Renovations, foliage help beautify campus

By Kurt Esposito
Summer Editor

With the exception of a few plants, renovations to the sites surrounding the Bell Tower and the Sinninger pond are complete.

"It looks nice. It makes the campus look more beautiful, for sure," said Shalisa Sanderlin, a junior in the Schools of Engineering.

John Collier, landscape architect, said the changes were made to better accommodate pedestrians and make the Bell Tower the centerpiece of the site.

New walkways, designed to pass through the Bell Tower so that students would no longer have to walk through a beaten dirt path to get to the tower, were constructed as were over 200 bench seats in nine different row of benches spread throughout the site.

"It is a lot better. I'm glad to see more seating out here," said Sanderlin. "People will probably hang out just as much as they hang out at the tree (by Stanley Coulter)."

Collier said the seats were designed with no backs so that people sitting on them could decide which way they wanted to face – the grassy areas or the sidewalks.

He said green plants were added to make the area more attractive. Twenty new trees and 240 shrubs were added to the site surrounding the tower. In all, thousands of perennials were planted around the site.

Jonathan Melquist, a junior in the School of Science, said he is glad to see that the two lanes of traffic adjacent to the site were removed and more greenery was put in place of it. "It's great. I'm all for beautification," he said.

Construction began after Spring Commencement last year. The pond was refilled with water before Gala Week. A few trees still need to be planted around the site and some perennial plants still have to be planted around the patio of the pond.

Changes to the Sinninger pond, located south of the Bell Tower, were also made. A ramp was installed to make the pond more accessible to the handicapped. More seating opportunities were also added around the perimeter of the pond.

Thirteen kinds of shade-tolerant perennials were planted around the pond, including Chinese dogwoods, ferns and flowering rhododendrons.

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