The LBCC Student Organic Farm: Past, Present, and Future

LBCC’s once bustling Student Organic Farm now sits quietly, as though asleep. The plots that once overflowed with fruits and vegetables are leveled and covered with close-cropped grass. The salad greens and tomatoes that used to grow year round in the farm’s two large greenhouses have been replaced with brown waist-high weeds. Rotting fruit hangs from un-pruned branches and litters the ground beneath the orchard trees.

The two-acre farm sits on the northwest corner of campus, between the jogging track and the northern portion of the Wellness trail. The farm served students and the community for nearly two decades until budget shortfalls led the college to indefinitely suspend the horticulture program in early 2020. Since that time the farm has been out of operation. The college currently has no plans to revive it.

Grass covers the farm fields today.

“[The farm] served us in our vision of curriculum -- what we thought a horticulture program should look like. It was our outdoor laboratory for students to live and learn,” said Stefan Seiter, former Chair of the Horticulture Program.

When Seiter first arrived at LBCC in 2001, the area that is now the farm was a dumping ground for the college’s waste construction material. It also had soil trenches that Seiter’s predecessor had dug for soil classes.

Seiter, however, wanted an outdoor space for his horticulture students to practice organic farming and gardening. In the spring of 2002 the horticulture program began filling in the trenches and incorporating leaf compost into the soil to build its first large, 35-by-65-foot garden plot. Over the next seven years, the farm expanded slowly, growing to include two additional large garden plots, a smaller herb garden, a rain garden to the west of the plots, and a composting center.

In 2010, Miriam Edell joined the department as a part-time Horticulture Instructional Specialist. Edell brought with her a background in sustainable agriculture and, according to Seiter, a “passion to run the farm.” She took on the primary responsibility of managing the farm and the student workers who maintained it, ushering in a period of rapid growth. During the last ten years of operation, the farm expanded to include two large greenhouses, three more large garden plots, an orchard, a small vineyard, a forest garden, and sheds for tool and irrigation equipment. For a time there were even beehives and a chicken coop.

The farm in operation, sometime between 2014 and 2018. Image: Google Earth

The farm not only provided opportunities for horticulture students to gain hands-on experience in all the ins and outs of running a small organic farm, it also provided resources for the community. The Profitable Small Farms Program used the farm to provide subscribers to their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes with fresh produce during the growing season. The program donated extra produce to organizations such as the local food bank and the LBCC Parenting Program. 

For a time, the farm rented out garden space to both LBCC students and members of the community. The Veterans Garden was established on the farm in 2018 to give students who are military veterans a place to relax while gardening. In 2019, the horticulture program was in talks with the Community Services Consortium and Jackson Street Youth Services to begin a youth farming program, but talks ended with the announcement of the horticulture program suspension.

According to Seiter, funding for the farm was largely piecemeal. Lab fees for the horticulture classes paid for tools and other class supplies. The farm raised additional money though the sales of produce and plants, and from private donations for capital projects like the irrigation system. Many of the fruit trees were donated, as were materials for the greenhouses, sheds, and composting center.

Today the farm continues to fall under the responsibility of the Division of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (SEM). Kristina Holton, the Dean of SEM, says that neither SEM nor the college currently has plans for it.

“Without Miriam’s [Edell’s] role to spend time maintaining the space, we don’t have the capacity to maintain the farm the way it was being maintained previously,” she said. So the goal of the college is to “keep it mowed so at least maintenance can keep it from being a liability.”

One of the farm's greenhouses, filled with weeds and disintegrating.

Michael Brady, interim director of LBCC Facilities, concurred with Holton’s assessment, saying that the difficulties caused by the ongoing pandemic have left Facilities down to a “skeleton crew.” Unable to assume the labor costs for maintaining the organic farm, facilities has leveled the land, plowed the plots, and seeded it with grass to control the growth of weeds. 

Brady says that facilities will try to maintain weeds between the fruit trees as time permits, but will not prune the trees. In the meantime, he acknowledged that without maintenance, farm structures like the greenhouses will eventually break down due to weather and the sun’s ultraviolet light.

