Stan State on Track to Become a Tree Campus USA

By Lori Gilbert

Botanists Stuart Wooley and Andrew Gardner see Stanislaus State’s 3,300-plus trees as teaching tools and pined for the campus to be designated as an arboretum.

Sustainability Coordinator Wendy Olmstead recognized the environmental and aesthetic benefits of the trees and was thinking about a different recognition.

Their ideas merged when Olmstead took the lead in working to have Stan State named a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation.

Wooley and Gardner joined the planning committee, one requirement for the designation. Also needed to be a Tree Campus USA are a budget for trees and a commitment to their upkeep, an Arbor Day event and a service-learning project. Most of the requirements overlap with those needed to be designated an arboretum.

Wooley, who began teaching at Stan State in 2007 and is the assistant vice president of academic affairs, wanted to get Stan State on the Morton Register of Arboreta, a comprehensive list and database of named arboreta and other public gardens that focus on woody plants. He lacked the time to devote to the application process, so when Olmstead offered to lead the effort for the University to become a Tree Campus USA, he and Gardner were eager supporters and joined the steering committee.

“Tree Campus USA emphasizes the deeper function of trees in terms of sustainability, recognizing how they soak up carbon dioxide, clean the atmosphere, pull in material and release oxygen, not to mention reduce sound, heat and evaporation,” Wooley said.

Trees also make people feel good.

“In Japan they have forests where people go to reduce their stress,” Olmstead said. “A lot of people do that here at the Stan State Turlock campus. I think there’s tremendous potential to use our urban forest. Our campus environment can be so useful for people for reducing their mental stress, not to mention using it for classes.”

That’s already happening, thanks in part to long-term collaboration between departments in the College of Science and Capital Planning and Facilities Management (CPFM). “We use the arboretum for teaching all the time,” said Gardner, who joined the Biology Department in 2016. “We have students in General Biology putting brightly colored flagging tape on all the trees around Naraghi Hall. They’re monitoring to see how they’re leafing out in the springtime and how the leaves are changing color and falling off in the fall. That’s an example of how we use this arboretum. It’s great to have both big populations of single species so we can look at variations within a single species, but also there’s good diversity so we can compare the behaviors, the seasonal activity of different trees.”

Many plants around Naraghi Hall were suggested by former faculty.

“That’s a collaborative way that CPFM works with us and other faculty,” Wooley said. “Outside Naraghi Hall are a number of plants I used in my medicinal plants class. There are native plants, water-tolerant plants. There was a purpose for putting them there. I’d bring my class out and students had to learn things about the plants. And there are other places on campus, including the Trans-California Pathway.”

The Pathway made an impression on Gardner.

“When I was here interviewing, I was energized by seeing the diversity of trees on the campus, but also one of the things that’s really awesome is the Trans-California Pathway, an area with a native local theme,” Gardner said. “I saw a lot of teaching opportunities there.” Olmstead, who’s a political science and public administration lecturer, appreciates the educational component of Tree Campus USA. It’s the final element needed for the application.

“We have to have a large service-learning project,” Olmstead said. “We’re looking for ways to create one around the urban forest.”

Although students may already be involved in such work, Olmstead would like an original project specifically for Tree Campus USA. She’s confident something will be developed to complete the application.

“The designation will raise awareness of the fact the forest exists,” Olmstead said. “I’m guessing many people get out of their vehicles in the parking lot, walk to their buildings and don’t leave until the end of the day. That includes students. The forest does not exist in the middle of campus, for the most part. It exists around the edges. I think people will realize that.”

The 3,300-plus trees on our 228-acre campus are maintained with non-potable water from our innovative water storage system. They have been individually mapped with geographic information systems (GIS) technology. Read more about this fascinating project. https://www.csustan.edu/news/geography-student-puts-stan-states-trees-map-and-internet