Cover Story…12–13 | Homecoming - University of the District of ...

Campus news
Farmers’ Market at UDC
feeds the body and mind
The University of the District of
Columbia’s Community Outreach
and Extension Services and the Mid-
Atlantic Growers and Consumers
Cooperative (MAGCC) launched
the city’s newest, most innovative farmers’
market on the University’s campus
in July. The market, which was created
to provide healthy, nutritional foods
to local residents, sold fresh fruits and
vegetables at affordable prices and will
eventually expand the product line to
include free-range meats, dairy products
and more.
Consumers benefit from access to
food for the table and food for
thought, as the market also offers free
research-based publications and on-site
consultations to help residents improve
their quality of life with regard to
nutrition, financial literacy, gardening,
parenting, home repair, water quality
and more.
As the nation’s only urban land grant
institution and the city’s only public
institution for higher education, UDC
conducts research on matters relevant
to the District and extends beneficial,
research-based information to residents
through its land grant units, the
Agricultural Experiment Station and
the Cooperative Extension Service.
The market opened this summer at
the entrance of the UDC campus,
conveniently located on Metro’s Red
Line at the Van Ness stop.
Quinton Robinson, market manager,
remarked, “The creation of this market
is exciting and unique because of our
focus on supporting local farmers and
providing access to healthy food alternatives
for urban dwellers.”
MAGCC is a DC-based organization
composed of farmers and consumers in
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington,
Virginia and North Carolina. It is dedicated
to providing urban consumers
with a consistent source of regionally
grown fresh foods.
Fiber optics link students in
distance learning initiative
UDC students had an extraordinary
opportunity to plug into the expertise
of other universities via fiber optic
technology in a program that started
Sept. 17. It was a project that had been
months in the making and linked students
in Washington, DC, to students
and professors in other states. The idea
is to expand the scope of instruction
and get input from multiple sources
in the course of a class.
Strongly advocated and supported by Dr.
Suzan Harkness, assistant dean in UDC’s
Center for Academic Technology, the
initiative has been enthusiastically
endorsed by all the partners involved.
The first course, in political science,
included participation by Harkness’
students and students from Pace
University in New York, George
Mason University in Fairfax, VA,
and Denver University in Colorado.
During the course of the classes,
students had the opportunity to learn
directly from experienced professors
and from national newsmakers,
including authors Richard Wolffe
and Stephen Farnsworth, former Bush
campaign manager Joe Allbaugh and
former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Classes were held each Thursday in
the University’s television studio.
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