Our nursery provides high-quality, local, sustainably grown native plants to the UW community. Our nursery grows and procures native plants for groups like the SER-UW RSO and the UW-Restoration Ecology Network (REN) Capstone program, contributing thousands of plants annually for restoration projects on and around campus. The SER-UW Native Plant Nursery also provides invaluable experiences to students’ academic journey through programs such as our for-credit undergraduate internship, our partnerships with the Community Engagement & Leadership Education (CELE) Center, and by hosting tours and providing resources for UW classes (such as ESRM/ENVIR 362 and ESRM 412). In the 2022-23 school year, we hosted nearly 600 students and recorded over 1,800 volunteer hours.

Student involvement is fundamental to nursery operations and provides opportunities for engagement on all levels. Our internship program, which takes on a cohort of four to eight interns per quarter, provides a combination of education and hands-on experience. Interns receive training through a curriculum developed by the nursery manager and student assistant on horticultural topics and native plant identification. This training is directly applied to nursery work, providing robust professional development in the field of horticulture. Interns are able to further apply training through an individual project, which allows interns to tailor their internship to their own professional goals. Projects result in high-impact deliverables that are incorporated into nursery operations, including, but not limited to, infrastructure design, experimental design and execution resulting in original research, and recommendations for future growth and direction. Project funding would result in increased project impact that would maximize student initiative and creativity, as costs of materials limit the scope of projects. Also, funding for infrastructure improvements would create additional structured avenues for interns to take on and execute high-impact projects.

Our student assistant position is critical to the regular operation of the nursery. This position offers a unique opportunity for students to guide an organization at a high level, through tasks including, but not limited to, long-term project management for research and contract-grows, training and management of interns and volunteers, ideating and executing improvements to nursery workflow, steering future growth of the nursery, and fundraising. Continued funding of this position would foster student leadership at the nursery, as well as provide administrative support to sustain and expand keystone programs like the internship. Additionally, as candidates for this position are routinely drawn from former interns, this role provides a professional development ladder that is a valuable stepping stone to a full-time career in a related field upon graduation.

The nursery offers a variety of volunteer opportunities. Through our partnership with the CELE Center, we regularly host two to three CELE volunteers per quarter, who participate in nursery activities under the guidance of the nursery manager and/or student assistant. This service learning experience through the CELE Center is a requirement for many introductory courses at UW, and provides an entry way for volunteers into the fields of horticulture and restoration. The nursery also holds biweekly work parties, facilitated and advertised by the nursery manager, student assistant, and intern team, where we engage with volunteers by demonstrating and applying basic nursery tasks.

The requested funding in this proposal would support critical staff members that run these programs as well as provide an opportunity to enhance program quality.