For the last twenty-two years, Marian Farrior has dedicated her work – at the Arboretum and with other environmental organizations – to a clear and yet infinitely complex goal: serving the Earth, and getting as many people as possible involved in the same mission.

Now Marian is retiring – from the Arboretum, but not from her mission – and to honor all she has achieved, we’re sharing some of her passion and accomplishments in two profiles. The first is a sampling of her significant contributions at the Arboretum, the second a profile written by a community partner.

Marian was hired at the Arboretum in 2002 as the Earth Partnership field manager. In the early 1990s, outreach staff developed several programs under the name Earth Partnership that were designed to promote native habitat restoration as a process for community learning and land stewardship. Working with volunteer program manager Judy Kingsbury and incorporating input from volunteers, Marian revised the restoration team leader training and work party program that was developed by Molly Fifield Murray and William Jordan III in the mid-1990s.

Another related program, Earth Partnership for Schools, was led by Cheryl Bauer-Armstrong and focused on training K–12 teachers to incorporate restoration principles and techniques in classroom learning. Marian helped with curriculum development, led restoration activities during the training, and co-taught an action research graduate course for teachers.

The team leader work party program continues to play an important role in restoring Arboretum land by training volunteers to lead work parties of volunteers doing restoration work and other land care tasks. Yet Marian has also grown the program beyond the core goal of supporting land restoration at the Arboretum. It engages people in conservation work and values that can benefit communities and landscapes everywhere. Along with learning applied restoration techniques, team leaders have opportunities to develop leadership and communication skills, deepen individual and collective learning, and enhance diversity, equity, inclusion, and access priorities. Amy Jo Dusick, who co-taught trainings with Marian, was herself a former team leader, and many others have gone on to become conservation professionals.

Arboretum land care manager Michael Hansen says, “I could always count on Marian to prioritize restoration. She organized more than a thousand work parties and engaged more than thirteen thousand volunteers over the years, which had a tremendous positive impact on Arboretum land and beyond. I also appreciated her perspective on land management issues and other related topics that came up in our discussions. She thought about things differently than I do, and her input often gave me insights I may not have realized on my own.”

After Earth Partnership moved to the UW–Madison Department of Landscape Architecture, Marian continued to collaborate with the program’s Indigenous Arts and Sciences (IAS) staff. This initiative facilitates connections and opportunities with tribal leaders, elders, and youth to support the integration of restoration science and traditional ecological knowledge and practices. Marian has led IAS activities involving Indigenous youth and UW students in mound restoration at the Arboretum.

Marian believes that restoration and volunteer engagement is collective work. She has long collaborated with Judy Kingsbury, the Arboretum’s volunteer program manager, to support a robust and inclusive volunteer management structure at the Arboretum. They have also collaborated with Bryn Scriver at Lakeshore Nature Preserve, and in 2018 they convened a community of practice for Restoration Managers in Dane County Who Work with Volunteers. They organized meetings for peer-to-peer mentoring, compiled a list of annual training opportunities, and organized field trips.

Judy says, “I had the good fortune to work with Marian during her entire Arboretum career. She built and nurtured relationships with colleagues, peers in ecological restoration, organizations, and individuals in the broader community – and with southern Wisconsin’s ecosystems. In the restoration team leader program, she supported the growth of all volunteers as leaders and restorationists. She always found ways to improve the program and broaden the reach of volunteer engagement. Marian became a treasured coworker and friend, and she leaves a strong legacy of caring, creativity, and connection.”

Marian, Judy, and Brad Herrick, former Arboretum research manager, recently published a white paper about the evolution of the ecological restoration volunteer program that shares frameworks, models, techniques, practices, and extensive references to support other organizations that engage the public in restoration.

Protecting the natural springs around Lake Wingra (several are on land managed by the Arboretum) is another of Marian’s priorities and passions. For Indigenous Peoples, the springs have long been spiritually sacred. Historically, as sources of open water, they were also essential for surviving winter. Of thirty-eight springs originally around Lake Wingra, only fourteen remain. The others have been destroyed as the city grew. The remaining springs are imperiled by winter salt use, which increases the salinity and adversely affects water quality of the springs, Lake Wingra, and downstream waters.

