PICA Garden Workday - Oct 18th

Please volunteer at the first PICA garden workday of the quarter on Saturday, October 18th from 10am - 2pm. Everyone is invited and a free garden grown lunch will be served. They will be planting veggie starts, digging garden beds, making compost and harvesting from the garden. Come learn about where your food comes from! Meet at the entrance to the A-quad by the Village at UCSC. Check out this website for more information.

SEC General Gathering - Oct 8th

Please attend the General Gathering to meet our members and learn about specific internship opportunities! 

Wednesday Oct. 8th

College 8 Red Room

5:30-7:30 PM

A free vegetarian dinner will be provided!

If you have any questions or are interested in an internship, please email: 

SecCoChair [at] ucsc [dot] edu

You can also like us on facebook to stay updated on events!

New! Online Blueprint for a Sustainable Campus

The Blueprint for a Sustainable Campus is now online! Check it out here!

What is the Blueprint for a Sustainable Campus? It is a multi-use, living document that strives to encompass the current visions of students, faculty, staff, and community members that have come together to share their ideas and goals for the future of UCSC at the annual Campus Earth Summit. This document is meant to serve as a launching point for students to create meaningful, collaborative projects on campus that inspire lasting change. The Blueprint also acts as a guide for student organizations interested in receiving funding from the Campus Sustainability Council for the upcoming school year.  While the Blueprint reflects no commitments from the administration, the process through which it is compiled displays multiple points of collaboration throughout the campus and community.

Explore this year's Blueprint and get involved in sustainability efforts on campus!!!

The Blueprint is brought to you by the Student Environmental Center: sec.enviroslug.org

$4 Million to UCSC for Sustainable Agriculture

UC Santa Cruz's Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture received a $4 million gift. The Apprenticeship Program is the nation's first hand-on training program for beginning organic farmers at a public university. This program is a core part of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS). This gift is from an anonymous donor and is the first step in building a $10 million endowment that will ensure the Center's long-term productivity and impact.

For more information, check out the full article here!

New Video: UCSC Carbon Fund

What is the Carbon Fund? What kinds of projects has it funded in the past? Watch this video to learn more about three projects that received funding last year:

There will be an info session on October 23 in College 8 from 4-6 PM and the abstract deadline for fall is November 14--details online here. If you have a project idea, visit their website to learn more. 

New Natural Reserve Staff Position

Great news for campus wildlands and the students who love them:

After a successful 3-year trial period that funded the first-ever full-time Campus Natural Reserve (CNR) Steward, UCSC has committed permanent funding for a full-time CNR staff position! This position will enable continued and increased support of education, research, and stewardship efforts on the 410-acre CNR. Amongst the birdsong and wildflowers, the heart of our work lies in inspiring students to develop both a diverse skill set and a personal relationship with the natural world. In the past two and a half years, over 5,600 students in over 80 course offerings have taken field trips onto the reserve and over 200 interns have earned credit for their hands-on work. We look forward to keeping this amazing outdoor classroom and living lab busy with inquisitive and passionate students for years to come.

UC and UCSC Address Global Food Needs

On July 1st, University of California President Janet Napolitano announced a major UC initiative, which will work to address food security, nutrition, and sustainable food system issues

By the year 2025, Napolitano estimated that the world's population will grow by another billion people. Around 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night, while another half billion suffer from obesity.

Some efforts that will be undertaken as part of this initiative are the following:

• Internally, campuses will heighten their collective purchasing power and dining practices to encourage sustainable farming practices, and model healthy eating and zero food waste; food pantries and farmers markets that exist on some campuses will be spread to all 10. Partnerships with K-12 school districts to enhance leveraging procurement for these purposes also will be explored.
• Food issues will be integrated into more undergraduate and graduate courses, catalogues of food-related courses will be developed, and demonstration gardens will be made available on each campus to increase opportunities for students to participate in experiential learning.
• Data mining of existing information will be deployed to help develop insights and action plans for California agriculture and response to climate change.
• New policies will be enacted to allow small growers to serve as suppliers for UC campuses.

At UC Santa Cruz, we've been leaders in sustainable agriculture and food systems work for many years. In response to the new initiative, Global Food Initiative campus leaders are developing best practices and the necessary tools for implementation with an overall goal of making such practices attainable for schools and communities nationwide. You can support the initiative by volunteering in a campus garden and learning about food production, attending an event hosted by the campus farm, taking a class on agroecology, or reaching out to GFI student leaders to get involved directly.

For inquiries regarding sustainable agriculture efforts contact GFI Fellow Alyssa Billys (abillys [at] ucsc [dot] edu). For food justice efforts in GFI, contact GFI Fellow Crystal Owings (cowlings [at] ucsc [dot] edu). Stay tuned for more updates on this system wide effort! 

Want to know more about the UC initiative? Read an article about it here.