The new residence halls are the talk of the town here at Kalamazoo College as construction has been chugging along since the groundbreaking ceremony on June 12th, 2025. As the new halls represent K’s investment in affordable, inclusive spaces, they also reflect our commitment to advancing sustainability to meet the goals of our Climate Action Plan, which is guiding Kalamazoo College towards carbon neutrality by 2050.
Andy Brown, K’s News and Social Media Director and member of the Climate Action Plan Committee wrote a thorough article, New Residence Halls Embrace Sustainability, on the sustainable features of the new residence halls that describes the renewable energies used, the reduced embodied carbon in the construction of the building, the native landscaping, and the civil engineering that will support more sustainable lifestyle practices of students. Brown’s article also features input from K’s very own Chief Sustainability Officer and Associate Vice President of Facilities Management, Susan Lindemann. She is also co-chair of the CAP Committee and provides insight within the article as to how the elements of the new residence halls align with our Climate Action Plan and the goals established to achieve carbon neutrality. We highly encourage you to give this article a read!
Environmental Stewardship Center
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This blog post is part of the ESC Summer Fellowship 2025 series. These fellowships provided funding for research projects related to the environment, sustainability and/or the Climate Action Plan. This post was written by Zoe Wilson, one the fellows of this past summer cycle.
Hello everyone! My name is Zoe Wilson and I am here to tell you about my summer in the wonderful company of the Hoop House (HH). I was granted a fellowship with the Environmental Stewardship Center to work at the Hoop House and complete my SIP about community gardening. My days began early, slowly waking up during the joyride on my bike to the HH, quickly followed by a duel with the bugs that eagerly greet me when I enter the garden. My work often involved rehoming weeds to the ever-inviting compost piles, planting new life in the form of vegetable seeds, and living out my interior decorator dreams as I organized the garden and shed in a way that maximized floor space and highlighted my color scheme of dirt brown and lush green. The summer got off to a rocky start with the sweltering heat that triggered my survival instincts as the amount of sweat that erupted from my skin led me to believe I was under water. Nevertheless, as sure as the dirt under my fingernails, I too was ever-present and hard to get rid of.
Alongside my gardening work, I was working on my SIP, titled “Sowing sovereignty: Decolonial approaches to community gardening and environmental justice.” Through scholarly review, personal reflections, and practical application, I explored how gardens can be powerful spaces for healing, care, resistance, and liberation within communities. I drew from works in decolonial theory, Indigenous studies, feminist theory, and environmental justice scholarship to analyze how land-based practices resist settler colonial paradigms and create space for community self-determination. Being immersed in the garden allowed to observe firsthand how theoretical frameworks are embodied in physical labor and community interactions. Working in this space, I learned accountability, knowing that not just people but the plants were relying on me, as well as the importance of forming a relationship to the land and acknowledging nature, not as a resource, but as the basis of all life. The simple act of sharing the bounty of the Hoop House with my friends and community taught me of the subtle yet vital ways people take care of one another and how a cucumber is more than a cucumber; it is a symbol of life, resilience, and love.
The garden taught me that resistance does not have to be loud. Sometimes, it looks like growing food where concrete once stood or eating a tomato that you held as a seed. Sometimes, it looks like showing up, again and again, to tend to something fragile.
This fellowship was more than just a summer job or reserach opportunity—it was a reminder that change can start small, in a seed, in a patch of earth, in community.
I want to thank everyone who helped me this summer: my friends, my family, my work-family—Lee, Greta, Sara, and Chloe, the Larry Bell ’80 Environmental Stewardship Center, and of course, the land that allowed me to build this wonderful relationship and create this beautiful life.
Environmental Stewardship Center
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This blog post is part of the ESC Summer Fellowship 2025 series. These fellowships provided funding for research projects related to the environment, sustainability and/or the Climate Action Plan. This post was written by Madi Magda, one the fellows of this past summer cycle.
Hey everyone, I’m Madi Magda! Since June, I have been working at the Lillian Anderson Arboretum, completing a variety of different tasks, including general trail maintenance, determining a potential reroute of Not So Magnificent Pines, replacing and putting in steps along the trails, and much more. Everything I did throughout the summer at the Arboretum only increased my interest in working in the ecology field post-graduation.
