For the next installment of our Meet the Gardeners series, on April 11th I met with RU-Eco members Layla Yassein, Jaxon Shain and Wren Logan at the greenhouse in Boyden Hall. RU-Eco is a new club on campus dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues both on campus and throughout Newark. They have beds both in the Healing Garden and outside Boyden Hall, and have participated in many Healing Garden events so far this Spring. Here is an excerpt of our conversation:
Emily: Thank you all for being here, I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your days to meet with me. Before we start, can you please introduce yourselves?
Layla: I’m Layla, I’m a supply chain major and this is my fourth year here at Rutgers. I am trying to pursue my masters in supply chain as well and I see myself working with nature. Right now I am interning at the Greater Newark Conservancy and I am doing supply chain for them, focusing on sustainability.
Wren: My name is Wren and I am a PhD candidate in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences here at Rutgers Newark. I am in my second year. I study the community ecology of migratory birds that utilize urban forest patches as stop over sites. I am interested, potentially, in becoming a principal investigator and researcher at a university and having grad students help research migration in birds as well as potentially working in a nonprofit environment. I used to work in environmental education so doing things related to helping improve representation in science and research is really important to me.
Jaxon: And I’m Jaxon. I’m a third year undergrad, in environmental science here at Rutgers. I teach at the Greater Newark Conservancy to kindergartners. I’m also doing a ropes course training and adventure training for Project U.S.E which is this outdoor education/farmers market nonprofit in the area. As for career, I really don’t know. I’m going to stick with environmental education and adventure leading until I graduate.
Emily: I like that you all come from different backgrounds but you still have the same goals of environmental science and sustainability. Are you all connected to RUEco?
Layla: Yes, I’m unofficial president, He’s (Jaxon) our unofficial vice president and Wren is our grad student. She pretty much started the club.
Wren: These days I see myself in more of, like, an advisory role and so I help with the planning of events and then they are the ones who actualize everything. I’m really proud of our little team that we have. They have done so much in growing the organization way bigger than I expected it to be at this point.
Emily: With that, how did RuEco start?
Wren: So, when I first started as a PhD student I had previously worked in the Great Smoky Mountains national park in Tennessee as an environmental educator and I was really interested in helping people feel connected to nature and find a sense of place no matter where they are at. I think one of the problems that I sometimes faced working at a national park was that sometimes students and teachers and other community members would come to our nature center and they would feel that the “nature place” was the national park but then when they went back home they were in the “human place” and I would always try to get people to see that nature is everywhere and so when I came here and I started TA-ing I would take the students outside for some elements of the labs that we would do and i just noticed that there was a general sense of discomfort and disconnectedness amongst students with the natural environment and bing outside and I was looking for ways to potentially take my experience as an environmental educator and sort of help change people’s attitudes in the hopes that helping people feel more connected to the environmental would help them care about the environment a little more and it they cared more than maybe we could utilize that care as a movement to bring about change at Rutgers in terms of some of our policies that we have regarding sustainability.
Wren: There is a professor in the environmental sciences department, Lily Khadempour. I went to one of the seminars and she was the one introducing the speaker and she had these goals of trying to improve recycling on campus and trying to do more policy things. She said if anyone was interested in starting the club, she needed students and so, I went to her office and expressed interest. At the time I was TA-ing Layla and she was one of the star students in my class and so I met her and through her I met Jaxon and Layla’s sister Fama who already graduated and together we started coming up with plans for informal events and it has grown a lot since then. That was just a year ago.
Emily: So you mentioned there were certain things that you and the professor wanted to change about what Rutgers Newark does in terms of sustainability. What exactly would those be?
Wren: There’s a lot, you know, we’re definitely not a carbon negative campus or anything like that so there’s a lot to do in regards to emission. Some other things that we are particularly concerned about are the way that, while we have a bunch of recycling bins, there’s a lot of stuff on the back end that means that a lot of the materials we put inside the recycling bins don’t always get recycled. Additionally Lily is a scientist who studies a lot of bacteria and microbes and one of the issues that she cares about on our campus is our really heavy use of salts during the winter to reduce ice. Of course that’s a necessary thing, but with the amounts that we use those salts can leach into the soil and have effects on the microbial communities inside the soil. Especially because of Jaxon’s influence in the organization we care alot about compost on Rutgers campus and trying to do more with our food waste to promote composting. Because of Layla and Fama’s influence we have become interested in urban agriculture as well and trying to promote a connection to nature through edible plants.
