One of Vanderbilt's most notable features is its arboretum status. With more than 6,000 trees, a boasted 3:1 squirrel-to-student ratio, and numerous bird species on campus, it's easy for students to immerse themselves in nature without even leaving the Vanderbubble. However, what many students and staff don't know is that Vanderbilt is also home to plants in a valuable facility tucked away on the seventh floor of MRB III: the Vanderbilt greenhouse.
The history of the greenhouse
The original Vanderbilt greenhouse was built as an addendum to Buttrick Hall in the 1930s when the Department of Biological Sciences was housed there. When the department was relocated to Stevenson Center 2 around 2000, a new greenhouse was built, which still stands today. Despite its newness, the greenhouse is currently little more than a ghost town, containing only a handful of plants. Many students probably don't even know it exists.
I assumed the greenhouse was nonfunctional, but until I took Dr. Carl Johnson's introductory biology course, I never knew why. According to Johnson, the greenhouse has been out of use since 2020, when the former manager, Jonathan Ertelt, was let go due to a lack of income from the facility for Vanderbilt. At the time of Ertelt's release, he was told that Vanderbilt planned to renovate Stevenson 2 the following year, and the greenhouse needed to be emptied before the renovation occurred. Since Ertelt scattered his plant collection of over 1200 species in the greenhouse, it had been essentially empty until this year due to a broken ventilation system.
When COVID-19 hit, the plans to renovate Stevenson 2 came to a halt. However, according to Johnson, the plans have recently resurfaced. He sees this renovation as an opportunity to restore the greenhouse to its previous state: a hub for research, education, and science outreach. "When Stevenson 2 is renovated, all the heating and air conditioning in the building will be replaced anyway," Johnson said. "Replacing the ventilation system in the greenhouse could be done much more efficiently as part of that renovation than if it were to be done on its own."
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