I had a lot of fun working with the rest of the Arb Crew this summer. One of my favorite shifts was with Tara and Tilly, where we were assigned to move bridge materials. It was a hilarious time moving these materials, but it was also a very rewarding shift at the end of the day because we managed to complete it despite facing issues along the way. One of my favorite parts of this job was telling people my job was to hug trees all day and see the pretty plants and animals. This was a great experience that I recommend to everyone, even if they are not in the biology field. It is a rewarding job that also allows you to be outside and work in nature.
Not only did I learn a lot and have a lot of fun with my fellow Arb Crew, but I also learned a lot about trail management that I had not known previously. This was very beneficial for me, as I am a senior and my Senior Integrated Project consists of using tread management to combat against trail erosion. There are a lot of different aspects of trails that I had not realized were used for erosion reasons or for structural reasons, and it allowed me to do my own research on this topic as well as teach people about it when they asked me.
When telling people what I do at the Arb and why I do it, seeing their reactions was rewarding on its own. They may not have understood what I do or why, but they knew that I was passionate about my job and that was what mattered to me.
Environmental Stewardship Center
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This past Friday, October 3rd, we celebrated Kalamazoo College’s Homecoming at the Hoop House! We welcomed staff, faculty, students, and alums, coming together to share cookies, cider, and of course, fresh produce from the Hoop House!
Connection in the Garden
The October weather was perfect for a gathering outside our campus’s Hoop House. Friends and families came to visit and enjoy fresh cookies, conversation, and memories. Students had the chance to converse with their peers and pick their way through the fall harvest, staff caught up with old friends over cider under the fall leaves, and alums got a chance to read through the Hoop House highlights from the past few years. It was an afternoon of laughter and new connections.
A Legacy Passed Down
As Kalamazoo was buzzing with alums returning to town for Homecoming, the Hoop House welcomed back some familiar faces, joining together caretakers of the Hoop House from years past and present. The idea of having an on-campus hoop house was first voiced in 2016, and that idea culminated in an official proposal in 2017 through a Senior Integrated Project, a dream started by K students who would graduate before they saw it built. The Hoop House itself came to life from the hands of many students on September 21st of 2018, and the Hoop House Grand Opening was held in October of the same year. This Homecoming, alums and current students alike celebrated the determination and effort that multiple years of students put into this community space as well as thank the staff and faculty that funded and supported the process.
See You Next Year!
We are so grateful to everyone that came to see how the Hoop House and all its various projects are doing and to everyone that came to say hello to us at the Environmental Stewardship Center! We hope you enjoyed some mingling in the beautiful fall weather, and we can’t wait to see all of you again next year.
Environmental Stewardship Center
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This blog post is part of the ESC Summer Fellowship 2025 series. These fellowships provided funding for research projects related to the environment, sustainability and/or the Climate Action Plan. This post was written by Grace Lounds, one the fellows of this past summer cycle.
For the past three summers now, Tending Tilth has taken on interns from K College to aid in sustainable sheep grazing. My name is Grace Lounds, and I am one of these interns! The other two this summer are Lauren Stallman and Gwen Crowder Smith, and together we have worked under Lauren Burns, getting gritty with plenty of hands-on farm work. This opportunity will likely be available to K College students in future years, so I wanted to share some of the valuable lessons I’ve learned (and the fun I’ve had) for anyone curious about sustainability, sheep, or maybe thinking about following in my footsteps!
About Tending Tilth and Sustainable Grazing
Tending Tilth is a contract-based sheep grazing business. This means that different clients hire us to bring sheep to their properties as an alternative to conventional machine mowing. Founded and operated by Lauren Burns, Tending Tilth functions year-round under her direction, with support from us summer interns.
