Blog

By Author: Jim Highland

What brings together beekeeping research, a garlic growing workshop, occupational therapy research on nature-based, sensory interventions and an event students love called Chickenfest? That’s right: Slippery Rock University’s Macoskey Center for Sustainability, Education and Research.

I visited SRU’s Macoskey Center on Friday, March 29^th to talk to the center’s Director, Samantha (Sami) Bortz about what the Macoskey Center’s goals are, what kind of programs it has, what challenges it has faced and what activities people can expect from the center in the near future. This was actually an interview we had planned to do a year ago, around the time of an event for environmental activists held at SRU called the Campfire Gathering, but I was very busy helping to organize and run that event, and Sami was busy with Macoskey duties and grant writing (more on that below), and we both got crazy busy. So, a year later, we said let’s do this interview. It was a great conversation, but since I didn’t bring a recorder, I don’t have a lot of direct quotations to use, so the following is a commentary based on our discussion which went on for at least an hour and a half. Many thanks to Sami Bortz for taking all of that time to let folks know what the Macoskey Center at SRU is, does, and hopes to be in the future!

As Sami explains it, education is the primary focus of the Macoskey Center, but there are professors who also conduct research at the Center. The director has two graduate assistants that are from the Master’s of Environmental Education & Parks and Resource Management programs and reports to the Dean of the College of Engineering & Science. The Center is technically an academic department without any faculty. However, the Center has collaborations with multiple academic departments and faculty that either conduct research, participate in project-based learning, or participate in a curricular-tied specialty program that the Center’s staff creates. For instance, Dr. Amber Eade (SRU Biology), maintains and does research via the Rock Apiary (beehive center), located behind the Center’s Greenhouse. She has shown how to have success with the bees, in an area (the center) where they do not use pesticides. She is a lab-based biologist who conducts chemo-sensory research about the honey bees at the Center, training honey bees to distinguish between flowers and trees that are pesticide-laden and those that are not. She has demonstrated sustainable honey production. The apiary has led to educational demonstrations as well as research and, well…honey, that they sell to SRU’s Boozel Dining Hall. Dr. Eade presents at the Center’s Summer Camps, telling youngsters about the importance of honey bees, and hrough the student group she advises, the Pollination Organization, hosts meetings of the Central Western PA Beekeepers Association, of which Dr. Eade is the President.

While the Center, itself, has no faculty, SRU faculty can hold classes at the Center or send students for special programs or volunteering opportunities. (Near the end of my interview with the Director, a student knocked on the door asking about just such an opportunity.) The Parks and Recreation Department makes the most use of the Center, but the Biology and Psychology Departments also make use of it. Dr. Catherine Massey, for instance, teaches an Environmental Psychology course at SRU. (I had spoken with Dr. Massey just before driving out to the Macoskey Center, in relation to an event that the local environmental group, Citizens’ Environmental Association of the Slippery Rock Area (CEASRA) held at SRU the day before, and she noted that Environmental Problems are not problems of the environment, but problems in how people behave in relation to the environment; hence the connection to Psychology.)

The Exercise Science Program has been developing outdoor exercise prescriptions at the Center, creating exercise programs for rural settings.

There is also Occupational Therapy research (a doctoral thesis for occupational therapy) being conducted, with protocols being developed for nature-based, sensory interventions for children in the Autism Spectrum, or who have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The Nurture with Nature Sensory Workshop Series was a program series in March facilitated by an OT doctoral student. This workshop series partnered with parents/guardians to implement strategies for emotional regulation in their children: helping people calm down or get stimulation, depending on whether they are sensory-seeking or sensory-avoidant. This work done at Macoskey will also inform how they conduct Summer Camps for youngsters, and they have also developed “sensory kits” that people can rent to use with activities wherever they live. You can find more information about these sensory kits here: https://linktr.ee/macoskeycenter

The apiary is a prime example of practicing honey production without harmful pesticides. While there is a chance the bees can fly beyond the 70 acres of the Macoskey Center grounds (which do not use pesticides), there are so many flowers to pollinate there that it’s unlikely the bees ever go much farther afield. Honey bee enthusiasts will tell you that there are a number of factors that can lead to beehives failing, but the Apiary has had remarkable success without the use of pesticides.

I asked about regenerative agriculture, and Director Bortz said that the Center does not have the resources, and needs more expertise, to do regenerative agriculture (i.e. SRU does not currently have any agricultural academic programs). However, they implement some regenerative and organic practices in the management of their Learning Garden. This is located in the backyard of the Center and has 18 raised beds that are used for educational programming. A local farmer, Derek Kellogg, does regenerative agriculture on his nearby farm (i.e. Glacial Till Farm), and they have some access to his expertise and partner with him to do some collaborative backyard sustainable gardening programming at the Center. Though the Center is not able to do as much with sustainable agriculture presently, they have more focus on what the backyard gardener can do. For instance (and to my excitement) there is a Garlic Growing Workshop in the Fall!

