Botanic Garden 2024-25 Annual Report

Fiscal Year 2025 was a milestone year for the Botanic Garden of Smith College—marked by meaningful change and strengthened relationships. As Smith celebrates its 150th anniversary and the garden reaches 130 years, we find ourselves both honoring a remarkable legacy and looking ahead with optimism and resolve.  

This year marked the conclusion of our 2019-2024 strategic plan, a transformative effort built in close collaboration with our broader community and the first in our history. Through that process, we clarified a bold new mission that now guides all aspects of our work:  

The Botanic Garden of Smith College fosters environmental and social justice through teaching and learning about plants, people, and place.   

We do this by: 

• Curating plant collections that tell stories of plant and human diversity
• Preparing students to become informed, capable leaders and change agents
• Supporting faculty in developing integrative, student-centered learning
• Welcoming visitors to explore, learn, and contribute their knowledge
• Cultivating landscapes that foster creativity, reflection, and well-being

Today, the garden is supported by 14.75 full-time employees. Our work spans education, public engagement, conservation, wellness, and the care of nearly 5,000 species of plants from across the globe. But it is our emphasis on relationships—with students, faculty, staff, and our broader community—that truly defines the botanic garden.  

Enhancing Student Scholarship and Leadership: Almost half of all Smith students this past year connected with our staff and collections through curriculum and research across nearly every discipline. Whether through capstone projects, conversations in new languages, or exploring the ties between plants, food, and culture, our spaces are vibrant sites of inquiry and connection. 

As members of our student team, Smithies gain unique and transformative preprofessional experiences that deeply inform their future trajectories in both academic and professional spaces. Whether designing original exhibits (Botanical Bodies: when identity blossoms on skin), developing peer-to-peer programming (Botanic Boogie! with WOZQ), or taking the lead on conservation initiatives (planting wild collected sweetgrass at the Hassanamisco Nipmuc reservation), students develop their leadership skills as they grapple with complex challenges.  

Faculty and Staff as Communities of Practice:  We work with faculty in nearly every discipline, hosting courses, leading workshops (tea blending, cyanotype printing, and paper making), developing original exhibitions, engaging in scholarly inquiry alongside our faculty through the Kahn Institute (Vegetal Forms: Knowing Place and Time Through Plants), and facilitating faculty events (Artist talk on Habba, co-sponsored with SCMA).  

Committing to Access and Equity within our Broader Community: Our thriving K-12 program, which hosts over 2,000 school-aged children and young adults on field trips, is enabled by our community docent program. Through these programs, we are able to share the resources of Smith with the broader community, while also providing opportunities for our students to engage with environmental education and experiential learning initiatives.  

Strengthening Alum Ties: Our Friends of the Botanic Garden of Smith College program, supported deeply by our Friends Leadership Council, continues to act as a backbone to our work. Investments in these relationships leads not only to fiscal support, but also to active networks for our current students to engage with.   

The efforts of this year took place during a time of significant transition. Over the past 18 months, we experienced staffing changes in nearly one-third of our team. Managing searches, onboarding new colleagues, and covering key functions while short-staffed presented challenges. Despite that our engagement has grown, and we’ve continued to deliver impactful, high-quality experiences for students and our broader community. 

Defining Success 

We see our successes in both the breadth and depth of our engagement with students, faculty, and the broader community. The breadth is reflected in the data shared in the “Engagement Statistics” section—showing both the volume of student engagement and the myriad starting points for inquiry.  We hear the impact of these experiences reflected in testimonials from students who felt a sense of belonging in our spaces, interns who discovered new career paths, and alumnae whose experiences with us shaped their understanding of the world and their place in it. We also see success in the impact of our conservation initiatives, which are multidimensional–student-centered, focused on both ecological and cultural stories, and are regionally focused yet globally collaborative.   

What Has Worked Well 

Student Leadership: The Botanic Garden Student Educator team plays a vital role in extending our reach and relevance. Through peer-to-peer programming, student educators help cultivate a vibrant culture of belonging, pride, and connection. Their creativity and leadership have attracted a growing and increasingly diverse group of students to our spaces.  

Curricular Integration: This year, faculty from 63 courses across 28 departments brought their students into the garden—the highest level of curricular engagement in our history. Our commitment to saying “yes” to new ideas, disciplines, and approaches reflects our identity as a liberal arts botanic garden and underscores the botanic garden’s value as a dynamic learning space across the curriculum.  Collaborative Conservation: Our conservation initiatives have placed us in a leadership position within our field. These projects connect students with real-world, hands-on work in ecology, horticulture, and plant conservation, preparing them for future roles in public gardens, research institutions, environmental organizations, and more.  

Challenges 

Capacity Strain: Demand for our services continues to outpace our staffing capacity. While this speaks to the value we provide, it also risks overextending a high-performing team that is deeply committed to the mission and reluctant to turn down opportunities. Over the past decade, every role at the botanic garden has evolved significantly, with increased complexity and broader expectations. We have the potential to do even more—but doing so sustainably will require additional staffing resources.  We are leaning into a culture of reflection, care, and adaptability. As a team, we engage in regular goal-setting and open conversations about workload, boundaries, and what personal and team-wide sustainability looks like. We are committed to fostering a workplace where honest communication and self-care are part of the professional ethic.  

