Despite recent amounts of rainfall, the lawn in front of the Letterman Communication and Media Building shows effects of the drought from this summer.
Over the last few weeks of August, rain has come and gone, aiding the plants that have been denied water throughout the summer months. The rain has somewhat revitalized crunchy surfaces on campus, beautifying it once again.
Although some of campus is on a green upswing, the Letterman Building is still visibly deprived of green grass, but not just because of a lack of rain. The Letterman Building abides by environmentally-friendly rules that prevent Ball State ground crews from helping with some chemicals on its lawn. This means no fertilizer.
"We're [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] certified, so we can't use the sprinkler system in our yard," said Lori Byers, associate dean of the College of Communication, Information, and Media.
The Letterman Building was certified as part of LEED by the U.S. Green Building Council upon completion in Fall 2007. Using fertilizer on the lawn would jeopardize this certification and has made this hot, dry summer hard to bear.
"If you look at it, and this year is worse than normal because we had the drought; it actually killed the grass, which is the first time that happened," Byers said. "So the weeds are thriving, so it looks worse than it usually does."
Byers said she isn't entirely upset by the frizzled lawn because having the LEED certification means low maintenance is needed to maintain the building. It also means that less water is being used on the lawn.
This follows efforts in place by the Circle of Blue, an organization created by journalists and scientists to inform and protect Earth's water supply in environmentally-friendly ways, something Byers is very proud of.
"I appreciate having a pretty campus," she said. "We're very lucky to have a pretty campus, but I like it even better that we're an environmentally-friendly campus. It's very cool that we're league certified, and so I think it's worth it to go through this little difficult period."
Not every lawn on campus has had to suffer through the drought without fertilizer, though. Carlos Garcia, Landscape Services supervisor, said most of the grass on campus came back using current fertilizer and a little help from Mother Nature.
"In the last couple of weeks, we started getting substantial rain that really made a difference," Garcia said. "We're actually starting to have to mow on a regular schedule like we would have been in the spring. That's a really good indicator when we're mowing every week."
There will still be efforts around campus to bring back the casualties of the summer's dry spell like University Green and LaFollette Field, Garcia said.
"Those are two fairly big areas that also get a lot of traffic, so that's going to be another added factor in there in trying to get things done while they still hold events on some of these areas," he said.
While the rain has helped the campus look green again, freshman Nina Cope said she thinks Muncie needs more rain, especially for the Letterman Building lawn's sake.
"We still have a long ways to go for it to grow, but at least it was turning back green and looking better," said Cope, who worked for a lawn mowing company over the summer.
Byers said she thinks dead grass and a greener campus has its pros and cons but believes they balance each other out.
"I think it's pretty awesome that Ball State leads the way in terms of environmental considerations, and it's one of the ways we get even more attention as a university," she said.
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