Marian continued monitoring the springs’ water quality (work started by Roger Bannerman) by creating an Arboretum project and involving colleagues. Together, they collected data on chloride levels and other water quality indicators, and developed outreach collaborations with Edgewood College, Friends of Lake Wingra, Wisconsin Salt Wise, and UW–Madison Department of Limnology to educate people about the threats to healthy springs and ways to reduce salt use. They also initiated restoration efforts around springs at the Arboretum to protect them from erosion and off-trail foot traffic.

Marian has fostered organizational and community collaborations with a wide range of groups, from environmental and social service nonprofits to local governmental agencies to UW–Madison units. She helped establish the UW’s Community Partnerships and Outreach Staff Network, which has been active since 2008. Working with the UW–Madison Office of Sustainability (OoS) Green Office Certification Program, Marian advocated for more sustainable Visitor Center operations, from lower energy consumption to improved trash and recycling processes. UW students are integral to all OoS projects, and Marian worked closely with them to refine their recertification process. Marian also helped bring Wisconsin Master Naturalist (WIMN) trainings to the Arboretum, and co-hosted (with Lakeshore Nature Preserve) the state’s first WIMN training focused on ecological restoration.

Within the Arboretum, Marian has advocated for organizational sustainability and improvement by facilitating strategic planning and diversity, equity, inclusion, and access initiatives that support deeper staff engagement in the workplace.

And in the community, she has offered public workshops covering a wide range of topics, from permaculture and food gardens, to edible and medicinal plants, to observing patterns in nature, to nature-based art and craft making, to forest bathing and nature therapy walks, providing different ways for people to personally connect with nature.

Marian is a purposeful organizer dedicated to connecting people and place, with a vision to move holistically toward an equitable healthy planet. She knows that no space is too small to benefit from restoration practices and principles, which are vitally important for the health and well-being of urban communities.

Her passion shines through in the following profile by Laura Green, grants and communications coordinator at Catholic Multicultural Center, one of many area organizations where Marian consulted and offered educational workshops.

– Susan Day, Communications Manager

Thank you, Marian!

by Laura Green, grants and communications coordinator, Catholic Multicultural Center

After twenty-two years of dedicated service to the UW–Madison Arboretum as Restoration Work Party Manager, Marian Farrior retired in January 2025. Marian became interested in land care work back in the 1980s, when she realized, “If we don’t do something to help this planet, we’re in trouble. In that moment, I dedicated my life to serving the earth.”

Under her tenure, Marian coordinated more than 1,000 restoration work parties, offered professional-level training to hundreds of volunteer work party leaders, brought the Wisconsin Master Naturalist training to the Arboretum, and developed and led a program to monitor chloride in Lake Wingra’s precious springs.

While this work requires knowledge of the land and ecosystems upon it, effectively engaging people was essential to her role as well. “I really do see [the restoration work parties] as being as much about leadership and community building as about how to do the nuts and bolts of restoration.” Throughout her time, this affinity for engaging many individuals to conduct restoration work has led to notable improvements to the health of the ecosystems that comprise the Arboretum, increasing native vegetation and biodiversity in many areas such as oak savanna and prairie.

Marian’s work also led countless individuals to deepen their relationship with the natural world around them. “Western thinking is so dualistic and fragmented – how can we think and design more holistically?” she said. “When I talk to students, it’s more about how to get them connected to nature, how to cultivate the land ethic. So it’s not just about the physical labor, but deepening partnership and relationship and reciprocity with nature.”

Marian found fulfillment in seeing some of the restoration work party volunteer leaders that she trained go on to careers in land conservation. She enjoyed working behind the scenes to foster a more inclusive and participatory workplace, from being a member of a UW-Madison Human Resources redesign process to helping launch diversity, equity, inclusion, and access practices. She is also pleased to have published a white paper, along with other co-authors, on how public participation techniques and social change theories can be applied to restoration work. This way, even as she steps out of this role, others who come after her will have a resource to continue exploring the intersections between land care, community building, and the sacredness of the Earth. “A lot of work with students was how to think ecologically, how to include more than human beings in decision making and interactions and our work,” Marian explained.

In retirement, Marian will continue to work part-time for U.S. Green Building Council. She will also continue her passion of engaging the community in land care work in many ways – teaching workshops on permaculture, landscape design, and patterns in nature; leading forest bathing walks; and collaborating with other environmental and community-based organizations. In her free time, she also looks forward to enjoying time for arts and crafts and taking long nature walks!

Thank you, Marian, for your more than two decades of service!