Despite the farm’s current state, both Seiter and Brady hope that one day the farm will once again be a valuable resource to students and the community. Seiter said that the farm could still provide a mix of uses for classes in different departments such as Biology and Art. He also suggested continuing to use the farm for community garden space. Brady was concerned about the college taking responsibility for outside community groups using the farm but, “if we could get a program or a student group that wanted to run something back there, I think that would be awesome!” he said.

Edell said that the closing of the farm is “a real loss for the community. It was a great resource.” Still she believes that it would be difficult for student groups to run the entire farm on their own.

“Truth be told, farming is a lot of work. It’s the rare person who wants to dig in the dirt and sweat.”

Maintenance of the farm, she said, is constant, and at the height of its operations the farm required the efforts of not just Edell but also three work/study students and a part-time greenhouse assistant. Even with all of that, Edell added, “I could have used another full-time person just to keep the place neat.”

At-a-Glance
What: LBCC’s Student Organic Farm is out of operation and there are no plans to re-open it.
When: After nearly 20 years serving students and the community, the farm was closed in the spring of 2020.
Where: The farm is located on the northwest corner of LBCC campus, between the northern section of the Wellness trail and the track.
Why: LBCC currently does not have enough resources to operate the farm. 

For more information: Contact Kristina Holton, Dean of Science, Engineering and Mathematics, at holtonk@linnbenton.edu.

LBCC Phlebotomy Program Welcomes New Blood

Phlebotomy Program Director, Whitney Funk prepares to draw blood from Gina Flak. (Image: Abby Erikson)

You may have heard that the nation is facing critically low supplies of donated blood, but you may not know that there is also a shortage of phlebotomists, the healthcare professionals whose job it is to draw blood for donations and medical tests.

The shortage is due in part to the challenges of training new phlebotomists during the Covid pandemic. Linn-Benton Community College has run a 15-week phlebotomy training program twice a year (fall and winter) for nearly twenty years, but between Fall 2020 and Fall 2021, the college was only able to offer the program once. This January the LBCC Phlebotomy program welcomed its first new class of students in almost a year.

According to Linda Carroll, LBCC Dean of Healthcare, the Phlebotomy program experienced difficulties early in the pandemic. Phlebotomy students finish their training with a five-week clinical practicum, essentially a supervised apprenticeship, at a hospital or clinic. However, at the start of the pandemic, hospitals and clinics were unable to host student practicums due to concerns about virus transmission and shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) for regular staff.

Even when these initial problems eased, students were still hesitant to return to the program. Low enrollment forced the program to pause again last fall. Whitney Funk, the Director of LBCC’s Phlebotomy program and herself an LBCC Phlebotomy graduate, said that it was the first time they had experienced low enrollment in the seven years she has taught for the program.

This winter, enrollment recovered enough for LBCC to once again offer the Phlebotomy program. The program's 11 new students will take up to 40 hours a week of classes for 10 weeks. The classes include Phlebotomy (blood collection and preparation from adults, children, and infants), Medical Terminology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Medical Law and Ethics.

Students who pass their classes with a grade of 70% or better will be assigned to five-week clinical practicums in local hospitals. Students do not receive pay during this time, but if they perform well, they are likely to receive job offers once their practicums are complete. According to Carroll, full-time phlebotomists in Oregon earn a median salary of $39,823 per year with benefits. Due to the severe shortage of phlebotomists, some hospitals are also taking the unusual step of offering hiring incentives. Samaritan Health Services, for example, is currently offering applicants $1,000 sign-on bonuses at three of their hospitals.

While the pay and benefits may be tempting, being a phlebotomist is not for everyone. For one thing, phlebotomists cannot be squeamish.

“Blood, guts, gore – you just got to be prepared for it all,” said Funk.

Phlebotomists must also be able to remain calm and draw blood quickly even in stressful situations, Funk said. Students train for this by first drawing blood from each other, with the goal of eventually being able to draw blood from beginning to end in less than five minutes. According to Funk, during the first ten weeks of the program each student will draw blood between 30 and 50 times from their classmates.

