Trees cut down across campus spread both fear and hope

Students expressed concern for trees being cut down in the winter, but administrators see this as motivation for maintaining Truman’s award winning trees.

Donna Liss, chief information officer and member of Campus Tree Advisory Committee, said she appreciated students noticing trees being cut down. Liss said she considers the reaction from students to be part of the regular maintenance process. 

“Every year we go through an analysis,” said Liss. “We work with the local forester and they go through and check every tree to see which ones need to be pruned, because they all need a little bit of maintenance.”

The forester also determines which trees need to be cut down based on age, weather damage, health or invasive status listing. After that, the trees are cut down in the winter before two trees are planted in their place in the spring.

One senior history major, Christian Smith, said he noticed the trees being cut down late last semester into this semester. 

“It makes me sad and angry at the amount of trees that they’re cutting down all over campus,” Smith said. Other students shared Smith’s feelings and expressed concerns on YikYak. 

Liss said the concern is part of the process. Trees are cut while students are on campus in the winter but aren’t planted until late spring when students are gone.

 

Smith said as an outside observer the trees seemed to be cut down without any rhyme or reason. However, Smith said he is glad the physical plant is planting more trees.

The trees are maintained and cut down as part of the requirements for Truman’s Tree Campus Higher Education Program. The title from Arbor Day Foundation requires campuses to have educational experience with trees, an annual care plan, and replanting and pruning with the department of conservation.

Liss said students don’t always realize how many trees there are across campus and the University Farm. “We have over 1,300 trees that are on campus, so it takes a lot to keep them all maintained,” Liss said. 

The University frequently features trees for hammocking, for slack lining and in The Quad in campus advertisements. Liss said the presence of trees on campus goes back to early university presidents when there used to be one native tree to represent each county in Missouri.

Even Smith said, “I remember Freshman year something that I noticed a lot about Truman was the amount of trees.”

Truman’s tree care plan emphasizes diversity in the high number of trees planted. The plan from 2025 has 27 species recommendations for future planting, but the campus currently has more species planted from the past.

The majority of the campus trees are on the quad, in between the dorm halls, near Barnett Hall or on the campus farm.

Smith said he likes hanging out under the trees on the Quad in the spring and summer time when they provide shade. “I’m perfectly happy just being around them,” Smith said.