Sustainability Studies

As part of our commitment to counter food insecurity at the City of Erie, Mercyhurst University organizes the Tower Garden Lending Program, pictured here at Diehl Elementary School. These vertical aeroponic grow towers allow for the growth of leafy greens, small flowering fruits, and flowers indoors throughout all seasons. Pictured here, former VISTA Amber Marshall harvests lettuce for a 5th-grade lunch!

Urban forestry is a priority in cities such as Erie, as trees provide a myriad of benefits to city landscapes. Mercyhurst’s Tiny Forest, pictured here, is the first university-owned Tiny Forest and is host to almost 600 native trees within the space of a tennis court! We seek to plant similar forests throughout the city through collaborations with the Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier (LEAF) and Sustainability Coordinator. 

Mercyhurst’s green roof is the first visible sustainability project installed on our campus! Created using the Student Sustainability Fund in 2011, the green roof is a self-sustaining planting of mostly sedum, providing water filtration, protection for the roof, and insulation for the ceramics lab below. The green roof is a hidden treasure on our campus, used for research in our environmental science department and inspiration for local organizations.

Mercyhurst's sustainability commitment goes beyond our gates and into the City of Erie. With partnerships formed throughout the city, a Mercyhurst education gives opportunities for innovative collaborations with businesses, nonprofits, local school districts, and neighborhoods. Pictured here, Sustainability Coordinator Molly Tarvin and Coordinator of Service and Justice Deonte Cooley serve Mercyhurst-grown salads at United Way’s National Night Out, complete with lettuce, kohlrabi, parsley, kale, and chives!

A natural compliment to the Sustainability Studies major, we would be remiss not to mention our fantastic Environmental Science department! The Environmental Science faculty is heavily involved in our campus’s sustainability office and coursework through fieldwork, outdoor research, and studies such as ecology, botany, forestry, and geology. Pictured here, our Environmental Science and Biology professors help weed the Tiny Forest over the summer. 

While a Sustainability Studies major will give you all the experience you need to build a skill set and passion, opportunities for further participation are available through the Office of Sustainability! With paid employment and supervision under the Sustainability Coordinator, student workers have the flexibility to design and implement sustainability projects around campus. Examples of past projects include crocheting plastic bags into mats, a garden-based recipe book, and an investigation of LED lighting replacements in our academic buildings. Pictured here, student worker Morgan proudly shows the potato she helped dig from the garden!

Sustainable lifestyles are encouraged here at Mercyhurst, and creative ways to reduce an individual's environmental footprint are always embraced. Pictured here, students involved with the Sustainability club proudly display their canned tomatoes, a method of preserving the tomato harvest from our garden’s growing season! Other lost arts practiced on campus include natural fiber collection, jelly making, turmeric anthotypes, and rope making. 

Our most recent addition to the campus’s green infrastructure is our rooftop greenhouse, proudly opened to the public in November 2023. This greenhouse will serve as a conservatory for interesting plants, a growing space for year-round vegetables, a research opportunity for classes, student projects, and a workplace for gardening and potting in preparation for the growing season. Featuring such plants as a Venus fly trap, a rubber tree, a living stone, and a banana tree, the greenhouse is a beautiful oasis during the chilly winter months.