Rockhurst Earns Area's First Tree Campus Designation

The greenery around campus makes every spring a wonderful time on the Rockhurst University campus.

But there’s more to the tree canopy at Rockhurst than aesthetics — all that foliage helps make the campus a more livable, sustainable place for faculty, staff, students, biodiversity and our communities. And in recognition of continuing efforts to keep the campus’s trees healthy and vibrant, Rockhurst University has been recognized as a Tree Campus by the Arbor Day Foundation — the first institution in the Kansas City area to earn that distinction.

It’s been a goal of the University’s sustainability committee for about a year to become a tree campus, according to Chad Scholes, Ph.D., professor of biology and member of the sustainability committee.

“I was very happy to receive the congratulations email and shared with our Tree Campus group right away,” he said. “I felt that we had a strong application, especially with the report and the 2019 campus tree analysis arborist Nick Goergen did, so I was optimistic about our chances.”

The Arbor Day Foundation looks at five different standards in evaluating applications for its Tree Campus program, which include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance, and student service-learning project.

And how else to celebrate the accomplishment? Plant more trees, of course! The campus Arbor Day observance is scheduled from 2:30-4 p.m. on Friday, April 29, with members of the University community invited to help plant pollinator gardens and trees on campus. Sign up here.