Chatham University

We ask Alice Julier, Associate Professor and Director of the Food Studies Program at Chatham University, to detail the Master in Food Studies graduate program that’s offered at Chatham University’s Eden Hall campus. What is the mission of the graduate program?

Chatham University has three significant issues at the heart of its mission — the environment, women, and global concerns. Being the alma mater of Rachel Carson adds even more heart and depth to the mission. When Chatham acquired Eden Hall, a 388-acre farm and retreat for women workers, it was only natural that the educational programs being developed for this site would extend from those issues, particularly sustainability. And food, of course, is at the heart of sustainable communities, lifestyles, and skills.  The goal of the Food Studies program is to educate both students and the larger public about the complex social and environmental issues that affect our ability to feed ourselves, the world, and future generations. We expect graduates to be able to help influence policy, work with non-profits, build food entrepreneurship, and develop sustainable solutions for farms, restaurants, food producers, and food security organizations.

The program has an emphasis on food systems. What are they, and how do they affect society and the environment?

The food system is a powerful tool for exploring the relationship between community, food, and agriculture, including local, national and global food and farming issues. Because the integrity of food production and distribution has become an issue of wide social concern, we need ways of examining the network that connects farms and fields to supermarkets and the dining table. We use an array of approaches — history, culture, economics, science, the arts — to explore the modern food-provisioning system.

It’s clear that the Eden Hall Campus contributes to the program’s uniqueness. How will the students interact with the campus?

The farm is a living resource. The organic garden that was started by Chatham faculty and students is the first teaching ground for learning sustainable food production. We are developing a whole series of projects related to growing sustainably for Chatham and for local communities that face food insecurity. We’ve also built an emphisis on sustainable cuisine — teaching students basic culinary arts, but with a focus on choices related to global and local production. While Chatham is planning a living sustainable learning community on the site, the farm is already a working retreat, complete with lodging, classrooms, and learning environments in the field and the kitchen.

What are some examples of students’ “in-the-field experiences?”

This coming year, students will likely work with various food producers and farmers in the surrounding area. We have community partnerships with local groups such as the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (and its farm market program), PASA (which has an office at Eden Hall will also be offering some Master Classes in things like canning, bee keeping, and growing heirloom vegetables that are open to students and the public), Grow Pittsburgh (which will be offering seminars on urban growing), and the East End Co-op, as well as local farmers and producers. We’ll also be doing some culinary workshops with chefs and cooks. Pittsburgh and the surrounding towns are vibrant areas for looking at ethnic, regional, and global food questions. Students also have the opportunity to work with community groups on local food security, sustainable urban gardens, and culinary heritage preservation.

What courses are you most excited about for the fall 2010 semester?

I’m personally excited to be teaching commodity chain analysis in the Food Systems course, because it will give students one opportunity to examine the political and historical factors that go into the production and consumption of food. And then, they get the chance to see how those factors are then entangled in questions of economics related to entitlements in the Food Access course. In Food, Culture, and History, we look at the social meanings related to consuming those goods in various cultures.

The program also offers some terrific short-term courses abroad and in other US locations. We are doing a May-semester course in Rome with undergraduates, looking at local food production from buffalo mozzarella to organic kiwis to olive oil, and the graduate students will likely have the chance to do that or similar courses in Paris, Crete, Vermont, and New York.

Chatham University, 5701-5799 W. Woodland Road, Shadyside. 800.837.1290. chatham.edu

Community Day School

This Jewish day school, part of the Solomon Schechter Day School Association, is located in Squirrel Hill and serves 280 students, in grade K-8. From the classroom to the cafeteria, Community Day School has integrated green practices into the school day, extracurricular activities, and curriculum. The tenets of Judaism inspire these environmentally friendly tendencies and teachings, says head of school Avid Baran Munro. “Generally, in our Jewish teaching, there is a very strong tradition of protecting and repairing the world, so [in school] we put that into the context of environmental protection,” she says.  Munro points to the school’s celebration of the Jewish holiday Tu B’Shvat, the Birthday of Trees, as an example. Community Day School held a community-wide event at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Squirrel Hill. Two hundred people participated in the celebration, which featured Community Day School’s African drumming troupe, composed of middle school students, and donut decorating with raisins and other natural treats. Participants also decorated Turner milk cartons with the tops cut off, and inside them, planted seeds for parsley and dill. They will use these herbs at their Passover meal, says Munro.

