In times past, the halls around campus teemed with life, plant life. There was a movement in the 1990s to get more live plants in the halls to help improve the atmosphere of the school.
Atmosphere is a term that is associated with both mood and air quality. Live plants help improve both, and studies have shown that plants cheer people up. This is why gardening and hiking are often suggested as stress-relieving activities.
Plants also improve air quality and remove contaminants from the air, creating a healthier environment for the people around them.
Peggy Pasin of the Women’s Success Center said Carrol Reid, the Dean of Learning Resources and Services in the early 1990s, spearheaded the movement on campus to get more live plants.
Reid was influential in the design of the Losee Center’s fourth floor atrium and had planned to fill it with many plants to create a unique place for students to study.
Reid would not survive to see her dream come to fruition. She died as the result of a car accident in November 1992. The school held a memorial in the atrium she helped choose and dedicated it in her honor.
The school’s halls were filled with plants for many years, and the decline in recent years has led to very few plants throughout the hallways. Live plants can be very expensive and time consuming with plants on a 2.5 million square
foot campus.
Increasingly, the school resorts to the use of artificial plants to help create maintain the mood of the campus. This is especially prevalent in the Losee Center, where artificial plants abound.
