Apr 25, 2025
St. Bonaventure University celebrated its 16th consecutive year of being a certified Arbor Day Foundation Tree Campus USA on Friday by planting a hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) tree on the northwest lawn outside of Robinson Hall.
The Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals.
The annual event is coordinated by Kevin Vogel, longtime member of the Biology faculty and chair of the Environmental Studies program. Br. Kevin Kriso, O.F.M., guardian and animator of Mt. Irenaeus, blessed the tree. Prizes were also awarded for the Opt-Outside scavenger hunt.
St. Bonaventure has achieved the title every year since 2010 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.
There are more than 400 campuses across the United States with this recognition. More information about the program is available at www.treecampushighered.org.
The Arbor Day Foundation is a million-member nonprofit conservation and education organization with the mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees.
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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure is a community committed to transforming the lives of its students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a commitment to academic excellence and lifelong civic engagement. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).