Corn on the Quad

Come to today's panel discussion/brown bag: "The Science of Food" from 12:00 to 1:00 in Kunkle Auditorium!

The panel will explore will explore the scientific perspectives of food’s growth and consumption. The session will be led by Wayne Leibel, Kreider Professor and head of biology; Steven Mylon, assistant professor of chemistry; Elaine Reynolds, associate professor of biology and chair of neuroscience; David Sunderlin, assistant professor of geology and environmental geosciences; and Peter Zani, visiting assistant professor of biology. Lunch will be provided.

Again, 12:00 noon in Kunkle Auditorium--

Wayne Leibel, Biology
Steve Mylon, Chemistry
Elaine Reynolds, Biology, Neuroscience
David Sunderlin, Geology
Peter Zani, Biology

Continue the conversation about the freshman summer reading, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, with science professors from

Come to today's panel discussion/brown bag: "The Science of Food" from 12:00 to 1:00 in Kunkle Auditorium!

The panel will explore will explore the scientific perspectives of food’s growth and consumption. The session will be led by Wayne Leibel, Kreider Professor and head of biology; Steven Mylon, assistant professor of chemistry; Elaine Reynolds, associate professor of biology and chair of neuroscience; David Sunderlin, assistant professor of geology and environmental geosciences; and Peter Zani, visiting assistant professor of biology. Lunch will be provided.

Again, 12:00 noon in Kunkle Auditorium--

Wayne Leibel, Biology
Steve Mylon, Chemistry
Elaine Reynolds, Biology, Neuroscience
David Sunderlin, Geology
Peter Zani, Biology

Continue the conversation about the freshman summer reading, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, with science professors from

The Corn Harvest Festival is set for Wednesday, September 10. Come sample the corn and enjoy a great line-up of entertainment and activities. Festival time is 4:15-6:45 pm, on the quad, of course. We'll likely be picking corn in the 3:00 hour--all are welcome for that, as well. Here is a list of happenings at the Corn Fest:

Fresh Corn
Cherokee Indian Songs
Native American Storytelling
NAtive American Dance and Drumming
Composting
Corn Husk No-face Doll making
Local Farming
Corn and South America
Ethanol
Solar Panels
Making Paper with Corn Husks

teo other activites earlier in the day:

12:00-1:00 pm, an interdisciplinary brown bag panel discussion: "How We Got Where we Are (with Corn) Today" in the Gendebien Room of Skillman Library.

and from 2:30-4:00, English 140: Introduction to Film will screen KING CORN, a strange and entertaining journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation.

A first-year student had a good question the other day: Why grow this corn on the campus when Michael Pollan himself suggests that the growing of so much corn is such a problem? Why embrace and further enable a monoculture of King Corn? That reasonable question can be answered in a number of ways:

We grew the corn to add an experiential component to the reading of Pollan’s book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Plant Ops kindly watered the quad corn Thursday—it was screaming for moisture after a 3 week stretch with very little rain. Stalks along quad drive were turning yellow a third of the way up from the ground. We asked for some help here, to get us to the weekend when what’s left of Hurricane Hannah is supposed to move through the valley. Before that, Plant Ops had not watered since the end of June.

Hannah moved through on Saturday, soaking the fields and bringing some relief. Several stalks of field corn we found toppled in the Skillman Library plot. These may have been knocked down by either 2- or 4-legged critters, but it is also possible that the ground got saturated and the wind knocked down the top-heavy plants. We know from planting in June that this ground tends to stay fairly wet—perhaps due to water coming of the roof of the Library and, especially on the left side of the plot, the fact that it gets less afternoon sun once it falls behind the building.

On Tuesday students picked and donated 3 dozen ears of corn to the Safe Harbor shelter down at the bottom of the hill along Bushkill Drive. Safe Harbor, started by Lafayette students, was delighted to have the fresh corn and the students loved being able to provide it to individuals who don’t often get fresh food. This connection was made via Bonnie Winfield, Landis Community Outreach Coordinator, who gave the students a fascinating history lesson on the establishment of Safe Harbor.

Several of the worker bee students tasted the corn in the field—raw—and their eyes popped! They couldn’t believe how sweet and delicious it was. It was especially fun to see those students who planted and tended the crop get to reap this quiet, tasty reward. It’s an achievement that will never show up on a transcript. The great Jonathan Edwards (of Great Awakening fame) wrote about the difference between the knowledge that a stove is hot and the knowledge gained by touching the stove; knowing that honey is sweet, but then tasting honey for the first time. This knowledge burst seemed a lot like this kind of experiential difference. Probably not soon forgotten.

Some of the most eye opening and educational aspects of the corn on the quad project are the things that arise as the project attempts to move out into the larger community. This week we learned that the corn we have grown on the quad will not be cooked by the campus dining service, Sodexo. After we requested Dining Services work with us to prepare the corn at a campus-wide event or, alternately, that we work with Dining Services to integrate our locally grown corn into their offerings in the dining halls, word came down from the Dean’s office that Sodexo’s corporate policies prohibit them from preparing any food they do not completely control. Sodexo recommended we donate the corn (though not to students), buy corn approved by Sodexo, after which they would happy cook it for us. This was a surprise and disappointing. We had not predicted such a reaction, especially since Sodexo has expressed interest in helping with the campus’s “live green

We are working on a Corn Harvest Festival for Wednesday, September 10 in the late afternoon and early evening. The idea here is to have an open celebration of the crop coming in--to share in the bounty, to learn about issues connected to corn production, and to have fun. Assuming our weather holds, we will be on the quad from 4:15-6:45--we will have Native American stomp dancing and powwow music, singing, storytelling, and Iroquois corn husk doll making. There will be conversation about ethanol, corn genetics, composting, corn in South America, and turning corn husks into paper. And if we can arrange it, we will be picking and roasting the corn for all to try! More details will become available shortly--All are welcome!

We found five ears of corn laying besides the Farinon plot yesterday. Someone had gone into and picked the corn, then stacked it beside the plot on the grass. Or maybe somebody picked it and others arranged it--who knows. This was disappointing. The corn was not ready to be picked--it was underdeveloped and had to be tossed (composted). We have all our fingers crossed that people will respect the corn long enough to let it mature and let us harvest and share it with everyone--and that day is coming soon. Still, students in the corn is something we imagined would be an issue. We were very happy that the Johns Hopkins high school students who were here during the summer respected the corn; they gave it the chance when the corn plants were small and stayed clear to let it develop. Now there are a lot more students on campus and lot more traffic on the quad. And college students are not high school students.

Several media types have done or are working on stories about Lafayette's "Live Green" initiative. The Philadelphia Inquirer came to campus to take photos and included Lafayette in a story about campus green projects that appear in the paper Monday, 8/25. Channel 69 WFMZ-TV was on campus today for a story about the corn and compost projects that aired Wednesday night and is viewable on-line. The Chronicle of Higher Education is working on a piece that should appear in print and on-line in the next couple of weeks. Rumor has it that even the Lafayette student newspaper is working on a story.