Campus as Forest integrates a culture of care and a mindset of abundance to envision a future defined by purpose and possibility. As we strengthen the threads of connection and reciprocity weaving through our academics, physical campus, and community partnerships, our shared purpose—to co-create the conditions for a thriving and resilient Catawba natural and cultural ecosystem that delivers enduring shared value for, and regenerative stewardship of, our diverse communities—will serve to engage, leverage, and align our diverse perspectives to deliver robust solutions that benefit all.

Campus as Forest is rooted in the knowledge that our interdependence and interconnectedness with Nature is a gift that increases and accelerates our ability to address the environmental challenges we are experiencing today. With Nature as our co-collaborator and mentor, we can learn lessons from Nature’s proven solutions to de-risk and accelerate innovative solutions that deliver positive impact. With nature-based solutions, we can harness Nature’s innate ability to create a regenerative environment. And by integrating industry-leading ecosystem services quantification technology into our decision-making processes and using Nature’s ecosystem performance as our benchmark, we can evaluate if the solutions we co-create are bold enough to meet our goals.