Irish Creek Conservation Partnership

W&L is proud to partner with the Indigenous-led nonprofit organization NDPonics on a distinctive collaboration for the promotion of environmental and cultural conservation, place-based learning, and community building in the Irish Creek region of Rockbridge County.

This initiative is anchored in the physical space now called Kihkǫspé:hla, a 6-acre parcel owned and managed under conservation easement by NDPonics. The site, a roughly 25-minute drive from the W&L campus,  is an appropriate base for hands-on projects and research related to environmental science as well as topics from various disciplines that will be better informed through location-based learning. Topics specific to indigenous culture - historic and present - including traditional ecological knowledge, widely recognized as key to meeting the current environmental crises of climate change and destruction of biodiversity, are particularly appropriate and may provide opportunities to collaborate with NDPonics in support of specific conservation goals.

The site inludes a flat creek-side area where a house offers bathroom facilities and internat access, as well as densely wooded hillside areas. One end of the property sits among a few neighboring houses while the other connects with National Forest. Those interested in exploring opportunities to incorporate this land in teaching, research or programming should visit the Kihkǫspé:hla Living Lab page on the Provost's Office Curricular Resoures web page.

General inquiries about the partnership and ways to engage may also be directed to Jane Stewart.