Who Are We?
Our Leadership Team
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Samuel Fox
Sam Fox is a biology professor at Saint Martin's University. He grew up working on a farm, tending to the cows, sheep and pigs, building fences, and bucking hay. He has a great love of nature and a strong desire to help people. His research interests focus on uncovering the genetic mechanisms guiding plant responses to their environment, especially environmental stress. Abiotic stress is a major contributing factor leading to low crop yields. Feeding the people of the world in the future with the current resources will require a dramatic increase in crop production. Research projects involve crops such as wheat, rice, and tomatoes. With the help of many great Saint Martin's University undergraduate students, he is characterizing genes, developing genetic markers for plant breeding, and analyzing gene expression after exposure of a plant to a suboptimal growth condition. In a recent project, he identified dramatic changes in bacteria growing at the roots of tomato plants exposed to heat stress.
Tim Madeley
Tim Madeley is a professor of Accounting at Saint Martin’s University as well as a student in the university’s PhD program in Leadership Studies. Higher education is a second career for Tim after spending several decades in accounting and production management in the commercial playground industry. This included owning the local company, BigToys, for seven years.
One of Tim’s primary hobbies is gardening at his home on the westside of Olympia. Given the prevalence shade creating trees and plant devouring wildlife, his home gardening is limited to beauty as opposed to sustenance. His work in weeding and preparing CSA bags fulfills his desire to grow food and support the university’s efforts to provide for those in need.
Julia Chavez
Julia McCord Chavez is an English professor at Saint Martin’s University and Director of the Center for Scholarship and Teaching. Growing up, she spent many summer days on her grandfather’s farm in southern Indiana and learned to appreciate the ways in which farming brings a person closer to the natural world, creates a rhythm to life, and provides a quiet environment for contemplation and deep reflection. In her work as a humanities professor and teacher of writing, Chavez values service learning and opportunities for students to connect their academic studies with hands-on projects. By incorporating farm-based service learning into her classes, Chavez seeks to promote a synthesis of reflection/theory and action/practice. The farm model of service learning has been an invaluable way for these students, who come from varied faith traditions, to understand the Benedictine tradition of “Ora et Labora,” or dividing one’s time between prayer and work. Service learning opportunities invite students to self-consciously connect the abstract life of the mind with concrete, physical endeavors in the natural world.
Founders' Corner
Dr. Jeff Crane, was a history professor and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Saint Martin’s University until 2022. As an environmental historian he has written extensively on ecosystem change, reform efforts, and recently, climate change and community farming. The son of parents from farming backgrounds he was taught to garden early and from sixth grade on spent his summers in the strawberry, cucumber, and raspberry fields of the Skagit Valley as well as bucking hay, picking and canning blackberries, and learning an appreciation for honest labor and agriculture. In his career he has been active in community gardens and urban farms in Pullman, Washington, Houston and San Antonio, Texas, and Lacey and Olympia, Washington. In San Antonio he helped establish or expand 4 community gardens in impoverished sections of the city and was part of a team that built curriculum, engaged community members, and worked to provide healthy produce for those in need. Dr. Crane is now Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California.
Stephen Holland taught English, US history, and jazz band at Pope John Paul II High School where he also oversaw community service activities and various student clubs. The last 10 years of his own formal education were completed at various Jesuit institutions, instilling a sense of justice that effectively ruined him for life. After college, he and his wife worked to more fully live out their Catholic faith, focusing on the human and environmental impacts of their consumption. Their foray into gardening began with basil and cilantro grown in their Baltimore apartment. Back in Washington, they became cul-de-sac farmers, keeping chickens and using any open space to grow food. After reading Steve Solomon, Stephen realized he needed more space to produce truly healthy, nutrient-dense food for his family. While leading volunteers at Pigman’s Produce Patch, incredibly, Jan Pigman offered her own farm! Stephen now worked tirelessly to provide wholesome, ethically produced food for his own family and the larger community. Today, he is Headmaster at Thomas Aquinas Academy in Gig Harbor, Washington.
