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Dustin Luca
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SALEM, MASS. – Officials with Salem State University announced Thursday that the Arbor Day Foundation has recognized Salem State as a 2024 Tree Campus, marking the first time the university has received the honor.
The Tree Campus program, run by the Arbor Day Foundation, is a program that celebrates colleges and universities for their dedication to enhancing campus well-being through tree education, investment, and community engagement. It’s a similar program to Tree City USA, an effort also run by the Arbor Day Foundation that the city of Salem has been named a part of 19 times.
The news was announced Thursday morning at Salem State’s annual Arbor Day celebration, an event held midway into the university’s Earth Days programming each April. The announcement occurred alongside the planting of a tulip tree on the front lawn in front of Sullivan Hall, at the corner of Lafayette Street and Loring Avenue.
“I want to acknowledge the passion of the four Sustainability Council interns who spearheaded our Tree Campus application,” said Tara Gallagher, assistant director of sustainability and environmental health and safety at Salem State. “Their work to ensure that our campus landscape and 65 newly planted trees are well-cared for and appreciated in future years acknowledges the important role urban trees play in education, providing shade, enhancing climate resiliency, and supporting habitat. Huge thanks to students Hannah Ellis, Brielle Laurent, Kate Otting, and Patrick Clough for supporting the future vitality of our campus.”
The Arbor Day Foundation is a global nonprofit with a mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. Its network of more than a million supporters and partners has helped the organization plant more than 500 million trees in forests and communities across more than 60 countries since 1972. The Tree Campus program recognizes schools, universities, and healthcare facilities that utilize trees to improve their communities.
“Trees have the power to inspire learning and improve well-being,” said Michelle Saulnier, Vice President of Programs at the Arbor Day Foundation. “By growing campus green spaces, forward-thinking higher education leaders like Salem State University are cultivating vibrant learning communities that also benefit the greater environment.”
To earn the Tree Campus recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation, colleges and universities must uphold five core standards including maintain an advisory committee, set a campus tree care plan, verify annual investment in the tree care plan, celebrate Arbor Day, and create a service-learning project aimed at engaging the student body.
SSU Celebrates Arbor Day, Student Contest Winners
The news of Salem State becoming a Tree Campus was announced at the campus’ Arbor Day tree planting celebration on Thursday, April 10. The event was attended by students, university officials and arborists with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Later in the day, the university held its Earth Days Award Ceremony, where the winners of three student contests were crowned: a writing contest, research poster contest, and art contest. In the writing contest, students were asked to write a letter to a student starting college in 2075, one that addresses climate change.
In her contest-winning submission, Alex Pappas, a second-year geography student from Salem, outlined humanity’s failure to reach sustainable development goals “after the onset of WWIII. … Emotion drove the major decisions which situate us here today.”
“The climate crisis has proven to be the most difficult undertaking of any generation, yours being nowhere near the exception, and that is an exhausting reality,” Pappas wrote to her “Dear seedling.” “The good news is, you’ve found yourself in an institute dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, the advancement of science, and the realization of truth. You are a seedling, sowed in a well-made garden bed. What you need now is clean water. Don’t let your well be poisoned.”
Taking second in the contest, first-year biology major Luna Crockett, of Beverly, wrote for her future student “an apology, on behalf of everyone; because really, everyone should be apologizing.”
Taking the $250 top prize in the research poster contest were Salem State students Sam Cunningham of Rockport and Ryan Sirkisoon of Salem, with a presentation titled Greener Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Plant Extracts. Taking second was Drew Berman of Braintree, with Utilizing Remote Sensing to Assess Soil Contamination. Finishing third was Patrick Clough of Georgetown, with Tracking Glacier Retreats in Iceland Using LANDSAT.
The award ceremony also honored Salem State students Annalise Catalini, Hannah Mear, and Camila Aguiluz, the first-, second-, and third-place finishers of the “Message in a Bottle” art contest.
“Each year we include art and creative writing contests in Earth Days, giving students the opportunity to express their concerns about climate change through creative media,” said Karen Gahagan, director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts and member of the university’s Earth Days committee. “This year we have seen work that highlights our complicity in climate change, with deep understanding of how the levers of science and politics can shift the outcomes of this crisis in positive or negative ways.”
The ceremony also celebrated three “Friends of the Earth” with so-named awards. Madison DeFelice, president of Salem State’s Earth Science Association, received the Student Friend of the Earth Award, while the MGH Institute of Health Professions’ Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice, and Health received the Friend of the Earth Award. Accepting the latter award was SSU alumna and Center director Suellen Breakey. Gallagher was also surprised toward the close of the ceremony as a third recipient of the Friend of the Earth award, an arrangement made without her knowledge to honor the role she has played on campus to further amplify Salem State’s work in the area of sustainability.
