Penn College News

Penn College again accorded ‘Tree Campus’ designation

Monday, May 10, 2021

Aided by its knowledgeable team of General Services horticulturists and foresters, along with academic programs in both of those disciplines, Pennsylvania College of Technology has been chosen as a national “Tree Campus” for the sixth consecutive year.

The Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging employees and students in conservation goals.



Surrounded by the well-nurtured natural beauty that earned Pennsylvania College of Technology a sixth straight title, Grant Walters (left), of Dover, enrolled in landscape/horticulture technology: landscape emphasis, and Aaron Larson, a forest technology major from Erie, hold a commemorative Tree Campus banner. (Photo by Carl J. Bower Jr., assistant professor of horticulture)Penn College – an annual honoree since 2015 – retained the title by meeting the program’s five standards: maintaining a tree advisory committee, implementing a campus tree-care plan, dedicating annual expenditures for its campus tree program, holding an Arbor Day observance and sanctioning a student service-learning project.

More than 400 campuses across the country enjoy the designation.

“We are proud of the connection we have with the trees on our campuses. Whether it is working with them in lab, appreciating their beauty while in flower or their shade in the summer, we don’t take them for granted,” said Carl J. Bower Jr., assistant professor of horticulture. “We are fortunate to be able to share our connection in the horticulture and forestry departments with the General Services staff in maintaining these campus assets.”

The Arbor Day Foundation has helped campuses throughout the nation plant thousands of trees, and Tree Campus Higher Education colleges and universities invested more than $51 million in campus forest management in 2020. That work directly supports the Time for Trees initiative, an unprecedented effort to plant 100 million seedlings in forests and communities and inspire 5 million tree-planters by 2022.

Over the past year, Tree Campus Higher Education schools collectively planted 39,178 trees and engaged 81,535 planters – helping the foundation work toward those goals.

For more information about the college’s landscape/plant production technology and forest technology majors, visit the School of Engineering Technologies or call 570-327-4520.

For more about the college, a national leader in applied technology education, email the Admissions Office or call toll-free 800-367-9222.