A quietness exists within the blooming azaleas and green forestry on the Sam Houston State University campus. The groundskeepers who maintain them every day were recently recognized by the Professional Grounds Management Society.
SHSU was first presented with the Green Star Award, which brings recognition to facilities such as college campuses, athletic fields and amusement parks that are maintained to the highest standard possible, in 2011. This summer, the groundskeepers were once again rewarded for their work on campus.
Grounds Services at SHSU provides complete landscape maintenance services to the roughly 320 acre main campus as well as an additional combined 30 acres of off-site facilities tied to the university.
Over the last few years, the crew has worked hard to utilize “green” resources in disposing their landscape debris. Approximately 25% of was has been incorporated into an on-site composting operation, another 25% is used as a native mulch in select campus locations and the remaining 50% is taken to a local processor for use in bagged soil amendment products.
Through new recycling efforts in the last two years the crew has collected over 27,000 lbs. of single stream recyclables from daily litter clean-up and outdoor trash receptacles.
In addition to the aesthetics, the application also included pictures and descriptions of the problems that the custodial and grounds services were faced with around campus, such as utility and foot traffic, and the solutions that they found in response.
Custodial and Grounds Service Manager Scott Dolezal submitted a detailed PowerPoint presentation that contained several pictures displaying the beauty around campus as an application for the award.
“I love the campus,” SHSU alumna Patrice Emerson said. “It’s pretty with nice trees and walkways, and it has big areas where people can hang out, eat or study. There are a lot of peaceful spots with pretty scenery.”
Sources* http://pgms.org/green-star-awards/
http://www.shsu.edu/~pin_www/T@S/sliders/2012/beautifulcampus.html