UW–Madison Recertified by Bee Campus USA

This month, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation recertified UW–Madison as a Bee Campus, extending its status as one of eight universities in Wisconsin and one of nearly 200 in the U.S. to hold the designation.

“This is a moment worth celebrating,” said Ian Aley, Green Fund program manager for the Office of Sustainability and co-facilitator of the Bee Campus Committee. “We are already seeing the addition of pollinator-supporting habitats and changes of maintenance practices because of this certification, and a lot of relationship-building work and collaboration is happening behind the scenes. Stay tuned: there will be more exciting work in the years ahead!”

UW–Madison first achieved Bee Campus USA certification in September 2022. Early this year, it underwent the length process of submitting for renewal.

“To get the certification, you have to commit to working toward improving pollinator habitat across your campus, setting up a committee, and having a structure for it,” said Alex Frank, project portfolio manager for the Office of Sustainability (OS) who collaborated with graduate assistant and entomologist, Victoria Salerno, to collect and submit data for the Bee Campus applications. “It’s the recertification where you have to prove that you’ve actually made progress.”

According to the Bee Campus USA website, the certification signals a commitment to reduce pesticide use, create educational opportunities and service-learning projects about pollinator conservation, and “enhance pollinator habitat on campus by increasing the abundance of native plants and providing nest sites.” At UW–Madison, the recertification resulted from a wide-ranging collaboration between students; staff from the OS, Grounds, Lakeshore Nature Preserve, Arboretum, and Campus Planning & Landscape Architecture; and faculty from Plant Pathology and Entomology.

“This is what the Bee Campus initiative helps us do that we otherwise might not have done ourselves very naturally,” said Claudio Gratton, a professor in the Department of Entomology whose lab studies pollinators and the benefits of insect conservation. “To bring people from all of these different sectors of our institution to help come together and figure out how we can work together to make conservation actually work.”

UW–Madison’s efforts began with its first submission for a STARS rating, the benchmark for tracking sustainability performance at higher education institutions across the world. As part of his role as then-data analyst for the OS, Frank and sustainability staff sought opportunities for improving UW–Madison’s rating and found that STARS recognized the Bee Campus USA certification.

“Bee Campus rose to the top of the list as something that fit well with what we and our stakeholders find important,” said Frank. “It also builds on some great expertise that we have with experts on campus and leaders in pollinator science and conservation.”

Members of the Bee Campus Committee, including Susan Carpenter (Arboretum), Robert Scott (Grounds), and Rhonda James (Campus Planning & Landscape Architecture), at the School of Education’s Native Plant Garden project.

A history of collaboration

The committee established by Frank, Aley, and Salerno found expertise in many departments on campus. Susan Carpenter, the native plant garden curator for the Arboretum, began her role in 2003 and noted a rise in interest for pollinator gardens on campus in 2010, when a visitor from the University of California–Davis spotted a rusty patched bumble bee in the garden. In 2013, the Arboretum served as a case study for a bumble bee conversation document published by Xerces, the organization that evaluates Bee Campus USA applications.

In subsequent years, Grounds began to incorporate native plants more frequently, the Lakeshore Nature Preserve increasingly stimulated the growth of native plants, and the State of Wisconsin, Dane County, and City of Madison enacted pollinator protection plans to protect the 500 bee species native to the state.

Each effort, Carpenter said, benefits both the conservation of bees and the many plants that benefit from or depend on pollination.

On campus, Carpenter pointed to the educational benefits of pollinator gardens—both for the 750 volunteers who learn to care for the gardens each year and for the various researchers studying the species the gardens attract.

“Having a [pollinator] garden like this brings in a lot of insects, animals, birds, and once they’re there, you’re more likely to notice them, and you’re more likely to learn about them, because they’re right in your community,” Carpenter said.

Because of his research with pollinators, Gratton was invited to join the Bee Campus USA Committee, the advisory board for the initial Bee Campus efforts at UW–Madison. He noted that the certification allowed members of the board to think about integrating bee conservation and pollinator gardens into the university’s teaching and research missions.

“This is great because I’ve always been interested in: how do you go from the research and the science that we do in our labs to actually seeing change on the ground?” Gratton said.

Hannah Stahmann and Emily Valentine, co-chairs of the student sustainability advocacy group Campus Leaders for Energy Action Now (CLEAN) and members of the ASM Sustainability committee, contributed to the recertification through their campaign to reduce the use of pesticides and increase native plants via Re:wild UW–Madison, another student group they oversee. While faculty and staff Bee Campus efforts continued, the students decided to reach out to the Green Fund with proposals for rewilding campus.