Sierra Thayer, a 2018 graduate of the program and now a phlebotomist at the Corvallis Clinic, said, “The only thing I didn’t like [about the program] was that we poked each other. It’s either you get poked or you don’t get to poke at all. I didn’t like getting poked, but I had to get over that.”

In addition to drawing blood from each other, students must also perform at least 120 draws from actual patients during the practicum.

Erika Arnold graduated from the very first LBCC Phlebotomy program over 19 years ago and is now Lead Phlebotomist at the Corvallis Clinic. Arnold believes that the practicum experience is invaluable to students.

“When we hire people from the LBCC program they have been really great because…they do a work experience,” she said.

Arnold acknowledged that there are other phlebotomy programs that can be completed in much less time than LBCC’s, but they usually do not offer practicums. And, according to Arnold, without work experience, “Those people don’t get jobs."

In addition to being a career, phlebotomy can be a way to gain valuable clinical experience for entrance into other health care programs. Funk says that about half of her students eventually go on to nursing programs or medical school to become doctors.

Arnold also thinks of phlebotomy as a stepping stone.“It’s a foot in the door in the medical field. If I decide to step up or do anything different in the medical field at least I have this skill set," she said.

Both Arnold and Thayer say that they love being phlebotomists, largely because of the relationships they form with their patients.

Even after 19 years in the profession, Arnold said, “I still enjoy it! I really enjoy the patients! They are wonderful! … We're just trying to make that spark, that connection with each person, be as good as we can with them and make them feel special because giving your blood is not fun.”

Additional details about requirements for applying to LBCC’s phlebotomy program can be found on LBCC’s Special Admissions Programs website or by contacting Lorraine Lara, LBCC’s Academic Advising Assistant for Healthcare at Lorraine.Lara@linnbenton.edu.

♫ Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You ♫

I am an ecologist and an educator with an insatiable curiosity and a love of story telling. While I am not currently pursuing a degree in Journalism, I enrolled in the JN216 - News Reporting class because I want to expand my communication skills to include journalistic writing. Eventually I hope to explore the field of science journalism, so I want to know all of the tricks of the trade.

Outside of college and work I am training to become an extreme day hiker - if such a thing exists! I spent my formative years in muggy, mosquito-filled Florida where long overland treks were unpleasant at best and health hazardous at worst, so I only recently discovered this passion after moving to the lush and temperate Pacific Northwest. Over the past year I have hiked many trails in the Coast Range and the Cascades. This year I am looking forward to hiking around Mt. Rainier and The Enchantments as well as traversing Zion National Park.

My three main goals for the News Reporting class are to learn to think like a journalist, develop my skills as an interviewer, and hone my journalistic writing abilities. I have had a lot of training on how to pose and investigate science research questions. Now I would like to know how journalists approach questions in order to shape informative and engaging stories. I also want to become a first rate interviewer. I love to listen to radio and podcast interviews and I envy the ability of interviewers to pull the most fascinating tidbits and insights from their guests. Finally, I would like to improve my ability to write clearly, concisely. and quickly. While I recognize that I am not a bad writer, I can be verbose and slow to compose my thoughts. I hope that this course helps me to make the leap to being a productive journalistic writer.

My first news story is going to be about the Phlebotomy Program at Linn-Benton Community College. Next week I will be speaking to Linda Carroll, the LBCC Dean and Director of Healthcare, and Whitney Funk, the Phlebotomy Program Director. I am also planning to line up interviews with a current phlebotomy student and a graduate of the program. If possible, I would love to speak with employers of graduates for their perspective of the program.

Seven questions that I intend to ask about the Phlebotomy Program are:

1. What is the Phlebotomy program?
2. How long has LBCC had this program?
3. What does completing the program entail?
4. What are some recent challenges that the program has faced?
5. How do current students feel about the program?
6. How do students fare once they graduate from the program?
7. What do prospective employers think about the the phlebotomy program and its graduates?

Wish me luck on my first story! I am so looking forward to getting the facts and sharing them with you.