State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
IN-20: Grounds Certification

ESF became a Bee Campus USA Affiliate in April 2022. To date, implementation efforts have focused on the Syracuse campus, but in time will expand to include all campuses.

Bee Campus Committee Membership includes:

- Molly Jacobson, Co Chair, Native Pollinator Ecologist
- Sue Fassler, Co Chair, Director of Sustainable Operations
- Dr. Don Leopold, Distinguished Teaching Professor
- Dr. Catherine Landis, Post Doctoral Associate, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment
- Mike Vargason, Grounds Supervisor
- Delaney Demro, Sustainability Planning & Institutional Alignment Manager
- Olivia Kurz, Student
- Rachel Reycroft, Student

The Committee meets quarterly and will also be heavily involved in ESF's Nature Positive Universities effort.

The Committee has planned and hosted three pollinator planting activities at the Syracuse campus since April 2022:

1) Northern Hardwood Forest Restoration (Round 1): ESF held its first Bee Campus planting during Earth Week, engaging students and faculty to enhance the long-standing Northern Hardwood Forest Restoration Area near Illick Hall with several woodland wildflowers that offer important pollen and nectar sources for spring-flying bees. The event was attended by New York State Senator Rachel May, who did the honor of planting the first trillium. Interpretive signage was also designed and installed during the summer of 2022. Individual species specific identification signage will be added to the hardwood forest in Spring 2023.

2) Northern Hardwood Forest Restoration (Round 2): Due to an extraordinarily hot summer, many newly planted ferns, grasses and sedges were lost in the hardwood forest. The Bee Campus Committee partnered with a class on campus to replant what was lost.

3) Robin Hood Oak Pollinator Planting: Students and staff assisted the Bee Campus Committee in planting over 180 plants, of 27 different native species, in an existed plant bed on campus. This completely redesigned bed now features wildflowers, shrubs and grasses. Just as volunteers were completing the planting, a Landscape Architecture class began using the new vegetation in a hands-on identification lab. A large interpretive sign and smaller specifies specific signage will be added to the garden at a later date.

Members of the Bee Campus Committee were also active in an interdisciplinary effort to design an entirely new campus planting during the 2022 academic year. The Office of Sustainable Facilities and Operations and the Office of Sustainability co-led the effort, which leveraged the guidance of an outside landscape architecture consultant. The unique planting will be installed during the early summer of 2023 and will feature a wide variety of native and pollinator friendly plants.

Molly Jacobson, co-chair of the Committee, grew a multitude of native plants in the campus greenhouses during 2022. These plants were provided to students, faculty and staff at planting events and to Syracuse University in support of their Bee Campus USA efforts.

ESF Becomes an Affiliate of Bee Campus USA
- https://www.esf.edu/communications/view.asp?newsID=10011