Swarthmore is a pretty place. With a renowned arboretum, a Cotswold-style bell tower, and a natural woodland of our own, I doubt anyone would take a strong stance against that statement. Nonetheless, how many of us actually take our surroundings to heart? Life at Swat can get pretty busy, especially with midterms and finals approaching quickly. Often engrossed in our own studies, we take for granted the halcyon that nourishes us. Living in the ville, I walk up and down Magill roughly five times a day on my way to and from class. That is 35 times per week, 140 times per month, and 420 times per semester. From time to time, as I slowly make my descent down the hill after a long day of class, I wonder how much of this campus I’m really making a personal connection with. Am I feeling my surroundings? Why is it important that I should connect to those around me? How can I make this happen?
Last fall, in search of a new on-campus job, I came across a listing titled “Gardener” on JobX for the college’s grounds department. The job description said that applicants should have a basic understanding of gardening. This ranges from being able to use tools such as pickaxes and shovels to having an interest in the classification of the local florae. At that time, I had just completed a month of archaeological excavation in Sparti, Greece. Many of the skills seemed to be transferable, so I applied. After an initial application process and a round of interviews, I was hired for the job beginning with a double two-hour shift every week.
Gardening at Swarthmore, in broad terms, means tending to all college grounds. However, looking back on the work I have done over the past year, it is hard to summarize exactly what the job entails. Weeding, sweeping, and raking are among the most common tasks, though we also lay seeds for new plants, water grasses, and occasionally pick up trash. So there I am, every Monday and Friday for the past school year, doing the things above again and again. At times, I feel a strong dissonance between gardening and my quick-paced life as a student. As we strive for academic and professional success by drenching ourselves in one after another deadline to complete, it seems counterintuitive to spend time on something so simple and repetitive. Nevertheless, acting as a “speed bump,” gardening has proven to be the source of many inspirations and support during my time at Swarthmore so far.
Immersing oneself in campus nature as its caretaker offers a completely different feeling and perspective from being a mere spectator on campus. Whether I like it or not, I am required to make physical contact with the golden Gingko, the gigantic American beeches, and the abandoned beehives. I didn’t enjoy all of the chores, but for the ones that I did enjoy, the interactions I had with them developed into emotional relationships that created a sense of community. And it was at that moment when I realized there is in fact an art within gardening.
As I walk around campus, I am reminded of the peonies that I planted last fall in front of the IC dome, the hard work we put in seeding the new grasses in the amphitheater this September, and the ivies next to Olde Club that I trimmed last week. Rushing to class, I would probably never pay attention to these details, but now they have constituted part of my understanding of what belonging means at Swarthmore.
As I end this article, I want to return to the questions I posed at the beginning and challenge you all to think about how you engage with the campus environment and how that constitutes part of your Swarthmore experience. As a student, we have the opportunity to be both a spectator and a participant of our campus environment. It is our choice whether we want to take an active role in maintaining the community that we share.