Aging Infrastructure: Lyman Plant House is now 25 years beyond its last major renovation, raising the risk of major system failure. The building’s age also presents real concern for accessibility and capacity, especially for mobility-impaired visitors and the large groups who frequently visit.   We are actively working with Facilities Management and the AVP for Sustainable Capital Programs to ensure that Lyman Plant House receives necessary maintenance while its long-term future is thoughtfully considered within broader campus planning efforts such as the Campus Usage Plan.  

Education-Focused Internships 

Supervised by the Associate Director of Education, this year-long internship engages approximately five students in designing and delivering student-facing programming at the botanic garden. These projects span a wide range of audiences and formats—from late-night events for unity orgs, to themed tours for families with young children, to interpretive exhibits designed to spark dialogue. This program has the dual benefit of being a resume-building leadership experience for participants and bringing Smithies into the gardens and glasshouses who might otherwise not have spent much time here.  

A standout example from this year was Botanical Bodies, a photo exhibit that invited students to share their botanical tattoos and the personal stories behind them. Every aspect of the exhibit—from concept development to planning, execution, and promotion—was led entirely by student interns. They even hired a fellow student photographer, providing a professional opportunity for a peer while deepening the collaborative, student-led spirit of the project.  

Co-Hosting Younes Rahmoun: Here, Now

In a first-ever partnership with SCMA and CEEDS, the botanic garden hosted one of the sites of Moroccan artist Younes Rahmoun’s multi-sited exhibition Here, Now—his first major North American exhibit. This collaborative project stands as a powerful example of what becomes possible when Smith’s collections and centers work together—creating synergy, expanding impact, and offering students and visitors an experience that is both interdisciplinary and deeply resonant.  

Conservation Internship 

Designed as a 12-month deep dive into the evolving role of 21st century botanic gardens, the conservation internship offers students hands-on experience in rare plant monitoring, building conservation collections, ecological research, and engaging with the networks that shape biodiversity work today. The internship has proven transformational for participants—both professionally and personally. Every single alum of this program is now pursuing graduate degrees and/or careers in plant science, conservation, horticulture, and ecology. Furthermore, they are already mentoring current interns, helping to build a generational pipeline of Smith-trained conservation leaders.

Student-Designed Flower Shows  

As part of our commitment to offering meaningful pre-professional experiences, the botanic garden invited Allie Wornell ’25 to design and install both of this year’s annual flower shows. Allie’s creative vision and dedication resulted in two vibrant and highly praised exhibits, demonstrating the value of entrusting students with real-world leadership opportunities. This experience became a standout addition to her portfolio and helped her secure a competitive internship at Longwood Gardens—one of the nation’s premier public horticulture institutions. 

Student Art Installations

Now in its third year, our student art installation program took an exciting new direction. For the first time, the opportunity to create original artwork for the Spring Bulb Show was offered as a four-credit special studies course. This shift showcased the teaching talents of our staff and it provided a unique chance for participants to approach the project as a commissioned, client-based experience. Students gained valuable skills in project planning, collaboration, creative execution, and public presentation—mirroring the dynamics of professional art practice.

What We Learned

These experiments reaffirmed the power of immersive, student-led experiences. When students are given real responsibility and meaningful mentorship, they rise to the occasion with imagination, discipline, and pride. These projects not only enriched our public programming—they also equipped students with tangible skills, confidence, and momentum as they step into their futures.

Central funding from the college provides approximately 5 percent of the botanic garden’s operating budget and 2/3 of our full-time salaried positions. Endowed funds, membership dues, and gifts enable most of our work–from funding our student teams and projects, to tree risk management, equipment, travel, and more. This makes engagement with alum groups, and in particular our Friends Leadership Council, a high priority. Increased Smith Club and reunion class engagement this year have proven fruitful as stories of student experiences in conservation, sustainability, and social justice have resonated with these audiences.

Endowed funds that support student experiential learning are relatively strong for the moment. We see opportunities to package projects and initiatives as targets for alumnae giving—particularly around conservation, heritage tree stewardship, new tree plantings, and pre-professional experiences for student team members.

While our efforts to engage in collaborative programming are primarily mission driven, we are seeing that such efforts have opened doors to funding for projects that are beyond our capacity to support alone. AEMES/McKinley, Smith Office of the Arts, Smith College Museum of Art, and the Dept. of Biological Sciences are examples of this synergy and capacity building.

The college’s new strategic plan will serve as both a catalyst and a guiding framework for shaping the botanic garden’s next chapter. Unlike with our previous plan, which focused on transformation, the priorities emerging from the college’s forthcoming vision align closely with our current areas of strength. As we begin to envision our own strategic plan in the coming year, our focus will be on refining and clarifying what we already do well, deepening the relationships and trust that underpin our most impactful work, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our contributions to the Smith community.

The Botanic Garden of Smith College holds a global reputation for excellence, grounded in a commitment to leadership in education. Our work in conservation and sustainability places us at the forefront of a movement redefining the role of botanic gardens in the 21st century. The meaningful opportunities we offer today’s Smith students will help shape the next generation of leaders in public horticulture and related fields.

As a long period of team rebuilding comes to a close, we are now ready to explore the full capacity of our newly shaped staff. With this renewed strength, we will continue fostering a sense of belonging and wellbeing for everyone at Smith—while sharing what Lynden Miller ’60 so beautifully described as “the life-affirming qualities of gardens.”