Campus Sustainability

The Edible Campus Initiative began with a few folks interested in picking weeds. Since then, it’s grown from its humble garden root to a community dedicated to cultivating a collective and individual relationship with the earth.

The garden is an outlet for research and education outside the classroom. The hands-on collective effort to educate members on agricultural justice, indigenous stories, and ecological improvement has made way for sanctuary outside the hustle and bustle of campus life.

Sydney Spencer (’22) and Ashley Hocking (’24) holding artist TreVaughn Ellis (’24) in front of the garden mural

Everything is grown pesticide free.

  1. The Community Garden: the flagship garden produces the majority of our fruits and vegetables. Students, faculty, and passersby are free to join the festivities, gardeners regularly host potlucks, garden parties, and other events. 
  2. The Companion Garden: the small plot of land is home to numerous pollinators and students escaping the sun. This garden largely produces herbs.

Fall 2021 the Community Garden unveiled the garden mural painted by club member, TreVaughn Ellis. Stepping up their community involvement, gardeners partnered with other sustainability clubs on campus to draw more awareness to local environmental issues. 

Currently, the garden is working on producing food for the AU Food Pantry, introducing local children to the joy of dirt, encouraging students to reconnect with nature, and engaging in weekly land acknowledgments.

The Garden Club is a soft commitment. Gardeners are expected to enjoy their time in our campus sanctuary, if that means showing up at every other club meeting or staying behind to discuss harvest strategy is up to you!

Bee in the process of pollinating at the community garden

The AU Beekeeping Society is a dedicated group of current and future beekeepers. AU made a commitment to climate change and the beekeeping society helps sustain that promise by keeping an on-campus beehive on the Mary Graydon Center rooftop. 

While sleepy in the winter, the pollinators are free to roam campus maintaining our local ecosystem.

Admiring bees and observing the hive isn’t the only community action the beekeepers take! Once a semester the Beekeeping Society partners with the D.C. Beekeepers Alliance to take free beekeeping classes.

Students work hands-on with the maintenance of the hive and eventual harvest of honey all while learning about the importance of balance within natural systems from scales as large as a campus to as small as a frame of bees!

The Beekeeping Society takes students of all experience levels!

Wonk Trade volunteers advocating for clothing sustainability on campus

The culmination of an important independent study, the Zero Waste Club at AU is a student-run trading & exchange post. 

Known amongst the students as Wonk Trade, the community trading post hosts clothing swaps, art events, plant fairs, and promotes educational action involving zero waste organizations in the greater D.C. area.

Discover a unique opportunity at AU!

A national program, the AU chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) focuses on leaving a positive impact on the environment and increasing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) awareness at AU and around the District of Columbia. ESW has a special place at American, a generally international relations-oriented university, focusing on sustainability through engineering.

Each semester, ESW chooses a club project. Previously, students successfully engineered a smoothie bike and partnered with The Community Garden to build a seed library.

ESW encourages everyone to join! No experience required! For more information on joining, click on the Involvement Page.

Two volunteers posing behind a donation bin during Spring 2022 moveout

One of Wonk Trade’s greatest contributions to the greater D.C. community: Project Moveout.

With community volunteers, Project Moveout asks all students to donate whatever’s left in their dorms. Collection bins are deposited around campus, and motivated volunteers sort through the myriad of clothing, hangers, storage items, kitchenware, room décor, and school supplies.

In partnership with The Market, AU’s Food Pantry, Project Moveout asks that all non-perishable and unopened food is donated.