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September 2025 Tree Committee meeting

Posted by Morgan White on September 9, 2025

The Tree Campus Advisory Committee met to review the overall program and committee membership. 

  • The new Campus Landscape Architect, Bridgette Moen, joined the committee. 
  • Team members discussed potential additions to the committee, including students, faculty, and staff.
  • Justin Vozzo shared a status update on the tree grant.
    • Picking up several trees - 90 planted total this year
    • Ryan is heading up the F&S side, Stirling is helping to manage the contracts
    • Justin is hosting some tree plantings across the state, Urbana and in Macomb
    • Two events each spring and fall for next tw o years
  • The South Arboretum Woods rehab has several plants being added, and there are student employees funded by the SSC.
  • The Red Oak Rain Garden (RORG) is doing another plant installation this fall, and works with volunteers. They also installed interpretive signage.
  • The Urban Wood Reuse program is going well.  The new mill is here, and they are working to hire more students.
  • The Committee began reviewing the goals in the 2024 Tree Care Plan.
    • The Tree Keeper Inventory is complete for F&S, and it is still in progress for the Arboretum. 
      • There is also the ARC GIS inventory - which pulls from Tree Keeper
      • Ongoing to keep it up to date
      • Tree surgeons are responsible for logging them into the system
      • Assistants are responsible for logging the stump removals - the sub-foreperson goes in to remove it and change it to open or vacant site
      • When it is removed it is no longer counted in the inventory
      • When a new tree is planted - working with the vacant sites and updating those, planning and potential planting spots and adding the new tree in there
      • We need to identify opportunities to update the existing inventory
        • Longer-term - should do an update - including the diameters of the trees - should update that, changes over time
        • Might need to be a tree expert - how to appropriately update it regularly - tree health - arborist or someone who knows a lot about trees
        • Potentially it could be through dendrology - students could potentially do DBH measurements and baseline health questions
        • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Justin is working on developing an arboriculture class, could do some tree inventory as part to that class 
      • ​​​​​​​Set a goal in 2025 Tree Care Plan to develop a comprehensive plan for handling tree inventory updates: get a plan together for how to do a regular update and comprehensive update.