Victory Garden at UC Berkeley

Berkeley is known as a culinary paradise: the food here is not only delicious, but also driven in large part by local, organic, and sustainably-grown ingredients.  In addition to the famous restaurants of the Gourmet Ghetto, the city boasts bustling thrice-weekly farmers’ markets that run the gamut of fresh produce, grass-fed hot dogs, and vegan enchiladas.  But on a graduate student budget, a prix-fixe dinner at Chez Panisse might be a bit out of reach.  Even at the markets, despite the undeniable value of supporting local farmers, a $4/pound price tag can sour even the sweetest organic peach.

So how are we starving students to take a seat at the smorgasbord of Berkeleyan bounty without breaking the bank?  There are plenty of budget-friendly options for grocery shopping and eating out: Berkeley Bowl’s produce is a great value, especially for organic items, and many vendors at the farmers’ markets offer attractive deals near closing time or on less cosmetically perfect specimens.  Vik’s Chaat House is a good bet for quality Indian on the cheap, and The Cheeseboard’s $2.50/slice gourmet pizza is worth the wait in line.  But what kind of fare, dare I ask, can be had for free?

As it turns out, Berkeley abounds in opportunities for free food, and I’m not referring to the stale donuts sitting in your departmental lounge.  One option is to gorge yourself on the free samples of those farmers’ market peaches, though you risk dirty looks and the ensuing guilt-driven purchases that effectively negate your entire free-sample strategy.  (Or, I suppose, you could just endure the dirty looks.)  Instead, I recommend heading over to Memorial Glade and checking out the campus Victory Garden.  It’s a small plot and won’t be feeding any armies, but on most days this time of year you can find a few ripe tomatoes, summer squash complete with their blossoms, and, if you’re lucky, a late-season strawberry or two.  Anyone is welcome to help themselves to the produce; if you don’t eat it, the worms will.  And if you’d like to return the favor to the garden, you can help out with maintenance.

Or, even better, heed Voltaire’s advice and cultivate your own garden.  It’s basically free, beyond the minimal initial overhead, and offers the reward of self-reliance.  Herbs are probably the easiest to grow; put a pot of basil in a sunny window, water regularly, and you’re halfway to pesto.  You can get herbs and pots at farmers markets or any nursery, and at some grocery stores. If you feel like branching out, try dwarf trees (Meyer lemons, sweeter than conventional ones, seem to love the Berkeley climate and produce like mad).  Lettuces and other greens also grow well in pots – and can provide a welcome incentive to eat more salad.

Even if you can’t seem to keep your plants alive, super-local produce isn’t necessarily out of reach.  On my way home from class, I walk by rampant rosemary bushes, grapevines, lemon trees, and aloe plants (useful not only as a skin salve but also as a digestive tea; the brave can drink the sticky juice straight).  Of course, make sure you check with the residents before sampling any fare growing on private property, but chances are they’re having trouble keeping up with all the yield themselves.  Or, if your neighbors weren’t planning on eating the fruits of their labor at all, they might appreciate your help: you’re saving them a messy treefull of rotten fallen apples.

So please: do your patriotic part to harvest the Victory Garden, pick up some herbs (and maybe just a few free samples…) at the farmers market, and scope out your neighborhood flora.  With all the money you’ve saved up, maybe you can finally afford to eat at Chez Panisse.  All you need now is a reservation.

What

When: Thursday, September 17^th, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm.

Where: Anthony Hall patio.

Who: By and for graduate women, but all are welcome.

All that’s needed for this free event are your student and photo IDs. For more information, email gwp@ga.berkeley.edu.

The Graduate Women’s Project (GWP) is one of seven projects sponsored by the Graduate Assembly (GA). Established in 1981, the GWP works to address the personal, social, and academic needs of graduate women. In addition to mixers, the GWP hosts a variety of workshops, lunches with female leaders from the campus community, a distinguished women lecture series, and the Graduate Women’s Caucus. To learn more about these activities visit the GA website or contact the project coordinator. Better yet, stop by the mixer!

Members of the Technology Committee meet and sign up new recruits.

Thursday night, the Graduate Assembly (GA) held its first delegates’ meeting of the 2009-2010 school year. Budget cuts and campus responses to them, including an at times heated debate of what official position the GA should take, dominated the evening’s discussion.  Befitting an introductory meeting, GA officers also gave an overview of the structure and mission of the GA and GA committee chairs reported on their accomplishments from the previous year along with their goals for the coming year.

Mitch Celaya, Chief of the UCB Police Department, and Claudia Covello of University Health Services (UHS) discussed how their departments were coping with budget cuts. The Police Department has had 19% of its budget cut and UHS lost 23% of its campus funding, which amounts to roughly $2 million. Both departments have responded by cutting positions; the police department has lost seven officers and UHS has eliminated 20 staff positions. To meet their budget shortfall while continuing to provide care six days a week, UHS has also decided to add fees. Beginning September 21^st, students will be charged a co-pay for visits to primary and urgent care. A primary care visit will now cost $15 and an urgent care visit will cost $30. The average graduate student uses campus medical services 2.2 times per year and can expect their medical costs to go up accordingly. Both these departments want to increase their engagement with students and encourage student input.  You can email Mitch Celaya at ucpdchief@berkeley.edu or contact UHS via lmigdal@uhs.berkeley.edu.

