UGA Profile: Associate Professor David Berle

 

Icy rain poured down sideways from the gray sky as the wind made the air feel even colder. Associate Professor David Berle worked, tearing an old fence from the muddy earth. As the director of the UGArden, a student run sustainable food garden, it is his job to oversee all the projects, administrative and physical.

 

This frigid, dismal Monday morning was no exception.

 

“Did you take the bus here?” Berle asked as he counted the scoops of Café Bustelo he needed for a big cup of black coffee he was making to “warm up from the inside out” after working in the freezing rain all morning.

 

He is the opposite of what a person might expect to see when walking into the office of a UGA professor. Instead of wearing a white button-down tucked into pressed slacks, Berle presented the picture of a true farmer, mud smeared on his temple,  and outfitted in a blue flannel shirt and a gardening hat.

 

Sustainability and environmental conscientiousness are two interests for the horticulture professor and UGArden director, but he says his passion lies in mentoring students and providing them with real-world experiences for prospective jobs.

 

Berle was asked to begin as an associate professor at the University of Georgia in 2002 in the areas of general horticulture and landscape design after working on campus for the grounds department for four years.

 

“I got in at the peak of student interest,” Berle said. “Sadly, student interest in landscape design has really dropped since then. The landscape architecture department lost half their students because more students are interested in food sustainability classes now.”

 

According to the UGA Factbook, total degrees conferred in the landscape architecture have been slowly decreasing since the fall of 2015, while degrees conferred in food technology have been steadily increasing since fall of 2014.

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It is not only students at UGA who are becoming more intrigued by classes relating to sustainable food and farming. At the Stockbridge School of Agriculture within the University of Massachusetts, more than half of the students are in the sustainable food and farming major according to an interview with the director of the Stockbridge School.

 

Berle took this information about growing student interest in food systems and his passion for fostering student interest, and did something remarkable with it.

 

“There were a group of students who came up with the idea for the UGArden around 2008. They came up with the name and they wanted it on campus,” said Berle. “The students sort of got the runaround from administration because they were a little nervous about having a garden on campus. They didn’t want students laying down in front of bulldozers to protect the garden.”

 

Berle devised a way  to apply for a grant for the UGArden from UGA administration and bring to life the dreams of the 30 or so students who had been repeatedly denied having a garden on campus out of legal concerns.

 

He wrote in the idea for the UGArden in a grant proposal he was making for a certificate in local food systems for the university.

 

The garden would be off campus, in an area around the horticulture department’s greenhouses and right next to the State Botanical Garden of Georgia so administration would have nothing to worry about.

 

The grant was approved in 2010 and automatically Berle’s role shifted from a professor on campus to the director of creating and running a sustainable food garden.

 

The UGArden quickly grew and is still growing as community members, such as those from Athens Area Master Gardeners and all four Athens area middle schools, help the garden flourish.

 

There are many projects that the UGArden undertakes, Berle said. They are involved with hosting seventh graders from Athens-Clarke County for a program titled “Experience UGA”, Campus Kitchen, another student organization and the UGArden is also currently involved in an herb business due to great success with the herb garden.

 

The herb garden is one of the more commercial aspects of the UGArden, as the teas made from the herbs in the garden are sold in multiple places across campus and in the State Botanical Garden gift shop. It is currently run by Noelle Fuller, and has more than tripled in size since the its inception in 2012, according to the UGArden website. All of the teas are made for a variety of health benefits such as the allergy relief tea, and the blissful belly tea which helps with “soothing tummy issues”.

 

Taking on this expansive position of director of all activities and volunteers is no small feat, but Berle said one of his dreams in college was to be an organic farmer. “Being the director of a student run organic farm sort of fulfils that dream without the risk of being a farmer,” he said.

 

Berle originally went to college at North Carolina State University to study forestry, then switched to wildlife biology, then agronomy and then chose to create his own major in an “individualized study program” for a general agriculture degree.

 

When asked if this was his biggest career accomplishment, he sat back in his squeaking swivel chair, looked around his office filled with fertilizers stacked in the corner, a bulletin board cluttered with sticky notes with future projects and ideas for the UGArden and organic gardening books.

 

 

“I would say career-wise, my biggest accomplishment is creating the UGArden, and the way it is growing,” said Berle. “It’s constantly changing. It is a lot different now, but I’d say it’s my legacy.”

 

After fulfilling his dream of becoming an organic farmer and creating a legacy within the University of Georgia, Berle is ready to retire in the next few years.

 

“The thing I’ll miss most when I retire is the students,” said Berle. “I like to teach students, talk to students, advise them.”

 

His students will miss him as well.

 

“Dr. Berle is wonderful. I’ve taken almost every single one of his classes,” said Angelica Rusk, a third-year student in the crop and soil science department. “I haven’t told him this, but he is my favorite professor ever.”

 

As Berle plans for a smooth exit from the UGArden, many of his responsibilities will fall on newly hired farm manager Johannah Biang.

 

“Professor Berle is such a great teacher,” Biang said. “He cares so much about teaching and leading the UGArden in a sustainable direction for the future.”