systems. Within academics, there are two sustainable food systems courses. Political Ecology of Food is a course that draws on multiple disciplines within the social sciences to examine how environment, policy, culture, society, and economics intersect to inform food system function. Ecological Agriculture immerses students in approaches to garden and farm management that are compatible with ecosystem function and environmental conservation. Also within academics, the Environmental Studies program offers an internship course, through which students can acquire 150 hours of hands-on experience at one of many local organically managed farms. Outside of academics, students can volunteer at the Environmental Center’s demonstration eco-garden or participate in the Local Food program. For students with a serious interest in local food systems, the Environmental Center also offers paid fellowships through the Local Food Fellow program. Finally, students can acquire hands-on experience in organic agriculture at the Old Fort. The Old Fort at Hesperus is a beautiful 6,000+ acre site managed by Fort Lewis that is located just 16 miles from campus. The Old Fort offers several programs to learn more about farming. There are summer internships in sustainable agriculture that fulfill requirements in Environmental Studies, Public Health, Sociology, Biology, and other fields. The Old Fort Market Garden Incubator Program is for aspiring farmers and provides educational classes along with access to land, water, and infrastructure. Incubator participants run independent businesses and cooperate with each other to produce a variety of foods at 7,600 feet. Finally, the Farmer-In-Training Program is a stepping stone between the internship and incubator, for people who want to farm but who need more experience.

The Old Fort Farm Incubator Program offers an alternative point of entry for beginning farmers in the Four Corners region, providing them with access to support services that enable them to develop the skills necessary to succeed

1) Environmental Center REEL Film Experience: The REEL Environmental Film Experience serves to educate and inspire our campus and greater Durango community. It also generates funding to ensure that the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center will continue its critical work advancing environmental initiatives in our region, while simultaneously providing the training, skills, and ethical development to tomorrow’s environmental leaders. 2) Environmental Center Campus Sustainability Summit: The goal of this annual, student-driven event is to showcase sustainability on the Fort Lewis College campus, in the community of Durango, and beyond. 3) Martin Luther King Day Celebration: An annual celebration of the legacy of social change that provides Fort Lewis College students with training and workshops around direct action and social justice. 4) Growing Partners of Southwest Colorado Homegrown Food Retreat: Annual regional gathering of food system stakeholders to collaboratively identify and address gaps in our regional food system. The Environmental Center is a standing coalition member of the Growing Partners, and students aid in planning and implementing the retreat.

1) Real Food Challenge Dining Installation: In 2015-2016, the Environmental Center's Aesthetic Activist student group designed a multi-media art installation to highlight how our on-campus Closed Loop Food system supports the Real Food Challenge here on campus. Through a combination of student-created photography, chalk lexicon, graphic design and three dimensional elements, our student artists walked viewers through student efforts from growing food on campus to Sodexo's role in preparing this food to be served in campus dining. The final segments of the 30x40' piece directed viewers' attention to the on-campus, student-run composting program and how the 'fuel' that it creates is ultimately used to grow more food by students, for students in the campus garden.

Fort Lewis College has several options for students to gain experience in Leave No Trace principles. Within academics, there are courses in the Adventure Education major with an explicit Leave No Trace Focus. Outside of academics, students can learn about Leave No Trace through Outdoor Pursuits, a program that offers outdoor experiences that emphasize environmental awareness.

The Environmental Center cultivates environmental leaders by connecting Fort Lewis College students with opportunities to create change on campus and in our community. Our Local Food Security Initiatives provides instruction and workshops in ways to grow your own food, as well as how to access affordable, locally-grown foods in our community. Our Campus Sustainability initiative focuses on education, behaviors, and life skills directly related to a more 'sustainable life' (ie. personal and social behaviors related to conservation, resilience, etc). Our Zero Waste Initiative emphasizes ways that students can adopt more zero-waste life practices through our Free Store, Move In-Move Out program, campus composting, and residence hall recycling. And our Real Food Challenge Initiative helps to coach students on food choices beyond eating local that will help to sustain a more viable food system. All of the above are student-governed.

The Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College employs between 25-30 student staff each academic year, 2-4 student staff in the summer, and between 2-6 credit-bearing student internships at any point.

Co-Curricular Classes: Ecological Agriculture immerses students in approaches to garden and farm management that are compatible with ecosystem function and environmental conservation. This credit-bearing course partners with the Environmental Center to utilize the on-campus garden as a laboratory for practicing what has been learned in the classroom. Environmental Center Internships: The Environmental Center sponsors between 2-6 internships each semester that partner a student's academic studies with hands on, applied projects that ultimately advance sustainability efforts on campus or in our community. Internships have included Sociology partnerships where students complete the Real Food Challenge annual purchasing audit, Internships with Environmental Studies to design a three-season greenhouse for the Local Food Security Initiative, and internships with Adventure Education to build and run Alternative Spring Break programs. Embedded Research: The Environmental Center has partnered with numerous faculty and classes at Fort Lewis College to embed needed research within existing classroom structure and syllabi. Examples include partnering with Environmental Studies Colloquium classes to gather a deeper understanding of on campus perceptions of and value for the Real Food Challenge, working with Honor’s Action Research Class to understand behaviors and attitudes around campus recycling, and engaging with Sociology to research on-campus food insecurity. Embedded Classroom Projects: The Environmental Center has partnered with numerous faculty and classes at Fort Lewis College to embed applied projects within existing classroom structure and syllabi. Examples include our current partnership with the Engineering Senior Design Seminar to design and ultimately construct a green storage structure at the Environmental Center’s garden. Other examples include partnering with the Business Department’s Marketing Class to build a business plan for the on-campus garden, collaborating with the Honor’s Writing for Social Change to build out a lexicon for behavior change here at Fort Lewis College, and working with the GIS program to create a map of fruit trees in Durango available for harvest as part of the Environmental Center’s Crop Mobs program.