A Sense of Place

Since the day the master of fine arts program in creative writing and environment was created two years ago by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, faculty members in Iowa State’s Department of English have been looking for a proper field station — a place where students, alumni and visitors can go to observe the rich Iowa landscape and write about its impact on themselves and others.

MFA students survey the Everett Casey Nature Center and Reserve

The department considered the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, but the state-owned property’s proximity to Lake Okoboji — more than 170 miles from the Iowa State campus — didn’t fit the bill. Other locations were considered, but none was just right. That is, until Everett Casey, a 1946 engineering graduate of the then Iowa State College, came to the program with an idea.

Casey wanted to preserve a piece of property that had been in his family for many decades; it was just a few miles from Ames and was a place that he frequented in his youth. While a student at Iowa State, Casey took a writing class in the department of English that he credits as being fundamental to his later success as a Detroit-area attorney and owner of a manufacturing company.

"Mr. Casey has been a contributor to the department in the past and he liked the idea of this land being taken care of," said Steve Pett, associate professor of English and co-director of the MFA program.

Casey has since donated a 76-acre plot to Iowa State. That gift was approved last December by the Board of Regents. The acreage, near Don Williams Park just outside of Boone, is valued at $201,000.

The Everett Casey Nature Center and Reserve is just what the MFA program was looking for. The undeveloped tract, of which only 17 acres are currently being farmed, features two bluffs with a valley running between them. The Bluff Creek also cuts through the property. The land is rich with wildlife such as ducks, beavers, wild turkeys and deer.

"We want to be able to take students where they will have an opportunity to engage a wild place," Pett said. "Our program has a particular interest in place and documenting a particular landscape."

The MFA program emphasizes creative writing (poetry, fiction and non-fiction) about the environment. Students are required to take 15 hours of environmental courses outside of English, write a thesis, and pass an oral examination of the thesis.

"We envision this field station will be a great place not only for our students, but for alumni and visiting writers to utilize," Pett said. "We will preserve the wild character of the land. Writing requires solitude. This site will provide a great location to get away to and work."

Future plans include restoring the property back into a native prairie. Trails will be added, as will a rustic structure, road, water line and septic system. Pett says despite these improvements, it is essential that the land maintain its wild characteristics.

"We want our students to document the landscape — get to know the plants, birds and other natural elements of the property," he said. "I can see several different graduate theses written based on the experiences our students have at the site."

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