Stories of UTM: Looking at the campus environment beyond the deer and trees
Two writers from The Medium share how UTM led them to appreciate the environment beyond the obvious greenery.
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A patch of green among the grey
By Maryam Raheel
It feels almost absurd to say that my favourite part of nature at UTM is the parking garage. On a campus adored for its forested trails and carefully planted gardens, it might seem strange that the place I look forward to visiting most is a small patch of wildflowers and tall grasses that hug the broad concrete steps between Parking Lot 4 and Parking Lot 8.
The staircase itself is unremarkable by design. It is bordered by steel railings and rooted amidst the constant hum of car engines, creating a space designed to move people from point A to point B most efficiently.
Every morning, students hurry up the steps with backpacks on their shoulders, coffee cups and car keys in hand, walking to the tempo of productivity. Yet, just inches away, nature’s own morning unfolds with a different kind of urgency.
Tall grasses bow with the wind until they spill over the steps, purple thistles bloom among tangled stems, and teasels stretch toward the sky like weathered paintbrushes. By late summer, white seed heads loosen into the breeze and drift through the air like tiny parachutes.
From a distance, it looks like nothing more than a patch of overgrown grass and weeds. But for those who take a moment to linger, small signs of life hidden among the stems begin to emerge.
A red-winged blackbird settles onto a swaying stalk, its crimson shoulder flashing against the greenery, while a cardinal darts between wildflowers with such speed that its brilliant feathers escape in a scarlet blur. On especially lucky mornings, a goldfinch perches on a thistle, its bright yellow body nearly indistinguishable from the sunlit blossoms surrounding it.
Bees vanish into flowers heavy with pollen and butterflies weave an erratic path through the meadow. The entire hillside breathes with life that somehow thrives beside painted parking lines and car emissions.
In the evenings, I walk down the steps to my car with unhurried footsteps, admiring the golden light of the setting sun as it catches the feathery tops of the plants. The cheery chirps of daytime birds gradually fade into the steady chorus of hidden crickets.
Between asphalt and concrete, nature has carved out its own corner of campus. It reminds me that sometimes beauty is within the places we pass every day, waiting for us to slow down and notice it.
ENG259: Offering a new way to look at the environment
By April Roy
While I have always been in awe of UTM’s deer population, there is one environmental-related memory I particularly cherish—taking ENG259 Imagining Nature: Literature and the Environment
I took this class with Professor Julia Boyd of the Department of English and Drama. Similar to Boyd’s other classes, ENG259 is grounded in social and environmental change, marrying the two.
Despite tackling topics like climate change and environmental degradation, which are often cast in an air of doom and gloom, ENG259 focuses on joy and critical hope as a tool to combat environmental threats. This hope is practical, it accepts that the current situation is bad, but believes that change is possible.
The course encouraged us to view nature as a common rather than a commodity, as well as to build a reciprocal relationship with it.
We also connected our learning to various environmental texts and films, such as the poetry of Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner and Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke. We applied what we learned from these texts to our final project. I ended up creating an original comic focusing on environmental themes.
The course also offered students an incredibly rewarding experience to take part in editing, publishing, and contributing to a special issue for UTM’s English journal Folia, titled “From Page to Planet: Transforming Nature Through Art.” In this issue, I submitted an original non-fiction story called “Rich in Green” which goes into depth about my personal experiences in witnessing deforestation and environmental degradation in my hometown.
Boyd’s enthusiasm and this class’s rich environmental content are among my most memorable experiences as an undergraduate student.
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