Augustana seeks landscaping help amid campus beautification push

A recent addition to the ADP hiring portal advertised an open position for a “landscaping coordinator,” who would be “responsible for maintaining and enhancing the beauty, safety, and overall appearance of the university’s grounds and college-owned property.”

The description also includes overseeing athletic fields, landscape beds, maintaining health of campus plants, and assisting with general maintenance when needed.

Matt Nelson has been Augustana’s landscaping coordinator for 16 years. He is now being given extra help, explaining that the new hire is intended to help him during the summertime to prepare for the school year, a season where campus is busy with growth and work. 

“So I’ll be more of a ‘Director’ position, show them what needs to be done,” Nelson said. “We’ll kind of work together on projects like planting flowers or throwing mulch down, keeping weeds down, whatever is needed that day.”

Nelson adds that some may be confused about where his workload starts and ends, assuring that the campus’ grounds are not his responsibility. 

“We’re contracted with a local company ‘The Yard Barbers,’” Nelson said. “I usually see something wrong, then I let the guys know, because they’re the barbers. If they missed a spot while mowing, I tell them. It’s a lot easier to have one company handling these things than several different ones.”

With the typical workload of a landscaping coordinator already including a myriad of unexpected tasks, contracting out a portion of that work to allow the coordinator to address other priorities helps the process run more smoothly. By communicating with the lawn crew, Nelson is still able to oversee all of campus while making sure sidewalks are salted.

Whitney Jibben, director of housing, dining and facility services, said that landscaping is a recent priority. 

“Campus beautification has been really top of mind for us for about the past three to four years,” Jibben said. “It’s what the university calls an ‘enterprise goal,’ basically a goal that the executive team has set. A lot of that has focused on getting our grass to grow and making 

our ground usable and visitor and student-friendly. The biggest project we've done as far as campus beautification would be the campus green.”

Jibben explains that there is also a lot of “underground” work that students don’t often notice, such as yearly tree donations the school receives from alumni Joe ‘75 and Jennifer (Frerichs) Kirby ‘93, in hopes to address loss of ash trees to native insects by replacing their spots in the campus canopy.

In addition to adding trees, Jibben explained that the most recent landscaping goal is to refocus on the flower beds that surround educational and other facilities, starting with the Welcome Center and continuing down through the heart of campus. 

“Since we’ve got some significant campus goals, we’re going to need more hands,” Jibben said.

That behind-the-scenes work isn't lost on David O'Hara, director of environmental studies and sustainability.

“There are people who do all the invisible things, even when you go to the commons, think about how many people have to be employed to provide that much food, that many times a day, every day — and on top of that, clean it,” O’Hara said. 

O’Hara added that he appreciates current sustainable efforts on campus but that they could always be better, especially with an increase in staff.

“I would love for us to think about our landscape more regeneratively,” he said. “That is to say, grow stuff in such a way that we actually spend less on making the soil productive and instead make it healthier.” 

O’Hara added that he would like to see an increase in orchard prioritization, have a more detailed care plan for campus trees, and most importantly, stop cutting down gardens in the fall to prepare for a chilling winter. He advocates for “stewards of the land” to trust the process nature has participated in for thousands of years.

“Our campus could be a living laboratory, and it could also be a sanctuary for all sorts of species that don't hurt us but that do benefit agriculture, that do benefit flowers and so on,” O’Hara said. “I would love for us to use our landscape as a teaching place.”

It is unclear when a second landscape coordinator is going to be hired, but until then, Nelson hopes students appreciate Augustana’s landscape.

“I just hope that students enjoy their time here, seeing all the plants and flowers,” Nelson said.