The school now has a Green Team made up of middle school- age students, teachers, and parents. “The sources in Torah that

describe this commitment are many, and we believe it is these sources which compel us to take a leadership role in helping our students, their families, and our community take better care of the environment,” explains Jonathan Weinkle, Community Day School alumnus, parent, and Green Team member.

The Green Team’s goals include enhancing the presence of recycling containers and increasing recycling to include cardboard and paperboard from the paper and bottles already being recycled.  The team also aims to improve the nutritional content of lunches, reduce the school’s electricity use, and encourage environmentally friendly forms of transportation to and from school. Recently, the team organized a fundraiser, with students selling compact fluorescent light bulbs in the community.

Beyond this, there are a number of initiatives already in practice.  Each year, fourth graders participate in a T-shirt sale to raise money for rainforest protection, and this year, sixth graders will go on a nature trip with the Teva Learning Center, “which integrates Jewish teachings with environmental education.” Students are also learning how to create their own “shopping bags” out of old T-shirts.  In the cafeteria, Community Day School serves fruit and vegetables, brought in from Sunfresh Food Service in the Strip District, and Turner Dairy Farms’ milks from Penn Hills. The school has eliminated the “hundreds” of bottles of water it used to serve at lunch everyday with a water jug in the middle of the cafeteria, from which students serve themselves in “the most-recyclable paper cups we can find.” Many of these initiatives, including the cessation of water bottle sales in the cafeteria, are led by students and Green Team members, says Munro.

Community Day School, 6424 Forward Ave., Squirrel Hill. 412.521.1100. comday.org

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School

Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School students learn through realtime “virtual” or synchronous classrooms and through self-paced, or asynchronous, courses. They communicate with the teacher by phone, email, and learning platform software programs, including Sharepoint, Backpack, and Blackboard.

PA Cyber Charter utilizes the National Network of Digital School’s online Lincoln interactive Curriculum, which offers a series of Cutting Edge Science Courses for high school juniors and seniors. These electives are geared toward the student who “wants to sample some of the ‘hot topic’ sciences,” says communications coordinator Fred Miller.

In addition to biotechnology, epidemiology, forensics, emerging genetics, sports medicine, and stem cell research classes, the program also includes a nine-week Alternative and Clean Energy course focusing on global energy use, alternative energy sources, and alternative fuels, “created in collaboration with scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the first time [they] have worked on a high school level course of this kind.” Caroline Hardman, Special Projects Coordinator for the National Network of Digital Schools, explains further. “The big idea behind this very first kind of experiment we’ve done with LANL is meeting the demands of both educating the kids about the environmental impact of their energy choices and taking a look at the big picture of energy use, globally.”

Not just that, but “we have identified, in the last dozen years, that the number of students who are graduating in America with technical degrees in fields such as science and engineering has decreased,” says Hardman. “So, when we talk about clean energy, we say, ‘Yes, this is great, let’s start implementing.’ The problem is, we don’t have the technical expertise to implement it without those young folks with degrees.”

“By taking Cutting Edge Science courses in high school, PA Cyber students can sample some of the specialized scientific fields they may want to pursue in college and as careers,” says Miller.  Students are engaging in videoconferencing with LANL scientists, such as geochemist Julianna Fessenden-Rahn and Dr. Dean Peterson from the LANL Superconducting Technology Center, using simulation computer games, and completing digital and actual lab projects at home using found materials. These experiments include creating “a solar cooker out of a pizza box, and building a parabolic solar trough from a bowl with tin foil,” says Hardman. Students are also experimenting with the fermentation of yeast to understand the process of creating ethanol bio-fuels.

“Being that they’re online, the courses can be changed very quickly, corresponding to any new developments in those sciences,” says Miller.

The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, 1200 Midland Ave., Midland. 888.PACYBER. pacyber.org.