For the third straight year, Illinois State University has earned Tree Campus USA recognition for 2010 for its dedication to campus forestry management and environmental stewardship.
“Many who have walked the Illinois State University campus know how beautiful it is,” said Mike O’Grady, superintendent of Grounds. “The award for the third straight year recognizes the dedication and hard work the Grounds staff perform each and every day.”
Tree Campus USA is a national program that honors colleges and universities and their leaders for promoting healthy management of their campus forests and for engaging the community in environmental stewardship. Tree Campus USA is a program of the Arbor Day Foundation and is supported by a grant from Toyota.
“By encouraging its students to plant trees and participate in service that will help the environment, Illinois State is making a positive impact on its community that will last for decades,” said John Rosenow, chief executive and founder of the Arbor Day Foundation. “One goal of the Tree Campus USA program is to help create healthier communities for its citizens through the planting of trees, and the city of Normal will certainly benefit from Illinois State’s commitment to Tree Campus USA.”
Illinois State met the five core standards of tree care and community engagement in order to receive Tree Campus USA status. The standards are to establish a campus tree advisory committee; evidence of a campus tree-care plan; verification of dedicated annual expenditures on the campus tree-care plan; involvement in an Arbor Day observance; and the institution of a service-learning project aimed at engaging the student body.
The Arbor Day Foundation launched Tree Campus USA in the fall of 2008 by planting trees at nine college campuses throughout the United States. Twenty-nine schools were named a Tree Campus USA in 2008, and in three years the number of schools has more than tripled. More information about the Tree Campus USA program is available at http://www.arborday.org/TreeCampusUSA.