Jaxon: I think there is some sort of social justice aspect…I don’t know how to phrase it.
Layla: I think a lot of it is community, we are trying to get people to come together with acceptance and a sense of healing, nature, love. You (Jaxon) have been having the weekly meetings, do you want to talk about those sharing circles a little bit?
Jaxon: We just did a sharing circle where we just talked, just held space for people.
Layla: With nature comes that community, that love. A lot of time people don’t get that. On Newark campus a lot of people are disconnected from each other.
Wren: To build on that a little bit, you can’t separate the issues that we are facing with the environment from social justice issues. There’s a lot of disproportionate impacts of different environmental issues in our society that are faced by the most marginalized communities among us. I don’t think that the disconnect that we notice in a place like Newark is because people are just naturally not interested in the environment. I think historically certain communities have made it to where people from marginalized communities struggle to see themselves inside these spaces. Part of our goal is to try to help people who may not have historically seen themselves inside the environmental movement, connect it to their own lived experience. We think that through building community would be a way to engender passion among these types of communities and then use that as a mechanism to cultivate the change we want to see in the world.
Emily: Do you see the healing garden as being an opportunity to cultivate community?
Wren: For sure. One other faculty member who is often collaborating with us, Orin Rabinowitz, is the one who introduced us to Alex Chang (Staff member at the Price Institute). I haven’t been so much a part of the planning events with the Price garden but I know our missions are similar and we see them as important collaborators and we’ve hosted some events that have taken place inside the garden. Layla and Jaxon have been the one organizing those.
Layla: I feel like, how Wren was saying that we have similar missions, one thing that RU-Eco is trying to get…it’s hard to reach out to people but collaborating with the healing garden, there’s a space that is very spiritual and healing, we’ve seen so much community there. We got a lot of people interested in the club just by being there and hosting events there. A lot of our values align and as for the events you’ve been having, we’ve been marketing it and people love them.
Wren: I think it points to the fact that no one organization on our campus can fully help us bring about the change we want to see. We all have to work together and do our individual parts to help make the machine of change work.
Layla: I want to add on to that. One of the things, as we were building RU-Eco’s values, we were talking about how community is a big thing. Reaching out to different orgs, it’s a whole ecosystem. We’re working with the Greater Newark Conservancy, Newark has its mycelium roots all touching so the healing garden is definitely a big addition to that.
Wren: Building on that ecosystem analogy it’s like every organization has its niche in the ecosystem. We really want to support the healing garden in their mission as well and it’s really awesome that we’ve been able to collaborate in the capacity that we have and hopefully we’ll see a bit more in the future.
Emily: Well speaking about the events that we’ve had, could you talk a bit about the events you’ve participated in?
Layla: The first one we participated in this semester was the garden clean up. We hosted a tea table there and that was really nice. It felt very symbiotic. Everyone was working really hard in the garden. It was a little chilly so we were making tea for everybody and everyone’s vibe was just so high and very beautiful to experience that.
Jaxon: People liked the tea, it was a successful gathering. We built some beds, and tried some herbs.
Layla: Talking about the community again, our turnout at the price garden…we got so many more people signing up on the GroupMe like: “Oh what is this club?” So it’s very helpful when trying to get members to our club. You guys have a very good ecosystem going on. One of the other members went to the seed exchange, we loved that and posted some pictures about that.
The last one I went to with Professor Layqa [Nuna Yawar], we were outside. First we had to do a portrait, then something from nature–I did a mushroom– and then a scene and we put it all together. It was great. We had members from RUEco there which was nice. We didn’t really talk about RUEco but I feel like the more events we go to, we’ll continue to get more recognition.
Emily: We definitely appreciate your participation, not only because you get to have more members through your club being able to advertise, but also we get more people who participate at our events. I think it’s a reciprocal relationship that we really appreciate. Wow, you guys are already answering a lot of the questions I had prepared…Going back to your history as a club, after only a year are you an official student organization now?
Layla: We’re not an official student org. We’re an organization under the environmental department so we’re official just not as a student organization. We get funding through grants. We’re going to have a plant sale and get some funding from that. But asking for resources from Rutgers is harder.
Emily: Are you trying to become an official student group?
