Carolina Campus Community Garden: Institutionalizing the Campus Community Garden as a Model for Sustainable Food and Gardening Education in the UNC Community
Creators: name: Cabell, Anne
name: Conti, Veronica
name: Johnson, Trent
name: Yu, Shelly
name: Akiba, Chris
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2012

description: Background: The mission of the Carolina Campus Community Garden (CCCG) is to improve UNC's lowest paid employees' access to fresh fruits and vegetables by distributing the garden's crops, which are produced by the shared efforts of staff, students, faculty, and local residents; and to serve as a learning community for developing gardening skills, facilitating healthy living, encouraging social responsibility and promoting interdisciplinary academic pursuits. Currently, the CCCG does not have a permanent plot of land at UNC, nor does it have sufficient, ongoing funding. In order to increase the sustainability of CCCG, it is important for CCCG to become institutionalized, defined by Curry (1991) as being formally articulated in an organization's culture and policy, within UNC. Specifically, this entails securing a permanent location, sustained funding, and increasing utilization by the UNC community. Methods: As a Capstone student team from the Department of Health Behavior at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health, we advanced the CCCG's goal of institutionalization by performing formative research to understand the needs, wants, and beliefs held by the community through a review of the literature, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders within the UNC community, focus groups with housekeepers, and surveys with students and administrators. The formative assessment began with an extensive literature review, which informed our discussions with the UNC community. The perceptions and insights provided by these stakeholders helped us outline specific goals towards establishing the CCCG as a permanent part of the University. In addition to semi-structured interviews with UNC faculty and administrators, we also conducted focus groups with UNC housekeepers to uncover their perceptions of and experiences with the garden, and how they might shape long-term institutionalization. We also engaged students to understand their perceptions and experiences with the CCCG through a web-based survey. Finally, the Capstone student team disseminated its findings to the stakeholders (UNC administrators, faculty, housekeepers, and students) through an event designed to highlight the results of the formative assessment, CCCG Appreciation Day. Results: Through engagement and assessment, the Capstone student team identified the following strategies to promote the institutionalization, and ensure sustainability, of the CCCG, prioritized in descending order: 1) secure a location for the garden plot 2) obtain permanent funding for the Community Garden Education Coordinator position 3) integrate the CCCG into the UNC Academic and Research communities 3) more effectively engage recipient stakeholders including UNC housekeepers 4) quantify benefits of the CCCG for housekeepers and the UNC community as a whole and 5) increase visibility and awareness of the CCCG in the UNC community. Discussion: The CCCG brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds, united only by the act of gardening, the process of which creates fresh produce that is given to low-income UNC employees. At the individual level, outcomes include increased access to healthy foods, increased nutritional knowledge, and increased physical activity. At the community level, the CCCG increases social capital, community, and social cohesion. Based on these and other benefits, the CCCG has garnered significant support from the University at all levels. However, the path to sustainability through institutionalization remains uncertain. This Capstone project has laid out a sustainability plan supported by months of formative research with the singular goal of moving the CCCG towards institutionalization. Hopefully the insight provided by this project will contribute to the institutionalization of the CCCG and its sustainability for years to come.