UConn is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the national designation Tree Campus USA, an honor that comes as students plant new class trees to celebrate those who graduated in May and others who come after them .
The annual UConn Class Tree project, where students and other volunteers plant a tree each April to represent that year’s senior class, is expanding to include trees for UConn’s junior, sophomore, and first graders.
The new approach benefits UConn’s tree population and contributes to beautification and environmental education efforts. In addition, the new approach will allow students every four years of their university career to watch ‘their’ tree as it takes root and grows on campus.
Red beech (class tree from 1926). Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)
All UConn students, faculty and staff, alumni, guests and other interested parties are invited to attend the tree planting event taking place on Wednesday, April 19 at 1:00 p.m. as part of the UConn Earth Day Spring Fling.
The four new trees will be planted in the area known as Art Woods north of the William Benton Museum of Art and west of the Wilbur Cross Building.
The initiative is coordinated by student volunteers and UConn staff at the Office of Sustainability, the Arboretum Committee, UConn Facilities Operations, and UConn Planning, Design, and Construction (UPDC).
“It really makes sense to organize my senior year’s tree planting to positively impact the campus campus and to see this celebration of Arbor Day continue with such support,” says Sam Kocurek ’23 (CLAS), who did so coordinated the University’s Tree Campus USA certification for the last two years as an intern in the Office of Sustainability.
Greg Anderson, co-chair of the UConn Arboretum Committee and UConn Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, says the idea of a “class tree” arose not long after the institution’s founding as Storrs Agricultural School.
Alfred G. Gulley, who came to the school as a horticulture professor and later became its president, had the idea in 1894 that the Great Lawn could serve as an arboretum. One of the earliest trees to be planted at the time was the Class 1895 Camperdown Elm (Ulmus glabra ‘Camperdownii’), which still grows near the flagpoles of the Great Lawn.
The arboretum concept spread throughout the Storrs campus over time. It is now home to thousands of trees, many of which are unusual species not native to the area and have been specially selected to add diversity and beauty. About two dozen class trees from different periods of its history still exist on campus.
Beginning next year, all first year UConn students will gather to plant “their” class tree to give them several years to interact with, rather than the previous seniors planting a tree just before graduation.
The new trees, representing the classes of 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, will be an Acer saccharum (sugar maple), Cornus x Hyperion (white flowering dogwood), Quercus bicolor (swamp white oak) and a Quercus rubra (red oak). .
UConn was recently informed that it had received the Tree Campus USA designation from the Arbor Day Foundation for the 10th time, having become the first Connecticut higher education institution to receive this distinction in its freshman year in 2013.
“Your entire campus community should be proud of this sustained commitment to environmental protection,” Lauren Weyers, Tree Campus USA’s program manager for the Arbor Day Foundation, said in a recent letter to UConn officials.
“If ever there was a time for trees, now is that time,” she added. “Your diligence in improving the environment and quality of life at your school contributes to a healthier, more sustainable world for all of us.”
This year also marks the 20th anniversary of UConn’s Office of Sustainability, formerly known as the Office of Environmental Policy (OEP), and the arrival of its newly appointed director, Joe Fullerton.
UConn’s sustainability efforts cover a wide range of initiatives, including climate action and carbon neutrality efforts, reduction of energy use and waste, environmental justice, water conservation and other areas.
Class tree from 1937 (UConn Photo)
The annual plantings of class trees fit seamlessly into UConn’s sustainability efforts and draw attention to the unique tree population on campus. It also helps meet UConn’s goals for a succession plan to ensure there are many healthy trees on campus, as older mature trees deteriorate or become hazards and need to be removed.
The university’s long-standing class tree tradition ended sometime in the 20th century but was revived with the Class of 2019 and has continued every year since, even during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 when classes and most university operations were removed.
About 26 class trees from previous classes survive at UConn Storrs, the oldest of which is the 1895 Camperdown Elm on the Great Lawn.
The tallest tree on campus is also the legacy of another long-dead class: a tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) near Beach Hall and the Great Lawn. Planted by the Class of 1905, it is now over 13 feet in circumference.
As the first college in Connecticut to be named Tree Campus USA, UConn has detailed plans to care for the 5,175 trees currently on the Storrs campus.
Of these trees, 179 are considered notable because they are memorial trees; unusual species or state champion trees because of their size or other characteristics; or trees on UConn’s self-guided tree walk.
The university also frequently identifies additional trees as notable examples when they are the only representatives of the species on campus or the largest or most mature.
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Annual tree plantings and other activities related to the UConn Arboretum are supported through philanthropy, in-kind contributions, and volunteerism. To donate, please visit the Campus Beautification Fund.
today.uconn.edu
https://today.uconn.edu/2023/04/class-tree-project-expanding-as-uconn-again-earns-tree-campus-usa-honor/
