HWS Food Purchasing Assessment
Since 2012, Hobart and William Smith students have worked to recognize and support an institutional commitment to procurement of ‘real food’ – food that is local or community based, fair, ecologically sound and/or humane. Through utilization of the Real Food Challenge Calculator Tool, students have analyzed Sodexo Dining Service food receipts to calculate the percent ‘real food’ purchased by HWS. A Food Assessment Intern is typically hired each semester with support provided by Sodexo HWS and the Office of Sustainability. Past interns include:
Deirdre O’Malley, Fall 2019
Bridget Kiejna ’20, Spring 2019
Bee Campus USA-HWS
Hobart and William Smith Colleges leads efforts to benefit pollinators on campus and in Geneva, NY. Our students and campus community incorporates pollinator conservation and education in our land management, coursework, service learning, research, and community engagement. There are honeybee hives kept at HWS Fribolin Farm as well as land set aside for native pollinators. In working collaboratively with Sodexo Campus Services, our campus landscape is maintained, managed, and conserved with pollinators in mind. Hobart and William Smith Colleges became a Bee Campus USA affiliate in February 2019 by forming a leadership committee of students, faculty, and administrators/staff and began work on creating a HWS Pollinator Habitat Plan. The committee, led by farm staff Sarah Meyer, works to mobilize integral programs to raise awareness, expand habitat, and celebrate gains for pollinators, through such efforts as developing a campus habitat plan, hosting events and workshops, sponsoring service learning projects, and offering pollinator focused curriculum and public outreach. HWS Fribolin Farm supports Bee Campus USA by hiring farm interns to work on Bee Campus USA initiatives and pollinator research.
Tree Campus USA
In 1877, brothers William, Thomas, and Edward Smith purchased an amount of acreage of White Springs Farm to expand Geneva's first nursery which they created in 1846. For over a century, tree conservation has remained an integral value to HWS as nurseryman William Smith later founded William Smith College in 1908. In recognition of the Colleges' excellence in tree care and education, the Colleges has retained a designation of Arbor Day Foundation Tree Campus USA since 2012. HWS interns have conducted an inventory of trees on campus to focus their investigation on calculating the monetary and environmental value of our urban forest. The HWS Tree Advisory Committee meets twice a year and endorses a Campus Tree Care Plan and other Sodexo HWS natural resource conservation policies and procedures.