Culture and Community

Celebrating Culture and Building Community

Celebrating Culture and Building Community

Arizona: A Living Laboratory

Celebrating the rich, vibrant cultures of the Southwest and deepening community ties invite stronger senses of connection and belonging both to each other and the natural world. 

Across disciplines at the University of Arizona, researchers and creatives are finding new ways to honor the heritage and history of Tucson, strengthen relationships, and build community while engendering a respect and desire to work in service of the world around us.

Students at Camp Cooper raise their hands

Camp Cooper celebrates 60 years teaching Tucson's youth about the Sonoran Desert

For the first time in five decades, construction is underway at the Cooper Center for Environmental Learning, a "living classroom" tucked into the hills of the Sonoran Desert on Tucson's west side.

Shannon Taylor headshot

Shannon Taylor: Bringing Traditional Ecological Knowledge to conservation and cartography

Shannon Taylor, White Mountain Apache and Navajo, discusses how she hopes to apply Traditional Ecological Knowledge along with GIS and cartography to help with Native American communities' conservation efforts, historic preservation, land management and other tribal environmental issues.

A student works in a garden at Manzo Elementary School in Tucson.

$1M gift to UArizona School Garden Workshop launches 'Sprouts House' project

The University of Arizona School Garden Workshop – which supports teaching and learning in K-12 school gardens in Tucson – will soon be able to expand its regional impact and national training capacity thanks to a $1 million gift from Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation.

Interdisciplinary programs Celebrating 
Culture and Building Community

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Tucson desert Scenery with snow.

Southwest Center

Documenting and interpreting the region’s natural and human cultures.

For millennia, the Southwest region has been a crossroads of cultures, languages, customs, and ideas, and its distinct regional identity is shaped by the land itself. Recognizing that no single academic discipline can fully comprehend the Southwest, the Center serves foremost as a clearinghouse for the exchange of ideas from many fields.

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Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment & Social Justice

Investing in the University of Arizona and communities.

The Haury Program is dedicated to advancing Indigenous Resilience through funding education, research and outreach, supporting Native American pathways, and building partnerships.

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Haury photo collage


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"Haiku Hike" sign outside

Poetry Center

Advancing a diverse and robust literary culture.

The Poetry Center connects the University of Arizona with the greater literary community in Tucson and beyond, providing a permanent landmark home for poetry in the American Southwest.

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Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill

Culture, Community, Science

A unique combination of culture, science, and community, Tumamoc Hill is an 860-acre ecological preserve in the heart of Tucson, home to the Desert Laboratory since 1903.

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Desert Lab greenhouse on Tumamoc Hill

Study Culture and Community at the University of Arizona

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