Sarah Calvin

I was able to actively participate in the Encounter Retreat Team to help engage student’s spiritual development. I met weekly with retreat team to ensure a thoughtful, reflective, and spiritually engaging experience for students of diverse faiths and backgrounds, and we created and collaborated with the retreat team on reflective activities, prayers, and events that aimed to deepen student’s spiritual development. I met weekly with the Retreat Coordinator to ensure the talk given on retreat was insightful for retreatants, and wrote “Love Yourself,” which was a talk that helped retreatants see that vulnerability is significant to a healed ones spirit. I also got to lead meditation and yoga to support physical and spiritual health of retreatants and the Teaching Mass portion of the retreat to create a more inclusive understanding of Catholic Mass.

I was a teaching assistant (TA) (non-paid internship) for Dr. Martin’s ecopsychology class. Although the class got canceled. I worked closely with Roy Johnson, the St. Edward’s University Campus Arborist, to help promote ecopsychology in the St. Edward’s community. Dr. Martin loves to take her students to the garden and food forest in her health psychology class because she knows the benefits of getting students outside, especially when she teaches in a windowless classroom such as Moody Hall. When her students came to the garden, most of them did not even know that we had a campus garden at all. The garden is tucked away behind Teresa Hall, which is not a residential location for St. Edward’s students anymore since the spring of 2023. With the garden not being in the heart of campus anymore, Dr. Martin is determined to make this site seen by our community. Another issue that she told me was that many of the students did not know what was in the garden. For instance, a student had told her that they did not know what kale looked like or how to prepare the food by getting it out of the ground. Dr. Martin was shocked, and I was shocked as she told me as well.
Many students do not know many of the fruits and vegetables that are in the garden. Although we have some signage, we could use more to improve students' understanding of plants and culinary needs to promote their well-being and fight food insecurity on campus. This is when Dr. Martin and I met with Roy to discuss the possibility of creating signage that can let students know what kind of plant they are looking at, when the plant can be harvested or planted into the ground, and what are the culinary or medicinal uses of the plant. None of the plants had this information written down, and most of the plants that are decided to be planted are because Roy says it is the season to plant. He told me that it would be helpful if this information was all in one place so that other students could become curious about gardening. I made an Excel sheet categorizing most of the plants that we had in the garden and food forest. It is important to keep these separate because the food forest soil acts differently than the garden. The food forest is a more sustainable way of planting because it supports ecosystems, stores carbon, and has a continued supply of nitrogen that supports healthy plant growth. Additionally, I added what seasons (specific to Austin) the plants grow in and harvest in as well as what their life cycle is like. Annual plants perform their life cycle within a single growing season. An example of this plant is okra, which is mostly planted in the spring and harvested in the summer or fall. Perennial plants persist over many seasons, so many trees are considered perennial plants. Biannual plants require two years to complete their life cycle, which we can see in plants like carrots. Recently in our carrot bed, we saw a mixed hybrid of carrot and parsley that were intertwined together.
After collecting images and information on the plants, I needed to research the culinary practices of each plant and what college students could easily make using the items in our garden and food forest. My perspective as a Resident Assistant was useful because many of my residents were able to talk to me about culinary tasks they were willing and unwilling to do. It was unfortunate that most of the residents that I talked to did not want to participate in culinary activities. When I asked why, the primary reason was that they wanted their own kitchen. The residential buildings I oversee are for second-year students, who are increasingly busier than they were in their first year. The residents in one building share a kitchen with only sixteen women, while the other residential building only houses fourteen boys. This is not that many people compared to freshman housing, where they can hold up to almost 200 residents. However, many residents have spoken with me that because they are forced to buy a meal plan, they are not interested in cooking in their first few years of college. Almost like the beginning of college forces them to lack the culinary skills in the first place. Regardless, one of my residents was interested in using the tea recipe that I found using American Beautyberry, which is the purple shrubs that we see on campus near Equity Hall. The resident and I gathered a cup's worth of berries and waited for the water to boil. Once the water boiled, we placed the berries inside. We waited for the berries to turn pale. The water turns into a light brown, and then we are able to strain tea. I added some honey for sweetness, but overall, the tea has a floral taste that is really refreshing. I was able to share this tea with the rest of my residents. It was perfect because it was starting to get cold outside, and the tea was perfectly warm.
I used the American Beautyberry recipe as well as many other recipes in my product with the hope that students can become knowledgeable about what plants can be used for culinary or medicinal uses. There are about eleven pages worth of plants. Although it does not capture every single plant that is in the food forest and garden, it gives people the curiosity to learn more so that they can believe they can cook from farm fresh ingredients.
Through the PDF document that was created, I will have to get with Roy to create signage. We are hoping to create two QR codes on a small bamboo plate that can lead people to the garden behind Teresa Hall and access the document product I created. I was told that signage on campus can be controversial at times because of the property agreements and project managers that run parts of St. Edward’s land. Although I originally wanted to get the signage completed all in this semester, Dr. Martin was fine with me having the product just be the PDF document. I will continue working with Roy and the garden team in the next semester so that we can get the signage up.
I had a wonderful time working with the people in the garden. They are really ambitious and care a lot about the environment and helping students find purpose. I was able to combine my disciplines of psychology, art, and gardening to help the campus garden and food forest. I hope that I can continue helping people through these disciplines in the future.