A campus as a work of art

By Rose McIlveen

When the freshmen of 1902 arrived in Bloomington during October, they found a groundskeeper at work setting out trees and shrubs according to a plan created by R.S. Ulrich, one of America's most prominent experts in that field.

It was the university trustees who had commissioned Ulrich to come up with a landscaping plan for the relatively new campus. That was at the turn of the 20th century, and the horticulturist had given the administration a sense of direction about not only plantings, but the future placement of buildings.

One other suggestion by Ulrich was never carried out by the trustees. It was described in the Bloomington Courier of Sept. 12, 1903: "Two lakes will be placed on the campus; one just south of the old observatory, the other northeast of the old gymnasium. It is the intention of the plan to have a boat house erected near the first lake and make of it a pleasure resort."

Ulrich also had suggested an arboretum, which did eventually appear around 1985, but not adjacent to the Old Crescent where the original buildings are today.

Although Ulrich was a conventional landscape gardener, there was another dimension to his work. The titles of two of his writings – "Influences of Passive Experiences with Plants on Individual Well-being and Health," which appeared in The Role of Horticulture in Human Well-being and Social Development, Timber Press Inc., 1992, and "View from a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery,"which appeared in Science, in April 1984, indicate that he associated aesthetics with good mental health.