CASL and the Grove Garden

In 2025, venturing down Moss Street south of the Kalapuya Illihi dormitory will yield a much different part of campus than most students are accustomed to: a neighborhood noisy from children playing in the street, sidewalks filled with apples fallen from trees, and many houses empty and seemingly let go of. The west side of the street is fenced off and cleared for development – the University will soon build the first of two eight story, 800 bed dorms here which will anchor the future of the east campus area. The east side of the street tells a different story. A hand painted sign reading “Grove Community Garden” welcomes you up off of the sidewalk and into an abundance of fresh food growing in 20 or so wooden raised beds. A small and abandoned blue house with a sign overgrown by grass says “Center for the Advancement Sustainable Living,” nestled just north of a mason bee house that borders the garden’s edge. 2026 will see both of these places demolished and made ready for the dorm development, but their intertwined histories and nearby future tell of place-based struggles for sustainability, mutual aid, and community. 

 

Over 20 years ago, the Center for the Advancement of Sustainable Living (CASL) began as a vision for an ecologically and socially conscious framework for living [1]. Inspired by efforts at other academic institutions (such as the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology at Humboldt State University), UO students, faculty, and community members formulated a proposal to explore sustainable living at a residential scale in early 2002. They envisioned transforming an existing house on the edge of campus into an integrated classroom, living space, resource center and research facility – all of which pursued environmental sustainability, economic feasibility, and applied research and teaching. Students were to lead the project and live in the house, facilitating community and creating an educational gateway to future high-density campus development in the surrounding area. 

 

The project gained the support of numerous academic departments and campus programs: in 2003, ASUO recognized CASL as a student organization, and in 2008 it received nearly $150,000 in funds from the ASUO, University Space Committee, and Student Sustainability Fund [2]. On January 7th 2009, the School of Architecture and Allied Arts (now the College of Design) acquired the house at 1801 Moss Street to become the Center. Originally built sometime in the 1930s, the collective drew plants to transform it into a state of the art demonstration for low impact living, including every possible measure to be highly energy and resource efficient. Soon after, students began remodeling and reconstructing the house to these measures, work which continued throughout the next decade. 

 

In 2012, faculty and students involved with the project as well as the Landscape Architecture department reclaimed the empty grass lot to the south of the house, and started the Grove Edible Campus Initiative (also referred to as ‘Project Tomato’). Originally designed as an offshoot of the UO Urban Farm, it aimed to simply grow food on campus for students. Seen as only a temporary endevour, organizers pulled an old airstream trailer into the corner of the lot to house tools and seeds. 

 

By the end of the 2010s, the overall project found itself in limbo. The faculty responsible for project oversight left, students lost direction, and the house fell into physical and bureaucratic disrepair. Students attempted to continue interior and exterior renovations, but due to a lack of consistent support or resources, much of the work was unpermitted, not up to code, and would not reach University compliance. The CASL organization expended the majority of its funds, and eventually lost most student interest. 

 

In 2019, a valiant effort was made by the Student Sustainability Center (SSC) to resurrect the space into a hub for student resiliency. Citing high rates of studied housing and food insecurity, the proposal urged the UO to do better by its students by not only taking up the original CASL vision, but also adding a food pantry annex, free school supplies and clothing store, and eventually a basic needs navigator [3]. The SSC aimed to ultimately transform the home into a national example for how universities could care for their students while connecting them to their environment. The idea was denied by administration and planners who reached similar conclusions: the house was too far gone with not enough economic potential, and it was too short of a logistical timeline to salvage before new development came to fruition. After almost 20 years, it was simplest for the University to scrap the existing resources and vision of the CASL in favor of demolishing and repurposing the area. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the house wholly abandoned. Building plans spread across a table along with an empty pizza box could be seen through the windows, like the last group work locked the door and never came back. 

