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May 23, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – Students from Barry University in Miami, Florida, and Siena Heights University in Adrian extended their education beyond the spring semester by participating in the Environmental Leadership Experience (ELE) offered by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Both universities were founded by and are sponsored by the Congregation.

From May 13 to 18, 2024, the students toured the Motherhouse Permaculture site, planted a “pocket forest,” learned about carbon sequestration and measured trees for their sequestration potential, planted trees near the Congregation’s cemetery to help control erosion, analyzed pond water, helped to release fish into the pond, and enjoyed field trips to local areas such as a vernal pool at Heritage Park in Adrian and Hidden Lake Gardens in Brooklyn, Michigan. 

The eight Barry University students, two Siena Heights University students, and their mentors concluded the formal portion of their week on May 17 with a lively and enlightening presentation to the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

The students and their mentors were accompanied by and learned from Brad Frank, Director of the Office of Sustainability; Mike Walters, Permaculture Specialist; Sister Corinne Sanders, OP, General Councilor and former Director of the Office of Sustainability. Mentors attending were Celeste Landeros, PhD, Professor of English and Humanities, and Betsy Thomas, Assistant Vice-President of Enrollment Services, from Barry University, and Jeffrey Lake, Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Siena Heights University. 

In preparation for the week, Mike had 700 trees in cold storage, ready to be planted at the cemetery and in Permaculture as a pocket forest. “A pocket forest is an intensely planted woodland area,” in which numerous trees are planted typically in an 800- to 1,200-square-foot area, about three per square meter, Mike explained. “You plant everything really close and they race for the sun. Maintain it for three years and it’s self-sustaining.” He said pocket forests “shortcut the process” of growing a forest; pocket forests mature in only 15 to 20 years.

“The planting of the pocket forest is for 100 years in the future,” Brad explained. “It’s for the next generations.”

This year’s ELE participants also had the unique experience of introducing fish into the pond located on the Motherhouse land. The fish were scheduled to arrive at the pond during the ELE so that students could learn about how the fish provide benefits to the local ecosystem. “The fish are complementing the entire habitat,” Brad said, explaining that they “increase the biodiversity within the pond. This is habitat restoration.” 

The ELE is “set up to be an outside experience, getting your hands dirty,” Brad said in an interview prior to ELE. But he also hoped to go beyond the physical experience. “I’m going to be more cognizant this year to interweave throughout the week the practice of sustainable lifestyles … and encourage sustainable living,” Brad said. “That will be an undercurrent for me, in addition to mentioning the most vulnerable groups of people who are impacted by climate change.”

The intended lessons were not lost on the students. Caleb, a freshman studying computer science and music at Barry University and a member of Barry’s environmental Green Team, said he was interested in coming to Michigan to participate in the ELE. “Regardless of our profession, it’s very important to learn about environmental sustainability because we all live on the same Earth,” he said. “We’re going to be living on it and we want to make sure it’s a safe and clean environment.”

Breauna, a senior at Barry University studying business management, said she’s been practicing sustainability on her own. “We all play our part and we all have to do more to end climate change,” she said. 

The students also appreciated the opportunity to visit Michigan and to get to know some of the Adrian Dominican Sisters on campus. Faiyaz, a freshman chemistry major, was impressed by the “warm welcome I received” from the Sisters. “I also love the most how everyone in this community cares so much about nature, and I share that same passion.”

Read more about ELE from the students who wrote a blog and created a video of their experience.

May 16, 2024, Adrian, Michigan – To the excitement and delight of onlookers, new residents were gently released into the pond on the Adrian Dominican Sisters Motherhouse campus on May 16, 2024, by participants of the Congregation’s Annual Environmental Leadership Experience (ELE). The new residents are 400 hybrid bluegills, 100 largemouth bass, and 20 pounds of fathead minnows.  

During the ELE, students from Barry University in Miami, Florida, and Siena Heights University in Adrian – both sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters – spend a week at the Motherhouse, working in the permaculture site and learning about the environment and practical ways to make Earth more sustainable.

The delivery of the fish was the latest in recent efforts to upgrade the pond to bring greater biodiversity to the campus grounds. “This has been a long time coming,” said Joel Henricks, Executive Director of Property Operations for the Adrian Dominican Sisters. 

Originally, Joel said, the pond was meant to be a stormwater retention basin. “It collects surface stormwater from our campus and [Siena Heights] University, collects it in one place, and then slowly relinquishes the water back into the system so there’s not a large outrush or flooding,” he explained.

But the pond was becoming murky and swampy. A civil engineering group recommended that it be made deeper and larger while retaining its original purpose. In 2020, the pond was expanded to three-quarters of an acre, with a depth of 17 feet at its center. “As part of the final step of the pond process, we did aquatic plantings, and the final process would have been the fish,” Joel explained.  

But because of shortages of fish during the pandemic and afterward, the pond could not be stocked until this year. The date in May was chosen to coincide with the Congregation’s annual Environmental Leadership Experience, in which 10 students from Barry University in Miami and Siena Heights University in Adrian participated. Both universities are sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters. 

The fish are a complementary part of the campus ecosystem, Joel said. “The bass is a predator, the bluegill is a semi-predator, and the minnows are in it for the food chain,” to be food for the other fish. “We didn’t want to have to feed the fish,” he said. “We wanted to set up an ecosystem that’s well-balanced and maintains its levels with minimum interaction from us.”

But finding that balance can be difficult and involves several factors, such as the size of the fish. Bass and bluegills ordered range in size from 4 to 6 inches, and the minnows are about 1 to 2 inches long. Bass are “voracious feeders and will eat everything in the pond” if they’re much larger than the bluefish, he said.

He also hopes to maintain the balance between the number of fish that are eaten or otherwise die and the number that are added through breeding. While the greater depth of the pond ensures that not all of the water freezes in the winter, not all of the fish will survive. “There’s always a mortality rate,” Joel said. “Hopefully the birth rate will match the death rate.” 

The benefits of the new fish will extend beyond the health of the pond. The fish will bring greater biodiversity to the area, Joel explained. “We’ll attract hundreds of winged predators,” such as eagles, hawks, and ospreys – along with the frogs, turtles, and geese that already enjoy life on the pond. “We’ll see an increase in raccoons and possums looking for an easy meal,” he added. 

Brad Frank, Director of the Office of Sustainability for the Adrian Dominican Sisters, added that because they are predators, the fish will help to control the population of invertebrates that also call the pond home. These include diving beetles, dragonflies, damselflies, mosquitoes, and midges.