The University Of Virginia’s

SUSTAINABILITY LAB

“This new vision for Morven aligns with the sustainability goals in the 2030 Plan and underpins the tremendously positive work already underway at Morven.”

— Ian Baucom, UVA Provost

Mission

Morven is a place-based (land-centered) sustainability lab where a community of faculty, students, staff, visiting scholars and community members explore, discover and create more enduring and just ways of multi-species living in the world. Morven’s diverse rural lands—shaped by thousands of years of environmental and human history--are simultaneously a living landscape classroom, laboratory and sanctuary. Here, in the classroom and in the field, we incorporate traditional practices and seek new practices and models necessary to address the global environmental crisis, especially as it is changing the Virginia Piedmont, our regional home.

Morven affords the broad intellectual reach of the UVA community—from the environmental humanities to the environmental sciences, from architecture and engineering to law, from art to economics—a shared space for transformative research and transformational experiential learning commensurate with the magnitude of contemporary socio-ecological challenges, such as a changing climate, food insecurity and equity as well as the loss of biodiversity.

We are defined by:

A commitment to healthy lands, beautiful landscapes and a biodiverse environment as vital to a thriving culture.

An appreciation of the affective role of landscape experience for increasing personal well-being and engendering collective identity. Morven will have open doors for informal activities of UVA’s diverse and vital community so our members, inspired and renewed by the Morven experience, can address and respond to the complexity of the global environmental crisis.

An ethical understanding of place that honors and acknowledges the ancestral land practices of the Indigenous nations who lived, hunted and foraged on these hills above the Rivanna and James Rivers. We honor the ingenuity, skill and tenacity of the enslaved people who shaped and maintained these lands. We seek their guidance as we co-create plans for Morven’s future.

Elizabeth K. Meyer
Faculty Director, Morven Sustainability Lab
Merrill D. Peterson Professor of Landscape Architecture/UVA School of Architecture

Share Your Ideas

We value community input and ideas on the work and mission of the Sustainability Lab. Please share your ideas and join in on the discussion!

Join the Discussion

Visit the Morven Sustainability Lab Ideanote website by clicking the Survey button.

Click the green Join button in the top right corner of the screen.

Enter your preferred sign up information (email and password). Remember what you use, so you can log back in later!

Refresh your screen. You should now see four discussion tiles in the UVA Sustainability Lab forum.

Submit or comment on ideas under each discussion tile, as yourself or anonymously.

What’s New At Morven

  • Events & Programs at MSL

    Join our newsletter or check out or Eventbrite to follow along with upcoming events and programs at Morven!

  • Batten Builds Day of Service at Morven Kitchen Garden

    “Students with UVA’s Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy were at the Morven Kitchen Garden Friday, August 30, picking fruits and veggies in preparation for an upcoming fundraiser. The work is part of the Batten builds day of community service. More than 200 students were spread across Charlottesville and Albemarle County doing similar work with other local non-profits.”

  • Sustainable Food Collaborative Annual Report

    Check out the SFC Annual Report!
    "Our role is to set and implement UVA-wide food goals that advance sustainable, equitable food systems at UVA and in the broader community. We strive to center food justice and food sovereignty across all of the activities fostered in the Sustainable Food Action Plan. "