Past Members of the Leadership Team
Kelly Quiroz
Kelly Quiroz is a recent graduate from Saint Martin's University, with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science. She started working for Our Common Home Farms in Fall 2019, as a student worker and since graduation has taken on the role as "Farm Development and Outreach Coordinator". Kelly grew up in Yelm Washington, where she had a backyard garden throughout her childhood. During high school, Kelly adopted a plant-based lifestyle after taking an environmental studies class, where she learned about the huge impact animal agriculture has on our carbon footprint. She's always experimenting with new recipes from her favorite vegan instagramers...it works out most of the time. Since her graduation, she has taken on the role of "Farm Development and Outreach Coordinator" for Our Common Home Farms.
Will Stadler
Will Stadler is an assistant professor and director for the criminology & criminal justice program at Saint Martin's University. As a social science professor, Will has been involved in teaching, research, and service in several areas related to ecology, including wildlife crime, conservation law enforcement, and environmental crime and justice. Despite growing up in a mid-western city, he has always been interested in preserving the natural world and spending time exploring nature, often by foot (and paw), with his wife and dog in America's National Parks, forests, and "wild" places. Though still a relative newcomer to the Pacific Northwest, Stadler is committed to building a more sustainable future for our world and the region by educating others about threats to conservation and healthy agricultural practices, as well as collaborating with friends and colleagues to produce and promote locally-grown produce for the surrounding community. Will primarily contributes to OCHF by coordinating infrastructure projects, working on its CSA program, and leading Saint Martin's students in service-learning activities at Pigman’s Produce Patch.
A Work of Heart
Written by Mc Erl Andres
“My Grandpa had a farm and I grew up spending time during the summer in a farm environment. Today farming is a special time to move away from distractions. I have a sense of working in nature but also doing it to produce nourishment that people need to thrive. Working on the farm gives me a feeling of connection with family history and also a connection with my local community.”
Dr. Julia Chavez, Ph.D., J.D., is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Center for Scholarship and Teaching at Saint Martin’s University. She teaches English classes from Introductory to Victorian to Feminist Literature. She is a beloved member of the Saint Martin’s community. Her smiling face can be found in Old Main
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Dr. Chavez instructing volunteers.
(c) Saint Martin’s Photo Shelter
Dr. Chavez is an avid volunteer at the farm. There, she engages in farm work, from planting, to harvest, to coordinating volunteers. She enjoys her work at the farm because it allows her to disconnect from the distractions of daily life and also connect with the community: “My Grandpa had a farm and I grew up spending time during the summer in a farm environment. Today farming is a special time to move away from distractions. I have a sense of working in nature but also doing it to produce nourishment that people need to thrive. Working on the farm gives me a feeling of connection with family history and also a connection with my local community.”
As a non-Pacific Northwest Native, she is learning about the plants that thrive in our climate, which is different from where she is from. She proudly shared about the wide variety of crops grown at the farm that allows continuous production. There is an abundance of strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, beets, corns, rhubarb, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, pumpkins, potatoes, zucchini, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants growing at the farm that she enjoys being a part of.
Dr. Chavez believes that there is a strong connection between the Benedictine Identity and tradition to the work at the farm. The Benedictine motto, Ora et Labora, which expresses the balance of work and prayer is a concept she wants to introduce to students. She wants the students to see the Benedictine Identity in day-to-day life, as well as show the strong connection of the work on the farm to the Rule of Saint Benedict on Stewardship, Community, Respect for Persons, and Awareness of God.
When asked why students should be engaged in this work, Dr. Chavez said that this activity has two levels of benefit: service that has a direct benefit to the community, and care for one’s own well-being. Students are able to see and be assured that they are making a huge difference because the harvested produce is donated to the community. Those who are unable to purchase food for themselves and their families can still receive nourishment because the crops grown are donated to them. The individual benefit is the opportunity to go out to a quiet space to work to counteract the fast pace of regular life. She believes that it pays to slow down and have some sort of quiet time. When doing that, people can become aware of the beauty of nature. Dr. Chavez said, “[it’s] amazing to see the seeds change into flowers and grow into vegetables that people eat. It is the bright spot of the week.”
If interested in volunteering at Our Common Farm Homes, contact Dr. Chavez by email at JChavez@stmartin.edu.
