By RUBY BAUDHUIN, ASHTON ADAMS, and YONA ADAUTO
Beloit students in the Outdoor Environmental Club, or OEC, have expressed concern that the college may be planning to remove native plantings on campus.
OEC executives Louis Bernard’26 and Adam Sanders’26 both recall with enthusiasm tour guides advertising native plants during their respective pre-enrollment visits to the college. Now, Bernard says that the complaints received by Admissions about the plantings may result in their removal.
Most of Beloit’s native plantings are located behind Wood and Haven Hall, in the rain garden next to and behind the Sanger Center for the Sciences, by the Aldrich parking lot, and next to Pearsons Hall in the form of a memorial garden.
Facilities Director Nathan Osterberger has received complaints about the plantings from alumni, board members, and families of prospective students. Most criticism comes during the fall and winter months. “I came to work here because I thought the place was gorgeous,” says Osterberger. “So then when you have people walk by like, ‘Ooh, I don’t know if I like that. Who’s the facility guy?’ or ‘Who’s in charge of Grounds?’ and you start getting emails from people and you’re like, okay, I gotta listen to them, right?”
OEC Executive Sanders, on the other hand, has a different perspective. “Walk past the native plantings when it’s warmer out… You’ll hear those areas are much more full of life than the little pots of flowers and shit. Nobody wants to live there. I mean, you might find a spider.” They continued, “You have to think of these native plants as tiny little ecosystems.”
Native plants are important for a variety of reasons, including providing food and shelter for wildlife, maintaining biodiversity, and preventing erosion, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Preventing erosion is particularly critical for the Beloit campus, which is home to 20 Native American effigy mounds. Shannon Fie, Professor and Co-Chair of the Anthropology department, believes that part of the issue with erosion around the mounds is due to non-native plants. She elaborates on this with information provided by Eben Crawford’17, a former student.
In his 2015 paper “Native Roots: Preserving the Beloit College Mounds,” Crawford proposes replacing the Kentucky bluegrass on the academic side of campus with native plants to help “discourage daily foot traffic that may add to erosion over time.” According to Crawford, erosion would also “be halted by the introduction of deep rooting vegetation to the Beloit College mounds,” as these plants’ roots would “stabilize the soil.”
While Facilities Director Osterberger is a proponent of some native plantings, he questions the viability of this plan. “At the end of the day,” he says, “there are still city ordinances. You can put all the signs up you want in your yard but if the ordinance says the grass has got to be under 10 inches or they’ll mow it and fine you, they’re going to mow it and they’re going to fine you.” Furthermore, he doubts that native plants are any more stabilizing than non-native species.
Osterberger says that the college does not currently have any immediate plans to remove or relocate native plantings. “As long as I’m here,” he says, “we’re gonna have native plants on campus because it’s part of what Beloit College is.”
Right now, he is primarily concerned with the ineffectiveness of the native plantings on the hillside by the science center. In addition to his plans to hire a consultant to help with the rainwater system, he hopes to engage students in the reclamation process. He likes the idea of native plantings being used as a sort of “outdoor lab.”
The native plants of campus also play a historical role. According to Professor of Biology Yaffa Grossman, “The plantings on campus are a combination of plants that were here before it was campus and plants that would have been planted by humans.”
Off-campus, Osterberger says that the college is the proprietor of two nature preserves: Chamberlin Springs (160 acres) and Newark Road Prairie (33 acres), the latter of which Beloit recently deeded to a prairie enthusiast group for ongoing maintenance.
Unfortunately, existing native plants on campus are currently at risk, and not just because of their possible removal. Native plants require specialized maintenance—maintenance that Beloit’s plantings do not currently receive. Rain gardens in particular require a special approach.
OEC executives acknowledge that Beloit staff and faculty have neither the time nor the resources to prioritize the upkeep of native plants. Grossman, whom OEC Executive Bernard called “invaluable” to OEC’s mission, is extremely knowledgeable about native plants on campus. But in addition to her professorial work, she is also busy fulfilling her duties as Registrar, which Bernard admitted is “way more important.”
Pre-contact, Indigenous people in the Beloit area used slash-and-burn agriculture to cultivate the land. OEC executives say that for obvious reasons, this method would be difficult to utilize on campus. In Bernard’s words, “How would you even begin to explain to the fire marshal that you are lighting the prairie on fire immediately next to a 2 million dollar building?”
Due to urbanization, Beloit’s campus is no longer home to any of the large herbivores, such as deer, elk, and bison, that historically helped with the natural upkeep of native plants. The prevalence of invasive and non-native plants often crowds out native species. In order to maintain native plantings, non-native plants would have to be continuously removed.
Bernard believes that today, the upkeep of native plants on campus will not be possible without the use of topical herbicide. But this option presents further challenges: not only would the school be required to hire people with specialized training, but they would also have to provide them with hazard pay and proper protective equipment.
Bernard understands that the costs may not seem worth it to the administration when the school is already struggling financially. He proposes “planting native plants how we do ornamentals” in order to create an environment that is both habitable and attractive. Osterberger corroborates this point.
For their part, OEC has worked with administration to get approval for native plantings around their house. Jones said that OEC intends to “preserve what we can in case things do disappear.” Still, it was not an easy process. “It’s like when you’re trying to walk through plastic wrap,” explains Sanders. “You can get through eventually, but it takes a lot of work.”
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