The Knoll—Middlebury College’s farm in Middlebury, VT. Photo © Chris Spencer.
About New Perennials
Since 2018, the New Perennials project has made its home at Middlebury College in Vermont. Along with our community and campus partners, we explore alternative practices in agriculture, education, the arts, health and wellness, and sacred-practice traditions that are in better harmony with the natural world. New Perennials offers courses, publications, and programming rooted in common sense, as a respite from an unraveling world, and with the energy and creativity to meet adversity with grace, justice, and gratitude.
WHAT WE DO
Together with students, colleagues, and community partners, we
develop community-centered, experiential teaching and learning alternatives within and beyond traditional classrooms and academic expectations;
publish open-access books, pamphlets, podcasts, videos, and educational resources featuring students, community activists, scholars, and artists; and
host and support events, conferences, lectures, workshops, and performances.
“Perenniality is no longer just a botanical and agricultural term. Food sustains us, and perennial agriculture will help in that regard. However, I’ve realized that it is perenniality itself that sustains life with rootedness, longevity, community, material minimalism, deep thought, and joy.
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OUR HISTORY
The project began in 2015 when Wes Jackson and Bill Vitek launched into initial conversations and convened a group of colleagues from around the globe to reimagine “the curriculum,” the intellectual infrastructure that in today’s educational systems tends to contribute to the abuse of land and people, typically in the name of “progress.” In 2016, Aubrey Streit Krug joined Jackson at The Land Institute, and the three explored “ologies,” “isms,” and the arts across age and difference while facing facts and limits. They were creating communities of learning and practice, and exploring perenniality and diversity in cultural systems. Since those early gatherings, New Perennials and The Land Institute have rooted themselves as co-learners and practitioners working in geographically different regions and connected by a shared history and a vision of possibilities. In 2018, Ecosphere Studies (now called the Perennial Cultures Lab) became a program at The Land Institute, and Vitek brought the New Perennials project to Vermont, where it is currently in residence at Middlebury College.