Making Ole Miss Beautiful

All it takes is one visit to Ole Miss to fall head over heels in love with the historical buildings and stunning landscaping sprinkled throughout the campus. USA Today has even recognized Ole Miss as the most nation’s most beautiful campus for the past several years.

I feel so fortunate to have spent the last four years on such a beautiful campus. A lot of students complain about having to park far from their classes each day, but I love taking my time trekking to class to admire what an immaculate university we have here in Oxford, Mississippi. It would be naive to think that the Ole Miss campus can look so flawless on its own. There are various offices and organizations that are devoted to keeping Ole Miss green and healthy. If getting involved is something your student would be interested, please share this article with them!

The Office of Sustainability is located in the John W. White administration building, close to the soccer and softball fields. According to their website, their goal is to advance sustainability at an institutional level and leverage impact through cross-campus collaboration, develop leaders among the university community and increase collective knowledge and awareness of sustainability concepts. The Office of Sustainability sends out their newsletter, “Red, Blue and Green,” each month to subscribers. If you wish to keep up with their efforts and events, you can subscribe here.

Green Grove is a gameday recycling program that strives to educate tailgaters, students, faculty and staff about the importance of recycling in the Grove and the Circle on gamedays. Have you ever driven through the Grove or the Circle the morning after a gameday? There’s never a piece of trash in sight. It’s pretty amazing. You can sign up to volunteer for Green Grove here. Volunteers are responsible for educating tailgaters and distributing recycling bags before home football games, two of which the university will be competing in the EPA’s Gameday Challenge, a nation-wide competition to reduce waste generated on football gamedays. Volunteers also sort recycling collected from home football games each week following the game.

The Ole Miss campus is breathtaking during every season, but there’s something special about the flowers blooming and the leaves turning rich green in color in Spring. Last month, The University of Mississippi became the 81st educational institution in the nation to be certified as an affiliate of the Bee Campus USA program. How cool is that? The program is designed to marshal the strengths of educational campuses for the benefit of pollinators! Bee City USA’s mission is to encourage communities and campuses to sustain pollinators by providing them with a healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants and free of pesticides. There are several designated pollinator gardens on campus; Brevard Hall, Bernard Observatory, Coulter Breezeway, Chancellor’s Butterfly Garden and the Alumni Garden.

Ole Miss impresses me each day with their continuous efforts to preserve our campus. I find it especially cool how there are so many opportunities to get involved and help; all you need is a passion to educate and make a difference! Next time you find yourself on campus, take a moment to appreciate how green and well-kept our university is.