Frostburg State University
PAE-19: Community Sustainability Partnerships

The Appalachian Center for Ethnobotanical Studies is committed to supporting FSU’s campus wide sustainability mission. ACES has a formal partnership with the non-profit organization United Plant Savers whose mission is native medicinal plant conservation and in collaboration with the Tai Sophia Institute has developed 12 native medicinal plant monographs highlighting issues in ethical and sustainable harvesting and growing practices of medicinal plants. A recent ACES partnership with Western Maryland RC & D is forging ahead under a $300,000 award from the EPA to construct high tunnel greenhouses and a shade tree nursery to serve as a site for industry training and local food sustainability education while re-establishing natural forested habitat on strip mined lands. Local food availability and ecotourism were the topic at the Pan Appalachian Colloquium for Culinary Heritage in which Maryland was represented by ACES. The outcome of this collaboration is to create a local Country Roads Cookoff which ACES is coordinating with the Appalachian Festival at FSU. ACES is also collaborating with Evergreen Heritage Center to provide K-12 modules for testing in their environmental wellness programming. ACES continues its research partnerships with WVU, University of Maryland, The Tai Sophia Institute, and FSU Biology and Chemistry Departments to assure the sustainability of black cohosh and other local wild medicinal plants in our region. Outreach efforts in collaboration with Mountain City Traditional Arts, University of Maryland Extension, and West Virginia University extension have included workshops for landowners that educate participants about non-timber forest product income opportunities while providing resources for cultural tradition appreciation and sustainable cultivation of high demand medicinal plants.

The CoB, via its Associate Dean and Director of the Trident Initiative (a Coleman Foundation-funded entrepreneurship program housed in the CoB), Dr. Sudhir Singh, and one faculty member, Dr. Marty Mattare, has established partnerships with the Western Maryland SCORE Chapter. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and has been mentoring small business owners for more than forty years. The CoB also contributes faculty expertise and research assistance to the Western Region Small Business Development Center. On September 24-25, 2009, the Trident Initiative held its Fourth 2-day Annual Conference titled “Turning Your Green Ideas into Gold: Entrepreneurial Pathways to Shaping a Sustainable Future”. (Conference brochure is available for perusal at http://www.frostburg.edu/trident/2009%20Conference%20Flyer.pdf).

Each of the five past Conferences held by the Trident Initiative have included significant discussions on the issue of sustainability with presenters including noted educationists, policy makers, government and thought leaders. (Details on each Conference are available at http://www.frostburg.edu/trident/).