When the Macoskey Center officially opened in 1990, an MS3 program (Masters of Science in Sustainable Systems) had been proposed and approved; it began in the Fall of 1990 and continued until 2012. It was dismantled in 2012, and that year was the last time the Center had a full-time director for eight years. There were a series of part-time directors after that, and Sami became a part-time director in 2017. In 2020, she became a full-time director. Needless to say, the Macoskey Center is subject to the decisions and priorities of administrators including the President of SRU and the Chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. However, the Macoskey Center strives for greater outreach and impact on the lives of everyone, with the goal that every student (and every person) sees how sustainability can be part of any career they pursue and a part of their personal lives as well. Faculty are invited to link aspects of their classes to sustainability and to integrate sustainability into future jobs.

The Macoskey Center has faith that if people come to the center, they will like what they find and take something that they learn with them when they go. They keep Dr. Robert A. Macoskey’s vision of “…a project in which people from all walks of life and all ages could begin to work out the dynamics of the new story.” So they have programs that “bring folks in” and others that keep them coming back. Their largest event that draws about 500 people from the region every year is Earth Fest. This is a free event that is open to the general public featuring regionally sourced food and refreshments, live music, pony rides for kids, a local vendor market, a raffle basket fundraiser, environmental education activities for all ages, an electric car show, and the student sustainability project spotlight. This year it is taking place on Saturday, April 20^th 12-5pm. The Center also offers programs focused on homemade bath and body products that do not toxify the body are popular, and the annual Chickenfest happens during Welcome Back Week. It may be a little silly, but students love the chickens at the Macoskey Center! Some students come from a rural background, so this is like home. Others are from the cities, but have deep commitments to environmental protection and sustainability and are just passionate about the environment (a lot of Gen Z students care about the environment generally). Most people love the Macoskey Center once they get here. Staff at the center build trust, friendship, fun and relationships, and that bring other people back. They seek friendships across the political aisle, and efforts to find common ground. They can be an island of sustainability that stands apart from the animosity in contemporary discourse. Whether people hunt and fish, or are passionate about environmental dangers and endangered species, everyone has a place here at Macoskey and a role to play. After trust is established, they can help educate people about the environment with practical advice on choices and practices. People then realize this isn’t “the place where the hippies work,” but a thriving center for research, education and life skills essential for sustainable life. The center would like to take a deeper dive into Environmental Justice work, and programs on zero-waste and efforts to limit plastic use, especially single-use plastics that are turning up everywhere, but, of course, they can only do so much with the resources they currently have.

Programs for local public schools are limited by what the schools are able to do. So many schools have limited time available for field trips. There is so much emphasis on preparation for standardized testing. The travel time often makes it impossible for schools to devote the time to going to the center itself. People at the center have to go to the schools, and that means they have to find the money to travel to the schools.

So, the center is doing more fundraising work: grant writing as well as grassroots fundraising. It’s a little like running a Nonprofit, in that sense. They are hoping to build a membership program, and implement an annual Fall Fundraising Dinner. And, most recently, the Macoskey Center was awarded a DCED Greenway Trails and Recreation Program Grant of $250,000 to create more environmentally friendly and sustainable trails, as well as an ADA-accessible pathway and parking area, and trails across their wetlands, so that more people have access and can learn and enjoy all of the features of the Macoskey Center. This grant was an idea that Director Bortz started working on in 2017 with a fellow graduate assistant, applied for in May of 2023, and just found out that they had received. The grant will provide for improvements that can be examples for other institutions and companies to follow. Similar to the zero waste movement, they will use surfaces and material types with permeable pavement to increase accessibility but protect wetlands. Civil and Mechanical Engineers can learn from this example of what is possible and that asphalt and concrete are not the only options. The grant will also help fund more educational programming.

They are aware that things at a University can change, as they did in 2012. Currently SRU and many other colleges and universities are preparing for what is called the 2025 demographic cliff: studies have predicted a significant drop in enrollment by 18 yr. olds in higher education starting in 2025. Right now, Slippery Rock University is in better financial shape than most of the schools of the State System: they are in the second best financial state, topped only by West Chester. But everyone will feel the pinch in the coming years, so the Macoskey Center, to sustain it’s sustainability efforts, needs to raise money.

Director Bortz would love for more people to visit the center, but if you are also passionate about sustainability and the environment, and would like to help the center continue it’s education and research work, please check out “Ways to Give” on Slippery Rock University Foundation’s website here: https://www.srufoundation.org/waystogive.html. Simply choose which way you would prefer to give and designate the Macoskey Center as the recipient of that gift. Another way you can support the Center is by promoting and/or attending their events and programming. You can sign up for their monthly e-newsletter and stay up to date on all of their happenings here: https://linktr.ee/macoskeycenter. In the near future, a few upcoming events and programs include: Earth Fest on Sat, April 20^th – 12-5pm (mentioned above), Birds & Bagels on Tues., April 23^rd – 8-9:15am, and the MC’s Summer Camps which are happening on the weeks of June 10^th, June 24^th, July 15^th, and July 29^th.

Thanks again to Director Sami Bortz for helping people in Western PA (and across PA) integrate sustainability and environmental wisdom into their professional and personal lives!