UCF’s second annual Earth Day Celebration, held Friday on Memory Mall, was overshadowed by a rally of students fighting to stop UCF from destroying what some are calling the “Central Park of UCF,” even though 87 percent of students voted they want it saved.
The area located near the Libra dorms is known as the UCF Arboretum, and it’s the last large area of natural green space left in UCF’s academic core. The area is protected, but UCF has asked the state’s St. Johns River Water Management District to strip the status and exchange it for green space on the outskirts of campus activists say isn’t easily accessible and is already too swampy to build on anyway.
Despite the overwhelming show of support from students to save the arboretum, Summer Singletary with UCF’s Student Sustainability Alliance believes UCF plans to defy the student voice and eventually bulldoze the arboretum anyway.
“UCF says it’s not their business anymore to consider student opinion,” Singletary told KnightNews.com after the Earth Day rally she organized.
When KnightNews.com was among the first to break UCF’s plans to have the arboretum’s protected status removed, UCF defended its request to “swap” the protected land in the core of campus for land on the outskirts of campus.
“The proposed swap area currently is in much better ecological condition than the area being released, and it serves as a buffer between campus and the Little Econ River,” UCF’s spokesman, Grant Heston, said in a statement in January.
Singletary plans to keep fighting to save the arboretum, which for decades has served as an outdoor classroom for students.
“We want to get people involved so we can continue to pressure the university so we can keep the arboretum, which is a very valuable educational center on campus for many students.”
UCF has not yet announced what it would like to do with the property if it gets released, and a spokesman told KnightNews.com that there are no plans for the site at this point.
In an email response to KnightNews.com seeking comment on this story today, UCF Spokesman Grant Heston said, “UCF has hosted forums for students to share their views and to hear from UCF about the proposal and why it benefits the environment and our campus.”
KnightNews.com was not made aware of these forums, so we cannot show you any video coverage from them.
Heston said the swap will provide UCF flexibility in how to best serve students in the future. Check back to KnightNews.com for continuing coverage on this major story on campus.
