The John Roach Center greenhouse reopened its doors to students this fall after being shut down due to COVID-19 in 2020-21. Now, the greenhouse is back to serving free tea to the St. Thomas community every Thursday from 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
When St. Thomas expanded its science department to South Campus in 1997 with the addition of Owens Science Hall greenhouse, JRC’s original greenhouse lost its purpose. However, the university had been trying to repurpose it ever since, and a $65,000 renovation in summer 2010 brought new life to the space.
Now, greenhouse staff hope that the free tea will bring people in, but staff also want the greenhouse to be seen as more than just an opportunity for free tea.
“The tea is working,” greenhouse manager Catherine Grant said. “People actually go into it (the greenhouse), but the key is for people to use it for their class to teach with.”
Now, the biology department primarily uses the greenhouse connected to OWS for science classes, research and labs.
“I never even knew that this greenhouse was open before or what went on in the other one,” Carmela King said, adding that it was “super cool” to learn about JRC’s greenhouse.
King is a senior biology major who worked with Grant over the summer on the pollinator path. Now, they work in the greenhouse together.
Morgan Smith, a senior environmental geoscience major, also works at the greenhouse with Grant and had worked with her over the summer for the pollinator path on campus. Smith said she has learned much about maintaining a garden from working in JRC’s greenhouse, calling it “literally like growing your own little babies.”
After being left as a furniture storage space by the university, the JRC greenhouse was repurposed again in 2016 to become a functioning greenhouse once more, which left Grant to find creative ways to utilize the space.
There is no demand to use the space academically, according to Grant. One large biology class uses the plants from the greenhouses, but there is not a consistent need for the plants in an academic setting otherwise. The future plans to repurpose the greenhouse will come by other means.
“At the U of M … there are a lot of classes that use that collection for different classes for different labs,” Grant said. “We don’t have that here,.”
Last semester, a 100-level English class used the JRC greenhouse as a writing retreat.
“They all came in here, and I made them tea and they sat in there,” Grant said. “I’d love to have more of that stuff.”
The library has also used the JRC greenhouse for events such as the Winter Lights event, which was held pre-pandemic and allowed people to use the space to relax and relieve stress.
People not affiliated with St. Thomas have asked to use the greenhouse for a photoshoot in the past.
Although it is nice to see it being used more after its reopening this fall, “it would be nicer if more people could use it for a class,” according to Grant.
Joe LaPorte can be reached at lapo7605@stthomas.edu.