Davidson College issued the following announcement on Nov. 10.
The Pat Peroni Greenhouse is in its final stages of construction. It will offer state-of-the-art features, including climate control, automated shades, and grow lights. And more so, it’ll offer a new space for students in the classrooms below—in biology, environmental studies, chemistry, and more—to conduct research that hasn’t been possible here before.
“Students are very interested in plants and how they impact society, which could be anything from an interest in agriculture and sustainable food supply to learning about ecology and the role that plants play in green cities,” said Susana Wadgymar, assistant professor of biology. “But we didn’t have a facility where we could grow plants in a way that allowed to students to develop hypotheses or address them with experiments. This greenhouse will provide a space for students to do that, either in their independent research with faculty or as part of a class.”
The driving force behind this greenhouse was its namesake, Professor Pat Peroni. Peroni began teaching at Davidson College in 1992, and she often took students out of the classroom and into the field for her classes in ecology, plant biology and environmental studies.
Peroni’s dream was to have a greenhouse on campus to bring some of those lessons closer to students. While the campus did have an older greenhouse, it was a basic structure that lacked temperature control and other features that would allow students to conduct experiments there.
Peroni died in 2019. Her colleagues in the biology department took on her dream as their own. They found partners at the college—David Holthouser, the director of facilities management, and Phillip Jefferson, the vice president of academic affairs and dean of faculty—who helped to make her dream a reality.
Soon, students and faculty will conduct plant research in a new greenhouse on the roof of the Wall Center, just an elevator ride away from their classrooms and offices. As the academic calendar extends from fall through spring—including the roughest times of the year to grow plants—this greenhouse will allow students to conduct plant experiments year-round.
Original source can be found here.
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