UConn Foundation newsletter Momentum, Summer 2006 issue
A UConn Advance article from 1956 about the opening of a new School of Pharmacy building on the Storrs campus includes just a brief mention of a “drug garden” planned for the grounds.
Walk by this spot today and the chances are good you’ll encounter Diana Stanzione and other members of the UConn Master Gardener Program as they work to maintain the plantings, whose original purpose was a means to educate pharmacy students about “the manufacture of medications and dietary supplements.”
Now that the School of Pharmacy has relocated to its new home in the Science Quad, Stanzione and others are mounting efforts to move the medicinal garden adjacent to the Pharmacy/Biology and Chemistry buildings. Diana, who is married to Ralph Stanzione, a 1972 graduate of the School, worked for many years in the pharmaceutical industry. After retiring, she enrolled in the Master Gardener Program sponsored by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. She notes that one of the steps to certification through the Program is to perform 20 hours of community outreach, and so each year for the past five years Diana has organized a group of fellow master gardener candidates to work with her at the School of Pharmacy.
“I always had a love for the medicinal garden,” she says.“Plants were the basis for modern pharmacology and I believe it is important for today’s pharmacy students to understand where modern medicines got their start.”
Many common garden plants have properties that can be used to treat illnesses and injuries.Varieties like foxgloves, hops, belladonna, horehound and valerian have a documented history of popular use in the United States well into the 20th century, but in recent years this knowledge has been eclipsed by the advent of modern pharmaceuticals.
When the School of Pharmacy unveiled plans for its new location, the medicinal garden was included, but then things changed and for a time it did not seem like the garden “was going to make the cut,” Stanzione says. That’s when Dean Robert McCarthy became involved, working with the University’s Building and Grounds Committee to win preliminary approval for relocating the garden.
“The medicinal garden has a long history and many of our former students have a strong sentimental attachment to it,” says Dean McCarthy. “It is an important connection to our past and so should be preserved.”
Mrs. Stanzione and Joseph DeLucia ’65 (PHAR), are now co-chairing a group seeking to raise funds for relocating many of the current plantings and brick walkways, as well as for purchasing new stock.
“We hope to recreate the look of the old garden as closely as possible in the new space, including a new sitting pavilion," says Stanzione.“And we have a committed group of volunteers who would like to support an endowment to cover the expense of maintaining the garden on an ongoing basis."
McCarthy adds,“There’s an expression that ‘the old will become new again,’ and even today there is great value in understanding the natural properties of plants and their potential use in modern pharmacy studies.We‘re very grateful to Diana, Joe and the rest of the volunteers who are helping us to preserve this wonderful resource.”
