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| “This is a new gateway — another way that the public comes to know Cal Poly Pomona." - Peggy Perry, |
Drawing on a placemat and on their professorial expertise while having lunch at the campus conference center in the mid-1990s, three College of Agriculture professors foretold the future.
“We drew what it looks like today,” says Peggy Perry, horticulture, plant & soil science professor and interim director of the Faculty Center. The placemat art came to life in 2001 as Phase I of AGRIscapes. The benefits for students and the local community are the result of the historic partnership with the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County in 1996. It was the districts’ $5.6 million donation that funded the first set of buildings. “It wouldn’t have been built without it,” says Perry. “That was really critical.”
Since the opening, AGRIscapes has continued to implement the vision of the three professors — including Perry, Ed Barnes and Dan Hostetler— as a center for learning and community outreach.
“That was actually the intent of AGRIscapes all along,” says Ed Barnes,
who now serves as the executive vice president for executive affairs. “In this
society, we’re lifelong learners — each of us.”
The agrarian appearance of AGRIscapes is an important part of the vision and was implemented through the contribution of agronomy professor Dan Hostetler’s hard work and several Cal Poly Pomona agriculture classes where students practiced the polytechnic philosophy by planting the surrounding gardens.
Through Perry’s involvement and with several grants from the Metropolitan Water District, the California Departments of Education and Food & Agriculture, funding for staff allowed the site to host two years of field trips for local students. With resources for teachers available and a garden Perry and her student employees planted and maintained, local schoolchildren could learn about the important role of agriculture in their lives that included “a focus on food and nutrition,” she adds. These learning situations were at the forefront of what Perry says is a rapidly growing movement referred to as “garden-based learning” with the goal of having school gardens and lessons across the curriculum.
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| Thanks to the historic partnership with the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County and its $5.6 million donation, AGRIscapes was born. | |
Stop by the Farm Store at Kellogg Ranch on a weekend, and you might find Cal Poly Pomona students from the adjacent apartments buying snacks or dinner and students working in the store or outside with the plants. Or you might join a community outreach workshop where participants are learning about the best trees to plant in Southern California or sampling various types of citrus. After the workshop, you might buy the shade or citrus tree you learned about.
“What’s going on now is good because it reaches the whole community,” says Barnes.
Consisting of a theater, classroom, offices, visitor’s center and the Farm
Store, this 40-acre educational site is being prepared for its next growth
cycle and more success. Phase II will begin in early 2006 with the construction
of state-of-the-art greenhouses. According to Hostetler, who is
also the Farm Store manager, this technology is a key component in the
ever-evolving agriculture industry.
“Not only does this allow you to produce crops in a small area, but it also extends the season for growers because the crops are not affected by the weather.”
With faculty and staff working from the buildings and more university classes being held there, AGRIscapes “will ultimately achieve exactly what we intended to do,” says Barnes.
“This is a new gateway,” adds Perry, “another way that the public comes to know Cal Poly Pomona.”
And it all started with doodles on a placemat.
For more information about the
College of Agriculture
Michelle Moyer
Director of Development
(909) 869-2728
mlmoyer@csupomona.edu
©
2005 California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
3801 W. Temple Ave. Pomona, CA 91768