Indiana State University Newsroom

For the sixth year in a row, Indiana State University has been named a Tree Campus USA. Tree campus USA is a national program that started in 2008 and honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals.

Indiana State met the program's five core standards for effective campus forest management: an advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning project.

Stephanie Krull, landscape and grounds manager, said tree planting and tree preservations are especially important given the extreme weather fluctuations of recent years..

"Trees, especially large mature trees, are the hardest workers in the effort to purify our city air and fill it with the healthy oxygen we need to function at our best," she said.

Indiana State's Tree Advisory Board meets three times per school year.

Arbor Day Foundation is a million member nonprofit conservation and education organization with the mission to inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrates trees. Toyota helped launch the Tree Campus USA program and continues to financially support it.

Photo: http://isuphoto.smugmug.com/Events/Events-by-Year/2011images/January-2011-snow/i-NtrST7V/0/L/01_11_10_snowfall-0278-L.jpg - A student walks beneath a snow covered tree canopy along Sixth Street on the Indiana State University campus, a Tree Campus USA every year since the Arbor Day Foundation program began in 2008.

Contact: Stephanie Krull, Indiana State grounds and landscape manager, stephanie.krull@indstate.edu

Writer: Beth Pickerill, media relations assistant, Office of Communications and Marketing, Indiana State University, 812-237-3773 or bpickerill1@sycamores.indstate.edu