Congratulations on your acceptance!

You now have the opportunity to embark on one of the most thrilling, challenging and important adventures of your life. The entire Sterling community looks forward to welcoming you to Craftsbury.

The first step on your journey is to send in your deposit to reserve your place in the incoming class! The New Student Deposit and Registration Form below will give you the option of submitting your deposit online, or the option to indicate that you will be paying via check or credit card over the phone.

Fill Out the New Student Deposit & Registration Form

We will confirm your deposit upon receipt. If you have any questions about this form, methods of payment, or your deposit amount, please call 802-586-7711 x 100 or email [email protected].

Home Field Guide

You are here.

Step 1: Confirm You're Coming

Step 2: Required Forms

Step 3: Packing List & Arrival Day

Step 4: A Sense of Place: Expedition 1

Step 5: Helpful Resources

Step 6: Policies & Guidelines

Step 7: Nourish Yourself

Finish Line:You're Ready!

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Food waste isn't good anywhere, but food waste on farms (i.e., food loss) is a major missed opportunity. Excess food production yields environmental harms and represents missed opportunities for farm viability, community resilience, and nourished bodies. Spend an afternoon with Salvation Farms founder Theresa Snow exploring how to collaboratively and regionally manage farm surplus and build resilience. https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/food-resilience-and-conservation

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Our food systems are designed to commodify, not to nourish. Want to learn and cultivate something better? Check out Food Systems Thinking, a fully remote and asynchronous class from Continuing Education at Sterling College. Learn more: https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/food-systems-thinking

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Often forgotten in the realm of textiles, mushrooms have long been used as natural dyes, yielding some of nature's most vibrant colors. Learn to use fungi to create beautiful, vibrant, and nontoxic dyes perfect for any natural fiber. We will spend Saturday in the forest, learning about and foraging for dye mushrooms. Julie will walk students through the mushroom identification process and teach us how to locate dye mushrooms using environmental indicators. On Sunday she will go through various dye techniques, as students explore the myriad of shades these forest friends offer us. Students will leave with an understanding of how to find, forage for and identify dye mushrooms, wool fiber samples for the rainbow of colors they create, a large hand-dyed kerchief, and an instructional craftbook including mushroom dye recipes.

This course allows students the opportunity to define mushroom species and types, understand the identification components of different dye mushrooms, demonstrate mushroom dye baths, analyze the properties of the dye bath to reveal the color, design a color chart of mushrooms and shibori designed silk kerchief and compare colors, processes and compounds of the mushroom dye baths.

Learn more: https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/mycology-color

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Meet Victoria (she/her), a current student majoring in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems and our Senior Work Program Admission Ambassador. One thing she loves about Sterling is the ability to shape your experience to best suit your own needs: what classes you take, what you focus in during those classes, where you live, and how you spend time on campus! Check out Sterling for yourself : https://www.sterlingcollege.edu/visit-sterling/

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Commercial bread uses synthetic chemicals to speed up the manufacturing and improve flavor and shelf life. Collaborate with beneficial microbes to bake your own instead. Check out Artisan Breadmaking & Heritage Grains part of Continuing Education at Sterling College. Only 6 spots left! Learn more: https://www.ce.sterlingcollege.edu/artisan-breadmaking-heritage-grains

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It's the little things that make Sterling a special place. Compost-pickup by draft animals; weekly community meetings with faculty, staff, and student body; and circulated memos like this reminding us of the the circadian rhythms and activity of animals. #ecologicalthinkingandaction

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Our Food & Environmental Writing course, part of our Continuing Education offerings, just wrapped up. This 8-week course was led by Joe Fassler, deputy editor of The Counter. Outcomes from the course were aimed at: crafting compelling stories about vast, interconnected systems; balancing human-level narratives with complex science and policy issues; interrogating popular narratives that mislead and obscure; and handling culturally fraught topics with sensitivity and nuance. And we are thrilled to report back that student, Paige Curtis, successfully checked all boxes and has already had her work published on The Grist. Take a read: Link on bio.

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EMERGENCY TO EMERGENCE PODCAST // Like many young boys, Josh Bossin, Sterling College Faculty in Outdoor Education, found a sense of belonging in the outdoors as a child. Unlike others, Josh resisted the many forces that draw adults indoors and keep us there for 90% of our lives, on average. Instead, Josh kept his love for the outdoors alive, well, and thriving. Inspired by conservationist Kris Tomkins' notion that people only protect what they love and only love what they identify with, Josh set up to cultivate a love of the natural world in others. He does that by sticking to fundamentals, reducing barriers to getting outside, eschewing the culture of excess and consumption that often make outdoor adventure seem exclusive, and helping folks safely traverse unfamiliar spaces. This episode is best downloaded and listened to while walking beneath a canopy of new Spring leaves. Move outdoors with Josh Bossin. Take a listen: Link on bio.

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We all have responsibilities on a farm. Our Boer goat herd pitched in and did some invasive plant management in the forest!

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The present climate and ecological emergencies can no longer be ignored, yet the social and political response to them does not match the scale and urgency of action required. A vague sense among Global Northerners that things are bad and that they will get much worse manifests as emotional paralysis, despair, and both active and passive denial. None of this helps the individual or mitigates the crises. Conversely, because of their current realities, many Global Southerners are acutely aware of climate consequences in the present and want to inform their actions and adaptations with a firm grip of the science and socio-political dynamics.

This course aims to illuminate the dark cloud in our minds called climate breakdown, by equipping learners with the scientific knowledge, emotional clarity, and practical know-how to contribute to timely transformative systemic change in all aspects of society.

Register: Link on Bio

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Field School students and the garden interns transplant tomatoes in the hoop house. These will be a part of our CSA offerings, which will start on June 22nd, as well as for the Sterling kitchen.

Dig In!

CFO James “Rocky” Query Joins Campus

James “Rocky” Query is Sterling College’s new Chief Financial Officer, and joined the campus in May of 2015. Query was the Assistant Vice President for Finance for Saint Joseph’s University,…

Birds Are Just Reptiles with Feathers

You know how sometimes you get distracted from herps because of other herps? That’s how I’m feeling today. I heard Common Loons this week while trying to find Mink Frogs,…

We Shall Not Be Moved: A Case for Direct Action

Written by: Christine Colascione We are living in an important era: and with opponents like climate catastrophe and white supremacy to overcome, escalated and transformative peaceful resistance is crucial. Nonviolent…

Confirm Your Enrollment

1. Confirm Your Enrollment

2. Complete the Required Forms

3. How to Get Here, What to Bring & When to Arrive

4. A Sense of Place: Expedition 1

6. Meet Your Field Guides

7. Policies & Guidelines

8. Make the Most of Your Time Here!

Congratulations on your acceptance!

CFO James “Rocky” Query Joins Campus

Birds Are Just Reptiles with Feathers

We Shall Not Be Moved: A Case for Direct Action