Emotions ran high as delegates debated a resolution proposing that the GA support the faculty walkout on Thursday, September 24, and endorse the letter circulated by the Graduate Student Organizing Committee in favor of the walkout. (Follow these links to view the full text of the open letters to UC graduate students and UC faculty that have circulated this week.) The letters and walkout protest how the budget cuts have been managed by the University of California administration. After extensive debate, the GA passed a modified resolution directing the President of the GA to draft a letter from the GA in support of the faculty walkout. This letter will be written with input from the delegates and posted on the GA website. Over the course of the evening, delegates struggled with how to balance the time-sensitive nature of this resolution with having adequate time to discuss these issues with students in their department. The budget cuts and GA actions regarding the budget cuts promise to be an issue throughout the semester, so contact the delegate(s) from your department and let them know what you think.

For more detailed information, consult the meeting minutes, which will be posted on the GA website.

While the overall theme guided organized sessions, many sessions were filled with contributed talks and posters, meaning unsolicited presentations on any topic. The University of California, Berkeley participants gave over 100 presentations at the meeting. These included graduate student presentations on the biophysical constraints on the size of leaves, the need to take into account habitat complexity on different spatial scales when doing pest control, changes in the species composition of fungi due to increased nitrogen fertilizer inputs, and a new method for measuring nitrogen gas emissions from soil (my talk). Clearly ecology is a very broad scientific field!

This year ESA organizers made a greater effort to group talks and posters into sessions with cohesive mini-themes. However, it was unavoidable that there were still multiple rooms featuring simultaneous talks on the same areas of interest. This sometimes meant choosing between attending one talk to support a friend or another talk to learn about a new study. I tended to choose the latter, hoping that my friends would understand that I was supporting them in spirit. The overlapping sessions also meant getting quite a workout dashing up and down escalators and hallways to make it from one session to another during the short question and answer period between talks.

This was a great year to attend the ESA annual meeting for my field of biogeochemistry, the study of how biological, geological, chemical, and physical processes affect the environment. A special symposium sponsored by the National Science Foundation brought in high profile scientists to emphasize the importance of considering interactions in the cycling of elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and iron. There were also an unusually high number of contributed biogeochemistry presentations. This not only gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about topics related to my research, but it also allowed me to start networking.

I had looked forward to coffee and meal breaks as times to refuel and refresh, but it soon became apparent that those were prime times for introducing myself to new people and meeting up with old acquaintances to build collaborative relationships and sell myself for potential future jobs. As a graduate student, I was familiar with the work but not the faces of my colleagues. This proved to be an asset in calming my nerves before giving my talk—for all I knew my audience was filled with people who had wandered in from the street. However, this made networking much more difficult. Rather than using the awkward strategy of glancing not-so-slyly at the nametags of people passing by, I shadowed the well-connected members of my lab to angle for introductions.

I didn’t anticipate how tiring it would be to participate in a conference. Official meeting activities ran from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, including talks, posters, and mixers. By only the second day, I felt like a week had passed, and I wasn’t sure if my brain could absorb any new information. Though I didn’t plan to skip any of the sessions, I had to forgo one afternoon session filled with interesting talks to take a much-needed nap. I finally understood why conference attendees often ditch for a day to become tourists. The conference organizers also recognized the need for down time. My advisor dragged herself out of bed at five o’clock one morning to participate in an organized 5K run. Every evening one of my labmates joined an informal group of musicians and onlookers who gathered to unwind and release their creative energy.

One of my lasting impressions from attending the ESA annual meeting for the first time is the passion that ecologists have for science and for protecting nature for the sake of future generations. My flight to and from Albuquerque was filled with ecologists and the buzz of conversations rarely strayed from ecology. Even on the AirBART ride out of the Oakland airport, I eavesdropped on a USGS scientist introducing himself to two Berkeley faculty members who were discussing their research. Despite our overloaded minds, we couldn’t stop thinking about science. I feel lucky to be embarking on a career path in a field where my colleagues are so passionate about their work. I look forward to seeing them all again next August for the 95^th ESA annual meeting in Pittsburg!

The acronyms for professional societies in your own field are already alphabet soup. Add in the professional societies for other fields and it truly boggles the mind. Yet where they pertain, membership in these societies is important and attending their annual meetings is a major event.

If you haven’t been to a conference yet, you may be wondering what they’re like. Or if you’re already familiar with the large conferences in your field, do you have any idea what Berkeley students who attend the American Philological Association’s annual meeting are in for? What’s going on at all these meetings? What are the hot topics within these different disciplines? What are people talking about? And what is the experience like for a graduate student?

We hope to provide the answers in our newest feature: conference dispatches! After attending the big meetings in their field, Berkeley graduate students will report back on what they saw and did. Please let us know what the major professional societies in your field are and when they hold their annual meeting. Then for the courageous among you, blog your next meeting. We are officially seeking information and potential writers. Finally, check back tomorrow for the first installment in this series.