The work we do has numerous conservational benefits for the ecosystems we graze. Sheep eat invasive species such as spotted knapweed, (as well as other unwanted plants like poison ivy), promoting native plant communities and biodiversity. Grazing also mechanically changes the landscapes we visit. When sheep graze, they trample down plants, stimulating plant growth, pressing dead plants into the soil, and pushing seedheads into the ground. This simultaneously presses their own manure into the soil, fertilizing the soil without harmful chemicals. Their urine also acts as a very nutrient-rich water resource for plants and microorganisms. Through these combined actions, (nutrient cycling, soil aeration, and organic matter incorporation), grazing helps build topsoil, promotes biodiversity, and strengthens root systems. Strong plant growth sequesters carbon and prevents drought. Currently, Tending Tilth is working with GVSU Geology Department ‘s Professor Tara Kneeshaw to study soil health, proving that sheep grazing helps to sequester carbon. This is a study that will take 3 years, but preliminary findings already suggest that Tending Tilth’s practices enhance ecosystem health and contribute to climate change mitigation.
A Day on the Farm
Tending Tilth has about 80 sheep. Right now our sheep are split into two groups, the working group and the lambs, who are chaperoned by their grandmas and a couple male sheep. The lambs stay at the farm while the working group rotates from site to site, meaning that every day looks a bit different for us depending on where we are. The first thing we do when we get to a new site is to survey the land and make a plan for fencing. We use electric fences that we put up at each new location. Most of my time is spent putting up fences and taking them down later. Other chores include filling water tanks and setting up shade sales. Free time is spent making sure the sheep are happy and healthy. The male sheep can be quite cuddly, so I love giving them head scratches and patting their chubby bellies. I’ve also aided in hoof trimmings, fly bite treatment, giving shots, and deworming sheep.
The sheep are by far the most exciting part of the job. They’ve really stolen my heart, so much so that I am now seriously considering going to a large animal vet school after I graduate. My favorites are King Louis who’s part of the working group. He has a big personality and always runs right up to me and scratches his head on me. Gus is also a cutie. He’s only a few months old and he looks like a baby deer. He’s the nicest lamb from this season and likes to follow the adult sheep around. He used to be pretty shy but he’s really warmed up over the summer.
I could go on and on about all the sheep and their personalities, and all of the fun things I’ve done over the summer like installing a monitoring well or doing soil samples, but I think that’s all I’ll share to keep this short and sweet! For more information about Tending Tilth you can visit tendingtilth.com, and for more information on the science behind conservational grazing stay posted for the SIP’s that Gwen and Lauren will be completing and presenting at Arcus in the spring!
Environmental Stewardship Center
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From everyone here at the Environmental Stewardship Center, welcome and welcome back to Kalamazoo College for the fall 2025 trimester! In honor of the new term (and our new first years), we’ve put together a list of what the ESC has to offer, events you can expect from the ESC this term, and resources to get involved!
The Environmental Stewardship Center
The Larry J. Bell ’80 Environmental Stewardship Center (ESC) houses all things sustainability-related on the Kalamazoo College campus. Here, you can find information about the various green spaces on and off campus, the Environmental Studies concentration, the Hoop House, the Composting program, and the Lillian Anderson Arboretum. Additionally, a large part of what we do here at the ESC involves the Climate Action Plan, a framework of policies and guidance on how to create a greener, carbon-neutral campus.
Sustainability is one of the core values of the ESC, and we work to ensure that that value is interwoven throughout campus life for students, faculty, and staff alike. If that sounds like you, come find our interns and director in Dewing Commons, located on the first floor of the Dewing building, or email us at environmentalstewardship@kzoo.edu! You can also find us every Wednesday of even weeks during common time (11:00-11:45AM) for our Sustainability Chats! We hope to see you there!
Upcoming events to look out for: We have two FYE events coming up where we will be giving a tour of all four on-campus green spaces. These tours are Wednesday 9/1 and Tuesday 9/14, both at 4:30pm.
The Lillian Anderson Arboretum
The Lillian Anderson Arboretum is our one off-campus green space, located roughly 5 miles from K’s campus. It is roughly 140 acres, contained marshes, pine forests, and meadows, all interconnected through miles of trail pathways. The arboretum is an integral component to living green here at K. Not only is it used by classes as a learning lab (like the Arboretum P.E. class running this fall), but the arboretum has also been the source of numerous SIPs throughout the years and is continuously maintained by our student Arb Crew. Additionally, it’s enjoyed by the public and students in their free time; in fact, the arboretum is open from dusk to dawn!
