‘Green space’ on campus is endangered

By Aly Van Dyke

Thursday, November 19, 2009

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Contributed photo

Marvin Grove and other natural icons at the University are being threatened because of weather, age and development. Despite the cost incurred from preserving green space on campus, students, staff and others say it’s something worth saving.

On the northern slope of Mount Oread, near the Campanile, sits more than a hundred 40-foot tall, sturdy walnut trees; their black trunks are a stark contrast to the green grass that envelops them during the summer.

Rushing to class, students often miss this forest rooted in the heart of campus. But Marvin Grove has stood timeless amidst the rapid changes around it for more than 100 years.

It has seen the turn of two centuries and the veterans of both world wars. It witnessed the civil rights rallies that threatened to tear the University in two. And on the sidelines of graduation hill, the grove stood by as more than 1 million students leave the University behind in pursuit of their futures.

The roots of these trees go almost as deep as the University itself, anchoring the grove in the institution’s past and its present.

But weather, age and development are endangering the existence of the grove and other natural space on campus.

Despite the cost incurred from preserving natural areas on campus, students, staff and others say it’s something worth saving.

“There’s an ongoing tension between the need for additional program space on campus and trying to protect open spaces,” said Peg Livingood, project manager for the Office of Design and Construction Management. “Every university faces that.”

Last year, Livingood and several others affiliated with the University and its history compiled The University of Kansas Campus Heritage Plan using a $130,000 grant from the Getty Foundation. The plan provides a history of the University’s development and outlines plans of action looking forward to both preserve the historic campus as well as facilitate its expansion.

Development

Marvin Grove

Beginning: March 29, 1878 by former Chancellor James Marvin

Location: north of Jayhawk Boulevard, south of Memorial Stadium

Significance: According to the Heritage Plan, this is the “most historically significant landscape on the campus.”

Fun Fact: This grove is “one of the earliest planted hardwood groves on a Midwestern campus.”

Threat: age and storm damage

Source: Campus Heritage Plan

Potter Lake

Beginning: 1910

Location: southwest of Memorial Stadium, west of Marvin Grove

Significance: It was constructed as a fire suppressant and became a significant social spot on campus.

Fun Fact: Jim Merrill said he remembered taking trays from the cafeterias and using them as sleds down the slope and onto the frozen lake.

Threat: accumulation of sediments, water run-off and age

Source: Campus Heritage Plan

Prairie Acre

Beginning: 1932

Location: intersection of Sunflower Road and Sunnyside Avenue

Significance: According to the Heritage Plan, Prairie Acre was “one of the first intentional prairie restorations on an American campus.”

Fun Fact: Photographs of wagon ruts on the south side of the plot are thought to have belonged to covered wagons making their way West on the Oregon Trail.

Threat: Invasive species

Source: Campus Heritage Plan

Jayhawk Boulevard Elm Canopy

Beginning: early 1920s

Location: along Jayhawk Boulevard, stretching from Snow Hall to the Memorial Union

Significance: It is one of the most important corridors on campus and among one of the first landscaping plans from Hare and Hare.

Fun Fact: Ken Armitage said he could stay dry when walking the length of Jayhawk Boulevard in the rain without an umbrella because of the elms.

Threat: Most of the elms died from Dutch Elm Disease by the late 1980s.

Source: Campus Heritage Plan

Enrollment at the University has increased nearly every year since its inception, but never as rapidly as within the last half century. Fifty years ago, the student population was about 10,000. Today, it’s more than 30,000. And some expected to go up from there.

Jeff Weinberg, assistant to the chancellor, has seen the campus change since he arrived as an undergraduate in 1962. He said the problem with development and green space, or natural areas, is that, decades ago, those who developed the initial plans for campus had no way of knowing how the University would need the space today.

“It would be nice to think that every time you plant a tree, it stays forever or until it dies naturally, but on a dynamic campus, that’s not possible,” he said.

Although most of the 1,000 acres on the main campus have been used for development, several areas of green space have been preserved, leaving room for about 10,000 trees, according to 2007 University statistics.

The acquisition of West Campus in 1970 has allowed for additional University expansion. However, it hasn’t completely stopped development on the main campus.