Layla: They told us in the Fall we can apply to be, they had shut down the making of new orgs, but we noticed we have a lot more freedom without being a student org. It’s a bit more…I wanna say chill?
Jaxon: We don’t have to check all of the Rutgers boxes.
Layla: I do think it would be beneficial for us to be an official org as well but I am graduating this semester, so I couldn’t be on the Eboard. It would be up to the people running it next semester to decide if they want that.
Jaxon: We are looking for Eboard members if anyone is interested.
Wren: We got awarded a cultural programming grant last year and this year. The first one that we got was to put up the raised beds that you see outside of Boyden Hall in between that and the planters that we call our “conservation gardens,” which are repurposed forests that house migrating species where my lab has bird banding. We brought an artist onto campus who talked about building community through outdoor art and this semester we are also collaborating with a local artist. We want to fill those beds with plants again, and now we want to paint those raised beds so it becomes an art piece on campus and we are turning it into a communal art project. The artist we are inviting has designs and then the rest will be filled with doodles by the rest of us. It’s been nice that we are official enough to be able to qualify for more bureaucratic things but we still have the flexibility to do things our own way.
Emily: Oh you’ll have to show me those planters after we finish talking. Ok jumping around a bit… Why is urban agriculture important?
Layla: I’ve worked at an urban farm last year, for a year I did it, and one of the things I realized is that first of all we are in a food desert. Newark is food desert. It’s very hard to them to get fresh produce and people don’t even know how to cook with it. At the farm I was at, we would often give produce out for free and people would reject it! They would be like, I don’t know how to cook with that, I don’t like that, I’ve never tried that and most of the time I would ask what was in their diet and it was meat, rice, nothing to do with vegetables. I think it’s important because it is showing urban cities why this is something that should be in their diet. This is something they are so alienated from. For the people who are interested in fresh produce, when you eat something that is locally grown its better for your immune system. It educates the public, like “here this is where your food is coming from” cause there is such a big divide in cities. Alot of kids didn’t even know what a cucumber was! They’d go “What is this? I’ve never seen this!”
Jaxon: On a similar note, a lot of people don’t know what composting is and that’s part of the circle of life. That’s what happens to all biomass on earth. It’s just important. What’s going to happen to your body or any plant after it stops self organizing? It’s good to know and you can utilize composting for nutrients for other plants and to liven the soil for microbes. It has a whole ecological snowball where it livens up the whole ecosystem.
Wren: I think that, to build on what Layla was saying, I would say it’s not just an urban issues, it’s an issue in the rural and suburban parts of America that people don’t understand that there is a lot that happens before you go and buy that carrot from the grocery store. There’s a lot of energy that goes into planting that carrot, transporting that carrot, harvesting that carrot, cooking and preparing, freezing it or canning it. There’s all these different processes where energy is input and emissions come out. Talking about urban agriculture, agriculture as an educational opportunity allows people to see how this necessary part of our life intersects in this cyclical energy cycle. I also think that, as we were talking about how people feel distanced from the land and the food that we eat, that’s by design–sorry to get political–in the capitalist system that we live in. Under systems of white supremacy, people have been forced away from greenspaces and forced out of opportunities to be closer to the food systems that we have. I think about as an outdoor educator I learned about all these edible foragable plants that you can find in the forest. I was a well educated, middle class person from rural Appalachia and it took me 20-some-odd years to get that education, and I can only imagine the impacts of racial segregation that have caused people to lose access to that kind of information. Urban agriculture is a really important form of reparations to teach this knowledge that has been lost.
Emily: Yeah, and don’t apologize for getting political! I think it all is! It’s all interconnected in that way. I’ll say this as well, you talked about all the different ecosystems of the different groups on campus, you’re all saying the same things I’ve already heard. I’ve spoken with Chef Charlene, who is a gardener here, and the RU-N Pantry and they’re all saying the same things. They’ve talked about how people haven’t had certain foods before and that’s what they are trying to teach: how we get the food, here is what it is, and here is how to use it. You’re all working for the same common goal. Moving on, in regards to your place on campus, what’s your favorite thing you’ve done so far?
Layla: My favorite overall would have to be Earth Day. That was a big event.
Emily: That was last year?
Layla: Yeah. We gave out seedlings, people were interested — that one was a lot of fun. Also, the close intimate ones that we do where people get out of their shell. They may get uncomfortable at first, get out of their comfort zone. The weekly meetings with sharing circles. Remember more people wanted to do natural journaling?