Upcoming events to look out for: There is a Trip to the Arb scheduled for Wednesday 10/8 from 4:10-6:15pm – transportation provided!
Composting
One of the major components of the Climate Action Plan is promoting zero-waste on our campus, and the most important way we do that is through our composting program! With the support of the ESC and Facilities Management, the composting program is run by students who are a part of the Compost Crew. These students help collect food waste from students, faculty, and staff with their green compost buckets stationed throughout campus – you’ve probably already seen one!
You can find the composting program in the Grove, the wooded area located next to the Living Learning houses and the Dewaters residence hall. Feel free to stop by, pick up your free compost bucket, and help our campus strive towards being zero-waste!
Upcoming events to look out for: Smashing Pumpkins, a Halloween-themed event where students are encouraged to smash old, leftover pumpkins from the fall season (and the scraps are then composted!)
Hoop House
Through student initiative and faculty support, our campus is lucky enough to have our very own hoop house, a type of unheated greenhouse! Located behind the Fitness and Wellness Center, the Hoop House has been the source of SIPs, classroom activities, club events, and more! Here you can visit during open hours (every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 4:30-6:00pm) to learn more about growing fruits and vegetables, get your hands in the dirt, take some fresh produce home, or just to enjoy the company of other sustainability-minded students!
Upcoming events to look out for: the annual Harvest Festival, where current students, faculty, and staff can mingle with alumni and community members to celebrate the Mother Corn grown at the Hoop House, enjoy some fresh food, and build bridges with the great K community!
The Sustainability SIP Symposium is an annual event held by the Environmental Studies Department and the Larry J. Bell ’80 Environmental Stewardship Center. The Symposium brings together senior students from departments all across campus, who have completed their SIP on a topic related to sustainability, climate, or the environment! The event includes a keynote speaker and project presentations, and serves to celebrate our wonderful seniors while also showing the intersectionality of environmental education at K.
2025 Symposium Recap
This year’s Symposium was a special one! Over 100 K students, faculty, staff, and Kalamazoo community members packed the Arcus Center to enjoy the evening’s events. Delicious, farm-to-table food was catered by a K alum, and the evening was bustling for the full duration of the event!
Highlights include keynote speaker Ben Brown, a local environmental activist, urban farmer, and pioneer in the Kalamazoo sustainable housing and vehicle movement. Ben gave an unforgettably passionate and humorous talk, and answered questions about his journey as a Black farmer, the resident of Kalamazoo’s first legal tiny home, and as a gardener who loves to share his harvest with friends and neighbors.
Seniors had the chance to present to members of local climate groups including the Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition and the Ardea Youth Climate Coalition, as well as parents, friends, professors, and fellow students. A monumental thanks is in store for all who came to support these seniors, and environmental education at K during the Symposium – without you all, events like this would not be possible! We are so grateful!
Senior Shout-out
Of course, we want to give a special thanks to our thirteen seniors who presented at the Symposium. They represent the important work being done to make sure that students at Kalamazoo College, and around the world, have a sustainable future to call their own. They are an incredible group, and they are not the last of their kind! There will be more phenomenal seniors in the years to follow, so please continue supporting the Symposiums next year and beyond! For a list of all the seniors and their projects, please refer to the list and photos below.
