Mississippi State University’s campus does a very good job of balancing the feel of a mostly natural campus with the necessities of a college setup, but with the Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee Refuge being under half an hour away and the Tombigbee National Forest being about double the travel time to get to, it feels like there should be more opportunities to delve into nature.
More nature exposure for the average student would be beneficial in a lot of ways. Christina Heiser with NBC reported people who had taken walks through a forest were found to have lower blood pressure and measurably lower amounts of stress chemicals such as cortisol running through their body compared to those who were spending time walking in more urban environments. The hustle and bustle of MSU’s campus can absolutely qualify as an urban area, which is all the more reason that we need it. Harvard Health Publishing found a similar decrease in stress through exposure to nature, even in small increments like the slight gaps between classes.
It is just generally important to have a lot of exposure to the natural aspects of the world. To some degree, MSU has already made it to where students have access to natural things like pocket parks and the inclusion of plenty of plants and trees around campus, but there could also stand to be some improvement. A shuttle to the Refuge a few times a day could work to help people take more advantage of the placement of campus as a whole.
Another thing that could help is adding even more of the pocket parks. Kathleen L. Wolf with the National Parks and Recreation Association points toward research which specifies small natural areas like pocket parks as being incredibly beneficial to creativity and productivity in people who spent time in them. While we have several in and around the Drill Field, adding more benches could help with allowing people to take advantage of those benefits.
There could even be some encouragement for professors to host classes outside to give students a breath of fresh air and some of that exposure without sacrificing academic time. It would be a nice break from the constantly buzzing and headache-inducing fluorescent lights which populate classrooms around campus. Granted, this comes with the obstacle of what to do when the weather is less-than cooperative but if there were pavilions scattered around, the weather would not be much of an obstacle.
In short, more natural and rural activities should be implemented around campus, and those that currently exist should be promoted more, as they tend to slip through the cracks of the overcrowded pin boards. Every stressed person on and around campus would benefit from the inclusion of more nature exposure and activities, and since MSU is not completely surrounded by a city, the source of those benefits should be made into a reality.