Wren: I know! I need to stop being so busy.
Layla: Nature journaling — when people start to express themselves — that’s what I really love. You see that in all the events, a little here and there, that’s my favorite part.
Wren: I think the amorphous nature of our organization allows us to approach environmentalism from a lot of different vantage points. We can see it from the science angle, which is my experience, but we can also approach art as a tool to connect people to nature. We can approach by educating about history, educating about supply chain, and agriculture, all of these things intersect with the environment. The more we can pull people in from all kinds of different connections, they can see the unifying theme of the environment and that’s what is really important. Gosh, I need to do more nature journaling.
Layla: Next semester we’ll get on that!
Jaxon: We are kind of like a platform and any student that has an idea related to anything ecological, we offer. Oh you like to do something? Let’s see how we can work with you.
Layla: I just like to see when people are happy, to see them enjoying it.
Jaxon: I liked the sea moss event because of how many people got grossed out.
(Everyone laughs)
Emily: What happened at the sea moss event?
Jaxon: There’s a wonderful picture on our instagram, shoutout to our instagram, of someone who is eating algae and someone who is absolutely disgusted.
Layla: It was perfectly timed!
Wren: I wasn’t able to be present at that event but the main idea was that Orin, a plant biology professor, teaches algae as part of our biology of plants course even though it’s not a plant. Because a lot of his students were learning about algae he suggested this event for us where he would bring different kinds of edible algae, like nori or different kinds of kelp, that people may be surprised are eaten around the world. We were encouraging people to try those types of things and see what they thought.
Emily: Sounds like some people liked them better than others! Ok, a few more left, what can students in Newark do to raise awareness about environmental justice or participate in environmental activism?
Wren: Is it ok if I get a little bit bold?
Emily: Go ahead!
Wren: I think that what’s really important is that people see that the environment is connected to every major issue that we care about. We live in this very turbulent society right now where there is a lot of people who are being put in harm’s way, social issues, theres alot of people facing injustice both here in america and abroad and when you do something like going to a protest or voting your conscious, or whether you go into studying something you think will make a difference in the world, all of those actions help the environment. When we promote gender equality and racial equality, we’re helping the environment. When we promote, say, making the world more accessible, bringing awareness about injustices abroad, that helps the environment too. Some of those actions can be very bold and political, and some can put people in danger, so I don’t recommend people do that lightly, but those actions on behalf of social justice…it can be as simple as going outside and seeing a plant growing through the concrete. So many people are going to walk past that plant and call it a weed, and it’s not really important to them, but there’s a lot of really beautiful biology going on with that plant. The more that we can find these types of opportunities to see the nature around us and connect to it, the more that we can start to care about it. The more you care about it, the more you can make other choices about organizations you can join.
Jaxon: I think it’s important to not be hopeless, but not hopeful. To have a realistic expectation, outlook on what is going on with our environment. New Jersey has the most superfund sites, which are sites where the government has recognized it as an environmentally damaged zone, and New Jersey had the most per capita. There is a reality, a lot of the ecological classes here have this hopeless “we can’t do much” mentality which I dont think is helpful and does not reflect reality. There are so many solutions, it just takes cooperation. I think that’s my message, don’t have a pessimistic outlook about the environment.
Layla: Adding onto that, I think there is alot of hope. I like that our club is Newark, the Ironbound is the most polluted place in all of New Jersey. We are making change here and this is where New Jersey’s problem lies, in a way. People don’t even know or notice what’s going on, through awareness, that’s how we get change going.
Wren: And not letting the big issues that we’re facing take away your joy, to build on what Jaxon is saying. That’s where a lot of the work is done. In the job I used to work at, one of the messages for our students was that they should take something that they learned from their time at the nature center and share it with someone else. If you share it with someone else, that’s a way that the information is echoed to another person so that your care and enthusiasm can help bring about enthusiasm in other people.
Emily: Lastly, where can everyone find you?
Layla: Our social media is @RU_Eco_ on Instagram. We have a Groupme as well and I guess our “spot”, our weekly meetings are at the raised beds behind Boyden.
Emily: Great, well thank you all for joining me today!
Thank you so much RU-Eco for all the volunteer work you do with our garden and stay tuned for our next installment of Meet the Gardeners!