Noah Pyle: Thermal biology of PAH-tolerant Atlantic killifish under constant and fluctuating temperatures
Sofia Fleming: The Impacts of Invasive Squirrel Diet and Personality on Native Ecosystems
Tali Deaner: Beyond the Kitchen Table: Food Access and the Systems That Shape It in Kalamazoo
Emma Frederiksen: Thermal Trade-offs and Genetic Rescue in PAH-Tolerant Atlantic Killifish
Ava Loncharte: Adaptive Multi-Paddock Grazing and Soil Health
Sage Lewis: An Economic Analysis of Sustainability Transitions For K-Metro
Brooke Dolhay: Long-Term Monitoring of Marine Ecosystems at the Institute for Marine Research in the Philippines
Ivy Walker: Land Protection and our Global Future: An Imperative Nexus
Westin Grinwis: Embracing Kinship: Integrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into Outdoor Orientation Programs
Mart Klenke: Sleeping Bear Wildlife Fund: Wildlife Rehab, Outdoor Education, & Stigmatized Species in Northern MI
Lucas Priemer: Evaluating Land Cover Area Classifications and Species Composition in the Lillian Anderson Arboretum
Mairin Boshoven: Enhancing Demographic Understanding Of The Survivorship And Threats To Circium Pitcheri Seedlings
Emerson Wesselhoff: A Place on the Corner: A Socio-ecological analysis of urban green third places
Supporting Sustainability at K
As we wait another year for the 2026 Sustainability Symposium, there are still many opportunities to support sustainability and environmental education at K. For a full list of ways to get involved with the Environmental Stewardship Center, and all the events we have coming up, check out this page! Make sure to follow us on Instagram @envirostewkzoo and @kzooarb, or stop in to see us in Dewing Commons offices 100 and 101. Every other Wednesday, drop into Dewing Commons for our Sustainability Chats at 11 (these are 6th, 8th, and 10th week). We hope to see you around, and supporting environmental action on campus!
Winter can be one of the most beautiful times to visit the Arboretum! With pine trees blanketed in snow and the stillness of frozen ponds, you’ll get to see all kinds of winter nature and wildlife. It’s the perfect season for a chilly hike with a warm drink – you can walk, hike, and run all year long in the Arb!
This winter, you might run into some of our ongoing projects and programs! A carbon sequestration survey is currently taking place at the Arb. Part of a project that occurs every 5 years, this survey will help us better understand how trees utilize atmospheric carbon, and how the Arb functions as a carbon sink. You might also wander past folks with maps and compasses – don’t worry, they’re not lost! They’re just participating in a map and compass workshop put on by the Outdoor Leadership Training Center.
Be sure to layer up! In the colder weather, consider bringing an extra warm layer, hat/gloves, and shoes with good traction. All trails are open and operating as normal regardless of condition, unless otherwise noted. The Arb is open for normal hours, from dawn to dusk.
The Grove
The weather might be cold, but the compost piles are still warm and working hard! Thanks to the efforts of the Compost Crew, composting is available all winter long. Drop by the Grove (located behind the Living Learning Houses between Monroe and Lovell St) to pick up a compost bucket. Simply fill it up, drop it off, and pick up an empty one again!
The Hoop House
The Hoop House is still operational, even in the winter! We’re busy prepping flats and preparing for spring. Stay tuned for more info on a few open hours in late February and early March, and then get excited for full open hours to resume every MWF in April, 4:30-6pm!
Jolly Gardens & Dow Wildflower Garden
The Jolly Gardens and Dow Wildflower Gardens are getting through the winter season! While we might not be able to see the plants while walking by, this cold spell is helping prepare them for the next growing season. The leftover stems and plant matter we can see through the snow makes a great habitat for overwintering pollinators and other helpful insects!
As we dive back into another winter quarter, we at the Environmental Stewardship Center want to highlight one of our favorite ongoing events: our bi-weekly Sustainability Chats!
Sustainability Chats are a continuation of a longstanding K tradition. Before COVID, students, faculty, and staff interested or involved in sustainability would meet for breakfast in the cafeteria. They’d share a meal, stories, ideas, and advice with each other, hoping to build connections and work together to make sustainable progress on campus. Starting this fall we’ve made an effort to bring those moments back to campus, in the form of Sustainability Chats!
Anyone interested in the world of sustainability, environmental science, climate action is welcome! You don’t have to have any prior knowledge, involvement, or connections. The goal of these chats is to meet people, bounce ideas off each other, provide support, and share a social space. They’re super casual – you can duck in and out, eat your lunch, and bring a friend!
In the past our talks have taken a range of directions, anywhere from tackling recycling on campus, climate-related class projects, brainstorming environmental events, community connections and research opportunities, and more! We welcome all additions and ideas that are brought to the table.
Sustainability Chats will take place every even week Wednesdays (1/15, 1/29, 2/12, 2/26, 3/12, 3/26), in Dewing Commons from 11-11:55! We can’t wait to see you there!