A tiger swallowtail (black morph female) was spotted during the Insect Ambassador Butterfly event at the Biocore Prairie in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve. Photo by the Office of Sustainability

“Madison already has such a beautiful campus, but we want to make it beautiful for everyone. Cut lawns and synthetic pesticides aren’t good for the soil, for the ecosystem,” Valentine said. “[Native] plants have been here for thousands upon thousands of years, and they know this ecosystem. They’ve evolved with the ecosystem. The same with the insects and animals around it—they’ve also evolved.”

To learn how to effectively campaign for action at UW–Madison, Stahmann said they attended trainings by Re:wild Your Campus, the broader nationwide student organization. Yet at the meeting, she realized they did not need the preparation after all.

“It was really a pleasant surprise,” Stahmann said. “We found out that there were already people on campus that were really interested in doing this, and that were doing it in a different way. That was really amazing to hear and made me hopeful.”

Re:wild UW–Madison’s successful proposal means that the Green Fund will pay to help establish an organic landscape management pilot on four campus sites: Library Mall, Henry Mall, Ogg Residence Hall, and the Divine Nine Plaza, where Grounds will forego synthetic inputs, opting for soil testing, site-specific efforts to support soil health like the application of compost, and mechanical techniques to manage pests. Faculty in the Department of Plant Pathology will offer services and share expertise in sustainable turfgrass management with Grounds staff, while the Bee Campus Committee will advise the team during the pilot.

“This is definitely showing students that the university cares about their health, about the future of the planet, and about the health of Grounds workers,” Stahmann said.

As they developed their Green Fund project, the students met with Grounds staff, asked questions, and observed ongoing plans for reducing pesticides and increasing native plants.

“Projects like these give a really good opportunity for students who want to actually do something and make campus a better place to enact policies they want to see for themselves but also for future students who want to come here,” Valentine added.

The Bee Campus recertification also informed students and staff about actions already happening on campus, such as Grounds’s shift to an integrated pest management system for greenhouses, as well as the Arboretum’s substitution of soap for glyphosate (Roundup) to treat weeds. A group of Green Fund students and partners established a pollinator lawn at Tripp Residence Hall. Another team is establishing a native plant garden at the School of Education featuring plants that benefit pollinators and hold cultural significance to native peoples of Wisconsin so that the garden can be a resource for place-based indigenous education on campus. The Green Fund is supporting a team of students and partners with the creation of a bee hotel at Allen Centennial Garden. Salerno contributed to and analyzed UW–Madison’s Bee Campus efforts—including bee hotels, pollinator habitats, chemical alternatives to pest management, and public outreach—to produce a thesis about their benefits to campus. Additionally, Salerno gathered the data and authored and submitted the recertification application.

Sustainable Turfgrass Use and Management (HORT 261) students learn from Grounds staff as they plant the Tripp Pollinator Lawn. Photo by Ian Aley

“The Bee Campus work really embodies this idea of cross-campus involvement,” Frank said. “It’s a perfect example of how we bring together campus operations, land managers like our Grounds department, our Arboretum staff, motivated and interested students, and smart faculty, with our office being a sort of connector to facilitate a safe space for all these groups to come together and try some new things.”

The future of (bee) campus

UW–Madison turned 175 over the past academic year; this year, the Arboretum turns 90. The anniversaries have spurred action, like the university’s new sustainability goals—a reminder that, Carpenter said, “sustainability is no longer a choice of we’re going to do it or not do it.”

Gratton looked to the recertification as a marker of societal and institutional progress, and as a beacon for the future.

“When I started here 20 years ago, we weren’t really talking that much about climate change and the impact that it has on people’s daily lives,” he explained. “Similarly, we’ve recognized the impacts that humans have on the environment. What I’m seeing now is there’s a collective sense of, if we can work together on some of these challenges, we can mitigate the worst outcomes that might occur if we let things kind of continue the way that they are.”

With the data collection that led to the recertification, the staff plans on continuing to establish effective land care practices and scaling them across campus, as they establish more pollinator-supporting landscapes , study them, and harmonize the need for spaces that are welcoming to both humans and pollinators.

“This is not a one-year project, this is not a ten-year project,” Gratton continued. “This is a mindset-change project that is going to continue on for a long time, and that’s what I’m particularly excited about.”

By Marek Makowski