Faculty Spotlight: Isabella Missel ’19/’21

CIA Resident Hall Director Brings New Gardening Activities for Students

Author Madeleine White ’29 is a Food Business Management major.

Isabella Missel ’19/’21 is an adjunct instructor and residence hall director for CIA’s Hyde Park, NY campus. I had the great pleasure of taking her gastronomy class, where she sparked deep thought and connection to history, food, and nature. Originally from Caxias do Sul, Brazil, Isabella started her culinary journey working in a tea shop before moving to the U.S. to attend CIA. She graduated from CIA in 2019 with her associate degree in Culinary Arts, and in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Food Studies. Isabella went on to earn her master’s degree in 2023, bringing all her knowledge to share with us in the classroom. I also had the honor of working with Isabella outside of the classroom in CIA’s teaching gardens, which she has given new life to.

What does a typical day on campus look like?

I wake up around 4:45 to 6 a.m. depending on my work schedule. I meditate and journal, and sometimes I work out—mostly resistance training early in the morning. I teach in the morning, I’ve gotten into a good rhythm where I schedule all my classes at 10:30 a.m., have lunch, and then do meetings and administrative work for CIA Residence Life in the afternoon. After dinner I work on my classes and gardening events. Then I try to get some personal reading time in and go to bed.

What is your favorite activity to participate in?

My favorite activity on campus is going to be odd, but I really like the RA (resident assistant) training and orientation week. It gives me an opportunity to really bond with the student staff that I mentor. I care not just to be a supervisor but to be a mentor and really help them grow in their positions. Besides that, my favorite activity is gardening.

What incentives have you started on CIA’s campus for students?

Last year, with the help of Sean McGurl, the manager for sustainability initiatives on campus, I started putting on RA events in which students could garden. We went through a season where students started seeds, then seedling transplanting, all the way to harvesting. Historically, when I was a student here, unless you had a plot or were in a specific class, you didn’t have an opportunity to garden. The big goal for this was to recruit and retain volunteers, so we did that through loyalty cards and a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project. Over time this has quickly become more than just students being able to garden. Each event is an experience; we foster community and connection over shared interests. The Rosenthal residence hall RA programming utilizes produce from our gardens and showcases the work we do throughout our gardens.

What sparked your passion for gardening?

The very spark was an ex-boyfriend who took CIA’s Farm-to-Table concentration. He would go on all the field trips then afterwards take me to all the places he went. That led me to want to go for my master’s degree, and I was exposed to agriculture in the ways I was interested in. Developing a relationship with the earth, having your hands in soil and turning seeds into something bigger than you. Building a relationship with the environment has turned into something I am really absorbed in. It’s also really great for your mental health—when it’s spring and warm out, it lifts whatever it is that sets in when the grey weather starts.

What are the benefits of students attending volunteer gardening events on campus?

Tangibly they get a CSA box, but I sincerely hope it’s knowledge on how food grows. If I had to give you one word, it would be community. The biggest thing I am trying to achieve with what I am doing is to set something in place that outlives me. If I were to transition away from being a hall director, I would want freshmen who arrive on campus to be able to garden. A program set in place that doesn’t require a waitlist, or a class tied to it.

What are you most excited to see this semester?

I am excited to see our project unfold; it was a large, new undertaking this year. Now that we are outdoors gardening and people are coming out, I’m really excited to see what things will look like come October and November, when we are wrapping up the growing season. We have come such a long way since January of 2024, a lot has happened.

My whole mission is to establish something that is bigger than me. I want it to be easy for new students to hear about this exciting program and I want this to become part of the student experience, independent of me.