UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the fifth consecutive year, Penn State’s University Park campus has been honored by the Arbor Day Foundation for its commitment to effective campus forest management. The campus recently garnered a 2020 Tree Campus Higher Education recognition by the foundation.
“From providing shade and instilling beauty, to storing carbon and recycling stormwater, the trees around campus offer innumerable benefits to people, animals and ecosystems,” said Bill Sitzabee, Penn State’s vice president of facilities management and planning and chief facilities officer. “The recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation is icing on the cake.”
With more than 17,000 trees on campus, including over 200 different species, Penn State achieved the distinction by meeting Tree Campus Higher Education’s five standards, 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.
"Tree campuses and their students set examples for not only their student bodies but the surrounding communities showcasing how trees create a healthier environment,” said Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation.
The Arbor Day Foundation has helped campuses throughout the country plant thousands of trees, and Tree Campus Higher Education colleges and universities invested more than $51 million in campus forest management last year. This work directly supports the Arbor Day Foundation’s Time for Trees initiative — an unprecedented effort to plant 100 million trees in forests and communities and inspire 5 million tree planters by 2022. Last year, Tree Campus Higher Education schools collectively planted 39,178 trees and engaged 81,535 tree planters — helping work toward these critical goals.