 

All the while, the garden had been growing up and around the edges of the CASL. Around 2014 the Student Sustainability Center took over its coordination and transformed it into a community space run for and by students. This was not without its challenges, which in some ways mirrored the house. Existing within the same zone of future development, the UO didn’t allow permanent infrastructure to be installed or substantial financial investment. And thanks to busy schedules and not enough support, many of the garden’s raised beds were rented and abandoned by students – empty slates of dirt rather than full of life. 

 

But garden organizers, with help from student organization Climate Justice League, saw the value in the space and decided to overhaul how it worked. Understanding that destruction was likely imminent and hoping to maintain future garden space, they collectivised food growing efforts and continued to transform the landscape of the area into a community space. They developed communal values and opened work sessions by critically analyzing the powers that allowed food insecurity to exist at an institution as well resourced as UO. This shift and injection of creative energy led to abundance – both of food growing and students involved. Weekly work parties, which had seen around 5 students in 2022, saw more than 30 students regularly by 2025, and even more than 60 on one January day in 2024. Once empty beds exploded with food and life, offering students and others free produce nearly every week of the year – including all the way through the winter. The airstream was replaced with new, green garden sheds, and a full deer fence was built to protect food from wildlife. 

 

And yet, In January of 2025, campus planners notified the SSC that by the end of the year they would have to vacate the garden which was, on paper, still temporary. After 13 years of caring for the land, and a year of public engagement where it was found that the most valuable piece of East Campus to students was the Grove, the university refused to include it within the new designs. And though this will mean the end to the garden as it is seen in 2025, there is a significant silver lining. As the University requires ‘displaced uses’ to be rebuilt when possible [ 4], it will relocate the Grove from 1801 Moss Street to just a block north in the empty lot behind Global Scholars Hall, near the Northwest Indigenous Language Institute (1605 Moss Street) by the end of the 25-26 academic year. It will maintain a collective growing model, prioritizing mutual aid and community: food grown will go right back to the students who grew it, to campus food security efforts, and also Eugene street outreach groups. Different geographies also create possibilities: new effort will be put towards collaborating with soon nearby university programs and communities that have historically lacked access to such food growing spaces. 

 

Today, the changing landscape of Moss Street provides a window into broader networks of capital. 2025 sees UO facing a financial crisis, caused in large part by a decreasing number of newly admitted out-of-state and international students [5]. As these students pay far less in tuition than in-state students, the university is forced to increase overall enrollment in order to meet status quo financials. This is, of course, an attempt at maintaining the administration’s vision of an incessantly expanding, large research institution, which is a far departure from its liberal-arts roots, and difficult to square with environmental sustainability or care. Though the UO has long eyed East Campus for housing development, it is an attractive time as ever to convert what is viewed as buildable surplus land into economic input via tuition dollars.  

 

In sum, both the CASL and the Grove illuminate much of how power constructs the landscape and lives of students. Although ‘sustainability’ seems to happen at the University of Oregon, it is far from an overall institutional value or pursuit. When it does appear, it is often thanks to students embracing a vision and taking responsibility for the ground beneath their feet. These endeavors, though often fragile, show us the beauty that can be found in the corners and edges of our institution. The Grove Community Garden is a rare example of such: students bursting from the cracks of our university, full of life – coming together to collectivize resources, build community, and meet their own needs. 

 

Questions as You Visit 

 

Before 2026: What does it feel like to be in a development zone; a landscape of stasis? 

 

After 2026: Visit the new Grove, at 1605 Moss Street – what do you see? 

 

REFERENCES 

  1. Ecotone Winter 2002 
  2. CASL over realized fund proposal, 2012 
  3. Taylor SSC Proposal Doc 
  4. https://cpfm.uoregon.edu/campus-plan 
  5. https://lookouteugene-springfield.com/story/education/2025/06/04/decline-in-university-of-oregons-out-of-state-enrollment-intensifies-budget-woes/#:~:text=For%20the%20fall%202025%20student,rather%20than%20the%20expected%202%2C758.