Fall — 2007

Natasha Vokhshoori

Science/Associated Students

“I don’t want to force this on anyone, but a sustainable environment is good for us all. And it should be in the forefront of our thoughts.”

‘As the Worm Turns,’ there’s “more to life than a Big Mac!” Ooooh-kay. Now let’s try to decipher this absurd sentence through an encounter with Natasha Vokhshoori, future environmentalist and hopeful AS Commissioner. “People would ask me what to do and—in the past—I’d tell them that I wanted to save the world!” she says with a laugh. “But recently I’ve realized that the world doesn’t need saving. So I’ve joined with other people at SMC to create a community right here. And what we’re doing—and what was just approved by the administration!—is to break ground on SMC’s first organic garden. Then we’re going to start up a café where people can enjoy real, organically grown food, and avoid the fast-food stuff they’d normally find in the cafeteria.” So what in heck was that ‘worms’ thing that Natasha mentioned? “Did you know that we have a huge worm farm on the main campus, right next to the cafeteria? And it’s our goal to operate our café with everything—cups, plates, utensils—going right into our vermiculture. So everything we produce will go right back into the soil of our garden, to grow the next crops to feed our students.”

Pragmatist, visionary, and humorist along the way, Natasha says that she “was planning on transferring next fall. But at SMC, opportunities just keep popping up for me to get involved. So I think I’ll just stay here for a while. I’m definitely going to get my PhD to teach,” she says. “But between now and then, I just want to go out into the field to study. And from what I’ve seen thus far of SMC, this is one of the most interesting ‘fields’ I’ll ever study in.”

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