Rationale: Trees and forests play a significant role in the college campus landscape. Many campuses are borne out of a pastoral legacy, and are intentionally designed as extroverted, expansive spaces that provide important services to the people who work, study, recreate, and visit campus grounds. The 4,600-plus colleges and universities in the United States and Canada offer ideal places to showcase efforts to beautify and manage landscapes sustainably, but how treed are campus landscapes? Are campus forests being managed sustainably and systematically? Are the campus departments who are responsible for tree care and management adequately staffed and financially supported?
Very little is known about the extent to which college campuses are treed, and the ways in which institutions manage their trees. In contrast, national longitudinal studies that collect information on municipal tree care and management have been conducted since the 1970s; these datasets provide useful data to benchmark and track future progress. As college campuses continue to grow and in many cases become more urbanized, there is a need to understand the forest assets that reside on campus, and the ways in which such forests are being managed.
Against this backdrop, a survey was disseminated to colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada to collect information about the ways in which campus trees are managed.
378 institutions of higher education responded to the survey. Preliminary work is described here and here. A manuscript describing this project in more detail is forthcoming.
