Maryland University of Integrative Health Has Sold the Jim Duke Green Farmacy Garden, a Property Popular With Regional Herbalists, to Community Ecology Institute Laurel, MD – December 21, 2022
Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH) has finalized the sale of Dr. Jim Duke’s Green Farmacy Garden located at 8210 Murphy Road in Fulton, Maryland. The property was purchased by Community Ecology Institute (CEI), a non-profit organization located in Howard County, Maryland. MUIH made the official announcement on December 22, 2022. Dr. James (Jim) Duke, a published ethnobotanist and former faculty member at MUIH, built The Green Farmacy Garden in 1998 after a 30-year career with the US Department of Agriculture. The six-acre property, which includes a house and pasture land, became a sanctuary for over 300 medicinal plants collected for over 60 years. The garden was designed to highlight the plants featured in Duke’s book, The Green Pharmacy.
The property, which was Duke’s home until he passed away in 2017, was eventually transferred to MUIH as part of an arrangement between the Duke family and the university. The gardens were available to the public, as well as MUIH students in the school’s herbal degree programs. However, with the move to online and hybrid learning, students’ visits to the property were reduced and administrators committed to finding an appropriate organization to take over the gardens.
MUIH’s President & CEO Marc Levin says selling the property to CEI was a move in the right direction for both the school and the gardens. “As stewards of the garden, we are pleased that it will continue to serve as a place of learning for the community and herbalists,” said Levin. CEI leaders plan to continue to make the gardens available for community events and expand public use of the property. The Green Farmacy Garden remains part of the United Plant Savers network of sanctuaries around the country, which strive to educate the public and maintain native plant species that have become at risk or endangered.
MUIH’s Director of Professional and Continuing Education, Beth Romanski, wrote Chapter 17 for a new book about credential innovation, New Models of Higher Education: Unbundled, Rebundled, Customized, and DIY. Romanski, B. (2022).
Unbundling Credit to Non-Credit: A Framework for Developing Alternative Credentials. In A. M. Brower & R. J. Specht-Boardman (Eds.), New models of higher education: Unbundled, rebundled, customized, & DIY (pp. 332-365). IGI Global. 10.4018/978-1-6684-3809-1
Building Community Across Distance
MUIH VIRTUAL COMMUNITY WEB PAGE
At MUIH, we not only talk about community, we believe in the power of community and strive to function as a community. With the recent events taking place, we are asking our community members to submit materials, ideas, and suggestions to share with all members of our community. We would like to post the name of the submitter and the relationship to MUIH if you give us permission. Please use the form on the Community Resources page to submit your offerings. (submissions are subject to review and approval)
Use the above link to access our Virtual Community Resources page, dedicated to delivering you happenings occurring in the virtual space. At MUIH, we not only talk about community, we believe in the power of community and strive to function as a community. With the recent events taking place, we are asking our community members to submit materials, ideas, and suggestions to share with all members of our community. We would like to post the name of the submitter and the relationship to MUIH if you give us permission. Please use the form on the bottom of the page in the link above to submit your offerings.