Elizabeth Burgeson

Supervisor of Gardens

Campus Planning and Operations

About Betsy

As the supervisor of Gardens and Landscapes, I get to help Chautauqua Institution grow, both figuratively and literally. I not only “paint” Chautauqua with blooms each season, but I am able to empower others to make sustainable gardening choices by combining my loves of gardening and educating.

I graduated from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in earth science and biology education. During the summer months throughout college, I was a backpacking and hiking leader for Camp Walt Whitman in New Hampshire. After graduating, I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I was the director of the Zoo’s BioVan program, a mobile educational program that taught fifth graders about the Rio Grande River and how our actions on the land affect water quality. After two years, I returned to New York to teach Biology at my old high school, Panama Central from 2000-2007. I also got to reinvigorate my love of music as the trombone player for a local cover band, the Porcelain Busdrivers. When the school year ended in 2007, I took a year to travel around the U.S. and in 2008, I was hired by the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) as the watershed steward. Once again, I was in a role with a focus on water quality education. While I was at CCE, I worked with two colleagues to restart the Master Gardener Program in Chautauqua County and became its program coordinator from 2009 until the beginning of January 2015 when I was hired by the Institution.

Why did you choose to work at Chautauqua? What do you like about working at Chautauqua?

I love the variety Chautauqua has to offer, not just with gardens, but with residents and visitors alike.

Personal Interests

Gardening, baking, playing board games with my kids, hiking, playing tennis, playing piano and trombone