The Hive

Campus Gardens

The Dickinson College landscape has been changing to reflect important sustainability goals, which include a campus-wide dedication to hands-on sustainability education and stewardship. To reflect these goals, landscape design and management has focused not only on the health of plants, but on the areas that sustain them – from soil to water management, to pollinators and other wildlife, and to how the landscape is viewed. The Dickinson College landscape has become a living laboratory, enhancing what is taught in the classroom with a hands-on, real-world experience. Our campus pollinator gardens provide an opportunity for service learning, sustainability connections to classroom learning, opportunities for research and project development and most importantly support habitat for pollinators of all kinds.

Kaufman Pollinator Garden

The 2,300 sq/ft pollinator garden located at Kaufman Hall, was first planted in 2017 by students, and Cumberland County Master Gardeners Ann Dailey and Bob MacGregor. Nearly 400 pollinator and bird friendly perennials and shrubs were planted. During their time as employees with the college, Ann and Bob helped design and revamp many of the campus’s landscapes, adding colorful nectar and host plants that benefit local pollinators, while adding visual appeal to spaces that were previously covered by non-native shrubs, and grass.

Since its initial planting, the garden has provided extensive learning and engagement opportunities for our students, faculty and staff. Recent "Garden Work Days" provided opportunities for Dickinsonians to come together and work to reestablish native landscapes and pollinator habitat that had become decimated due to COVID and the shutdown of the campus.  Additionally, senior research and project opportunities have been created to focus on Dickinson's pollinator gardens.

Student Research & Projects

Student-Produced Storymap of the Kaufman Pollinator Garden
Produced by: Olivia Trombley '22, Environmental Studies