Beth has been a faculty member at Antioch College since 2013. With a background in regenerative agriculture, experiential education and sustainable practice, she teaches co-op field classes as well as courses in agrarian systems, reskilling and resilience, plant medicine, seed-saving, harvest preservation, and commensality, utilizing the Antioch Farm and campus as learning laboratories.

Her pedagogy includes peer-to-peer teaching and co-constructed learning within a democratic educational framework, creating opportunities for student-centered integrative learning in communities of practice.

Beth’s co-op focus areas include regenerative agriculture, sustainable practice, environmental science, biomedical science, and alternative education, as well as opportunities in Japan. She is co-op liaison to the science division.

A recipient of a faculty excellence award from the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education, she is also an Oral History in the Liberal Arts Faculty Fellow, receiving funding for her project “Re-establishing a Seed Commons through Oral History Methodology” with support from the Great Lakes College Association Mellon-funded Oral History in the Liberal Arts initiative.  Her “Pedagogies of Nature: Shinto, Spiritual Ecology, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge” research project, postponed due to continued Japan travel restrictions, received National Endowment for the Arts funding through the Great Lakes College Association Japan Travel Grant.

Illustrating how “one co-op can lead to another”, prior positions include Ohio State University county extension educator, Peace Corps Philippines agriculture specialist, ESL educator at Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages in Tokyo, Japan, program director for Soroptimist International of the Americas, and senior international program specialist for Girl Scouts of the U.S.A.

EDUCATION
M.A., International Administration, SIT Graduate Institute

B.A., Elementary Education, University of Northern Colorado

SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Environmental Education Council of Ohio conference, 2022. Into the Woods: Food, Drink and Forest Medicines.

Kentucky Organic Association conference, 2021. Seed Sovereignty: How to Save Seed and Why You Should.

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference, Spokane, Washington, 2019. Food, Forage, Farm, Feast: Teaching Reskilling, Sustainability and Commensality at Antioch College.  

Society of Ethnobiology conference, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2019. The Antioch College Apothecary: Place-Based Experiential Learning.

Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association conference, Dayton, Ohio, 2019. How to Save Seed and Why You Should: Seed Law.

School of the Alternative Residency, Black Mountain, North Carolina. 2019. Decolonizing Herbalism.

Ohio State University InFACT Seed to Sustainability series, 2017. History of Seed Patent Law in the United States Since 1930.

PRACTICE AS RESEARCH
Grounded Hope podcast on regenerative agriculture, Ohio Humanities Council.

Re-establishing a Seed Commons Through Oral History Methodology, Oral History in the Liberal Arts

Capturing the Story of Seeds

Antioch College Seed School

Community Seed School at Agraria

Antioch College Becomes Bee-Friendly Neonic-Free Campus, Center for Food Safety

A Look at the Antioch Farm: Fruits of our Labor

Antioch Farm Seeds New Ways to Grow Food

Ohayo Ohio Japanese Symposium

Faculty Collaborate to Offer Ohio-Ohayo II

Rich Earth Residency Design-Build 2017 

SELECTED COURSES
EXPR 341: Seed Sovereignty and Citizen Action

EXPR 140: The Antioch Harvest: Seed-saving, Canning, Fermenting, and Preserving

EXPR 241 and ANTC 170: Reskilling, Sustainability and Community

EXPR 340: The Antioch Apothecary: Teas and Tinctures, Syrups and Salves

COOP 245, 345, 390: Cooperative Education Field Experience I, II and III.