University of Utah
EN-1: Student Educators Program

Stewards of the Edible Campus Garden, the University of Utah’s on-campus, hands-on learning gardens, are student educators who host multiple volunteer opportunities each week for their peers at the three garden locations on campus. Through active garden training during the peak growing season and season extension in the garden hoop house, students are able to offer gardening opportunities throughout the year. The program offers the stewards direct experience in gardening, managing events and volunteers, but more importantly, it creates peer-to-peer educational opportunities for them to teach others about sustainable food systems, and healthy eating. 

Stewards are selected by an application and interview process, and then trained by the university’s Gardens Program Coordinator on garden maintenance and regenerative farming practices. This includes composting, no-till agriculture, Integrated Pest Management, cover cropping, pollinator promotion, irrigation management, bed preparation, seed blocking, harvesting, seed saving, and both perennial and annual plant cultivation. This information is then passed on to student volunteers in the Edible Campus Gardens, who learn about the program through volunteer sessions, class tours and partnerships, research and project opportunities, events, student food groups, tabling, and the University of Utah’s exceptional service organization, the Bennion Center. The stewards give away the gardens’ bounty to the school’s Feed U Food Pantry and at the University of Utah Farmers Market, where they share information about the program and educate the campus community about sustainable and just food systems, as well as the value of locally grown produce.

On-campus students, both undergraduate and graduate; however, volunteering open to the entire university community and the public. Students enrolled in distance education are not served by the program.

Each fall during the Utes football season, student educators from the student government's sustainability board run a recycling program at the tailgate lots. These students receive training in proper recycling techniques and guidelines by the Sustainability Office and by Facilities Management. They then train groups of volunteers each home game to engage with football fans - students, alumni, parents and community members - to collect recyclable materials and teach them what can and cannot go into the U's recycling bins. Each student educator receives training before every football game to ensure reliability and compliance.

For more information, see this outdated article: https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/recycle-rice-eccles/ as well as a call-out for volunteers for the Fall 2022 season: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkbgKPavTlS/

The target audience is primarily football fans. All students get free tickets and may join the tailgates, along with hundreds of alumni, parents, and community members.

The Sustainability Office employs between 10-15 student interns throughout the year. These students work on internal projects as well as outreach campaigns to other students, faculty and staff. Students answer questions by email and phone about sustainability questions on campus such as recycling, events, and ways to increase professional and personal sustainability. All interns receive abundant training including an orientation at the beginning of the year, weekly meetings with supervisors, and opportunities for professional development like tours of sustainability efforts on campus, attendance at on and off campus events & conferences related to sustainability, and opportunities to conduct research about or put on events they are particularly interested in.

Most of the target audience is other students, such as participating in new student orientations or tabling to promote Sustainability Office programs. Faculty and staff are targeted through work on a Green Office Program that is mostly run by Sustainability Office interns.