One of the most recent intrusions on green space was the Anderson Family Football Complex near Memorial Stadium, which opened August 2008. The construction of the complex required the removal of about 50 older trees, according to Tom Waechter, assistant director with Design and Construction Management.

Neil Steiner, Tulsa senior, said he worked for DCM when construction began on the complex. Steiner said his boss sent him down to the site to photograph the trees set for demolition.

“After I took pictures of over 50 trees, I stopped,” Steiner said. “It was disheartening to say the least.”

Weinberg said the construction teams were as careful as possible to minimize the trees removed, and Waechter said that with the cedars planted around the new football practice field and other saplings planted farther up the hill, more trees were planted than were cut down.

Steiner said his involvement with the destruction of the trees helped him become more involved in sustainable engineering. As the president of the KU chapter of Emerging Green Builders, he is trying to engage professors and peers in a discussion about working with green space, rather than against it.

“There’s a misconception that man is in competition with nature, so we’re competing against green space,” he said. “I think it’s a pride thing.”

Alumni, veteran staff and current students warn against the further destruction of historic green space on campus because of its significance to the campus’s nationally recognized beauty.

Jim Merrill, 1972 journalism graduate now living in Leawood, said he could remember looking across Iowa Street from his fraternity house on 19th Street and seeing farmland instead of the concrete Park and Ride lot.

“It’s hard to tell people not to grow, but I’m hoping the campus doesn’t get too much bigger,” he said.

Ken Armitage has been affiliated with the University for 53 years. A professor emeritus in ecology and evolutionary biology, Armitage said that although he didn’t think it was possible to keep all the green space, it was important to try.

“The green space is just as much a part of campus as its buildings,” he said. “If you maintain the campus heritage, you need to maintain these important open, green spaces as much as the historical buildings.”

Natural causes

The effects of age, weather and disease are almost as threatening to remaining green space as development is.

Livingood said the population of historic trees has significantly diminished in the past 10 years as the trees reach their life expectancy or fall to the power of Kansas windstorms and harsh winters.

Armitage has seen first-hand the role disease has played in the disappearance of once cherished landscape.

In 1956, when he first came to teach at the University, dozens of American Elm trees lined Jayhawk Boulevard.

“I remember, in a light rain, you could walk on the sidewalk from Snow Hall to the Union, and the rain only got through when you crossed the street,” he said.

Planted in the early 1920s, the elm canopy was one of the most significant landscape efforts to come out of Hare and Hare, a landscape architecture firm that played a major role in the early development of campus.

During the next 50 years, the elms grew upward of 30 feet tall. Then, in the 1960s, Dutch Elm Disease swept through the country, claiming the lives of nearly all of the Jayhawk Boulevard elms by the late 1980s.

Livingood said a plan was in place to restore the tree canopy, but the University lacked the funds to make it possible.

But it’s not just restoration that the University isn’t able to afford, she said. As the University budget continues to diminish, so do the funds available to care for existing trees and landscaping on campus.

“We all wish we had a far greater budget to do that, but they do a really good job with the budget they have to work with,” she said of the work of Facilites and Operations.

According to Steven Green, assistant director with Facilities Operations, the department’s spending budget was reduced from $1.36 million in the 2007-2008 academic year to $1.304 million last academic year.

Mike Lang, campus landscape manager, said he had limited the use of the water truck and stopped mowing in some areas to compensate for the budget cuts.

Future

Livingood and other developers expect to consult the Campus Heritage Plan in the future before making any drastic changes to campus.

Among many other things, the plan identifies significant green space on campus and proposes treatment plans to preserve and restore the areas. Included in the report are Marvin Grove, Potter Lake, Jayhawk Boulevard and Prairie Acre ­­— all areas that could potentially be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Livingood said she hoped to get areas on the registry because development on the land would have to go through a lengthy process before approval.

And several people agree — without the trees of Marvin Grove or the tranquility of Potter Lake, campus would seem like a different place.

“When you’ve got that kind of institutional memory with all of your alumni, that’s something you’d like to preserve, something you’d like to keep,” Livingood said. “It’s very much a part of KU and a very important part of KU.”

— Edited by Anna Kathagnarath

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