Historical books, field guides, and illustrated volumes of CU Boulder flora and fauna. “Campus Life” exhibit, Jerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences & Map Library. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
The “Campus Life” exhibit inside the Benson Earth Science Building’s Jerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences & Map Library takes visitors on 150-year journey tracing relationships between humans and more-than-human life forms on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. NEST Studio for the Arts, a program that explores methodologies connecting art and science, presented the exhibit in collaboration with the CU Museum of Natural History and Facilities Management.
“Campus Life” is a visual narration of an ongoing story of the structural growth and continuous negotiations with biological cohabitants across the 786-acre campus. It reminds viewers that biophilic design, the integration of nature into a built environment, has shaped CU’s growth.
Joanne Marras Tate, a curator with NEST, worked closely with Map Curator Naomi Heiser to select artifacts from the libraries’ “Rare and Distinction Collections” including site maps, landscape blueprints, watercolor paintings of flora and fauna and natural history specimens.
“All the artifacts tell a story of how campus was imagined early, at a place where wildlife is present,” Tate said. “‘Campus Life’ is here to remind us of the history, the relationships we have today and how we can learn to coexist and thrive together.”
The exhibit uses historical site plans to track the evolution of physical structures and flora on the grounds. For example, the 1898 blueprint of the 33.5-acre Norlin Quadrangle Historical District shows an avenue of trees planned as a formal planting project and framed by the Flatirons. It is just one piece of a much larger story. Heiser selected artifacts and maps that made the exhibit’s theme stand out.
The proposed 1898 Norlin Quadrangle layout shows buildings surrounding an avenue of trees. University of Colorado, General Plan by O.J. Pfeiffer and E.P. Varian. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
“Maps speak to all kinds of different subjects. They are more than a representation of the Earth’s surface,” Heiser said.
The blueprint documents a beyond-human relationship the planners set in motion within the physical space. Dedicated to a layered, ecological habitat that supports all life, the structural design has gifted future generations a living inheritance.
More than a century later, the life forms on campus stand as evidence of the planning decisions that shaped human relationships with their biological neighbors — a relationship that continues to be negotiated.
1947 Farrand Field Expansion shows the CU campus scale and the reshaping of the landscape. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
Farrand Field construction began in 1947 and was expanded in 1969. In 1972, the growth sparked a student protest to protect the Gunnison prairie dog colony with a protective fence; it symbolized the compromise between human infrastructure and this keystone species on campus. The petition was one of many student-led advocacy movements to come, foreshadowing a pillar of student life.
“The exhibit resonates with some of the same kinds of campus issues today. Things like expansion or things like water use,” Heiser said.
Maps as storytellers
Cartography is a key tool for tracking changes in the CU landscape. The Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of 1898, 1908 and 1922 show three decades of visible change in building density, crowding and landscape additions. The map’s color coding reveals the abundant use of brick, stone and the minimal use of wood.
Four Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. Top left from 1898, top right from 1908, bottom two from 1922. They reveal CU campus growth, with color coding that identifies building materials: pink for brick, yellow for wood, and blue for stone or concrete. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
Color coding goes beyond identifying construction materials — yellow suggests that time and money were scarce. According to Heiser, builders wouldn’t necessarily use wood when fire risk was high and brick and stone were abundant.
“The maps are incredibly interesting because there’s no other type of map that shows a building-by-building level of detail,” she said. “People use the Sanborn maps to track social change.”
A closer look at the maps shows that planners introduced a small bridge and what is now Varsity Pond in 1908. Then by 1922, dense clusters of buildings crowded the northeastern section of the campus’ open fields, creating more learning opportunities but reducing natural habitat.
The maps chart the university’s transition from an informal educational outpost to a growing institution. Mixed-use utilitarian structures were replaced by dedicated academic buildings, pointing to new social structures needed to manage a larger community, like housing systems and administrative oversight.
The shift from wood to stone and brick construction denotes growing stability. Street labels for Broadway and University Avenue were added by 1908 and 1922, signaling campus integration into civic life.
Watercolor, gouache and on watercolor paper by Robert Martin Buehler 2019 depict plants, insects and birdlife found near Varsity Pond on the CU campus. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
Plants and wildlife are integral to campus life. Robert Martin Buehler’s 2019 watercolor paintings depict the flora and fauna inhabiting Varsity Pond’s banks and other areas. They encourage visitors to look beyond the imagery and visualize how the campus has grown. According to Tate, Boulder has become a “wildlife-urban interface.”
“(Buehler’s) artwork is truly inspiring for us to see campus in a new form.” she said.
The campus was founded on a treeless plain. Over time, CU became part of the Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus Higher Education by planting over 5,000 trees and cultivating the campus grounds. The nonprofit program honors colleges and universities for student engagement in effectively maintaining urban forests.
“There is beauty and an important aspect of taking time to deeply observe nature,” Tate said. “We learn so much about our fellow creatures on campus when we take time to notice their uniqueness.”
Visitors can become a part of history by sharing their oral stories as part of the exhibit. Library curators are collecting personal experiences of more-than-human interactions on and around CU Boulder.
Campus snapshot: biophilia implemented at the Center for Community (C4C) dining garden
Center for Community dining garden. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
The Environmental Center’s Campus Garden Program is part of the human-to-non-human connection on campus. It’s a hands-on experience that focuses on food justice, community engagement and educational experiences. Interns network with local farmers, practice companion planting that supports healthy microbial and insect life while earning course credits.
CU in the Garden Internship Program Coordinator Grace Hutchens leads student interns and volunteers to care for seven campus gardens year-round, including the C4C Garden.
“When you’re working in these ecosystems, it’s not just about growing food; it’s also about stewarding the land in a sustainable way, so it will regenerate the earth over time,” she said. “We make really conscious choices when we’re planting things.”
Left to right: Program coordinator Grace Hutchens, assistant coordinators Isabella Neitzel and Jacob Meltzer. (CU Independent / Melodie Miller)
The seven gardens represent a dynamic third space on campus that is human-centered, where visitors can observe the ecosystem. Hutchens finds meaning in simply sitting and watching insects interact with plants.
“The garden spaces are living spaces where something is always changing,” she said.
Contact CU Independent Writer Melodie Miller at Melodie.Miller@colorado.edu
