The course proved so successful, we see it as a regular May Term offering, one that will ready the garden for the growing season.

Other courses have incorporated a module of garden work into their design, including:

• Environmental Philosophy,
• Nutrition and Energy Balance,
• American Writing of Nature, and
• RE / Imagining Cities, designed to explore key issues in urban sustainability.

Our Academic Skills course for first-year students has sections visiting the garden - and so too does our first year book discussion project. And before the academic year begins, entering students have the opportunity to involve themselves in CLASS (Community Learning and Sustainability Students), a week-long pre-orientation service program, organized by Transy's Office of Community Service and Civic Engagement. CLASS will give entering students a chance to examine practical sustainability issues (thinking about food, water and energy) and engage in service activities in the Transylvania Community Garden and other neighborhood gardens. 

In this way the garden grows in Transylvania's imagination! A garden, of course, is a very physical place, a plot with soil and plants and a rich diversity of other life forms. Yet, gardens are also cultural, they are a very human project and have a long history. Generation after generation we cultivate the meanings of gardens - and this small garden of ours keeps this valuable cultural project alive for us at Transylvania.