Two student organizations within the College of Architecture are celebrating Arbor Day today by planting nine trees around Giles Hall, which houses the architecture school.
The American Institute of Architecture Students and Tau Sigma Delta are working together to promote Arbor Day throughout the college.
Organization leaders say they hope to spread the effort to the entire campus.
“We are going to start out here, and next year move to another place on campus. Eventually we hope to expand around campus,” said Phillip Luse, AIAS president.
The program begins at 10 a.m. at Giles Hall. Students will plant the nine trees with assistance from a Mississippi State landscape maintenance representative.
Tau Sigma Delta is providing the trees, and AIAS is providing lunch for everyone who helps out with the tree-planting.
Both Luse and Robyn Clary, presidents of the two groups, feel that programs like the Arbor Day celebration are important for students, especially architecture students.
“Architecture students are taught to be proactive in the community, and this is a way that we can begin to do that,” Luse said.
The AIAS hopes to help in making State a “Tree City USA” through projects like the Arbor Day tree planting.
The Tree City program is sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation, and requires cities to have leadership and financial support in city tree planting.
“In the future, we would like to be involved in getting MSU to be a Tree City,” Luse said.
Clary is the president of Tau Sigma Delta, an honor society for architecture students, and she says that even though the organization is small, she and other members are trying to find projects that can help students and the college.
“It is good when students can find time to give back to the school,” she said.
Professors also feel the event is important. Professor David Lewis cancelled his Architectural Theory class today so students could participate in the event.
“Every year, I try to get the theory class to do a community project,” Lewis said. “They needed people, so it worked out well.”
Arbor Day was started in Nebraska in 1872 to promote residents to plant trees in the mostly treeless prairie.
National Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday of April, while each state has a separate Arbor Day depending on the best planting time for the area.
Mississippi’s Arbor Day is celebrated on the second Friday in February each year, but due to scheduling conflicts, the architecture organizations had to postpone its celebration until today.
Tau Sigma Delta sponsors the Friday Forum program, where the organization provides lectures and help sessions for students each Friday at lunch. Members grill hot dogs and hamburgers to sell to students before the program begins to raise money.
The group also provides a reception to go along with the college’s lecture series.
AIAS, a national organization of architecture students around the United States, sponsors several projects throughout the year.
Every spring the organization sponsors the Beaux-Arts Ball to raise money.
Once a month, it sponsors a movie night for students and helps with Habitat for Humanity and various other philanthropy projects.