Grand Valley State University is home to a beautiful and nature-filled campus. On tours around campus to potential students, it’s one of GVSU’s biggest selling points. However, the campus does not look like that on its own. The upkeep of campus is the result of the facilities services at GVSU.

The grounds staff consists of 12 full-time employees and an additional 20 student workers during both the summer and the school year.

“The budget for the upkeep of campus varies from year to year,” said Ken Stanton, GVSU grounds supervisor.

All small-scale projects come out of the general operating budget for the grounds department. The budget depends on the needs of the year, and it is up to Stanton to choose what projects the facilities department should focus on achieving.

Larger scale projects costing more than $10,000 have to go through a lengthy approval process and will come from a special budget, not the general operating budget. Stanton first must pitch the project idea to his boss. Following this, the money must be requested and approved. This entire process must be completed one year before the work of the project is expected to begin.

The GVSU grounds department maintains 500 acres of grounds and parking lots on campus. Responsibilities include landscape installation and maintenance; maintenance of turf grass, all paved areas and all campus signs; snow removal, the overseeing of work performed by landscape contractors, the designing and installment of new garden spaces on campus, recommending changes to enhance the campus grounds, working with the maintenance staff of Meadows Golf Course, the installation and maintenance of the campus site furniture and litter pick up.

The student workers are in charge of edging, planting, litter pick up after sporting events and taking care of the athletic fields. There are also many responsibilities the come along with maintaining the arboretum and gardens on campus, said university arborist Steve Snell.

The arboretum and gardens are maintained by mowing once a week, weeding, fertilizing in the fall or spring, pruning out the dead branches from trees and shrubs, pruning back vines from their over growth, mulching tree rings if they already exist, dead-heading flower heads after they’re done flowering, raking and blowing leaves, repairing trails from extreme weather events, replanting perennial flowers if they are at the end of the life expectancy, cutting down all ornamental grasses in the fall and spring and cleaning out the pond of algae, Snell said.

Stanton has two large-scaled projects in mind that he would like to complete in the near future. He said he wants to resurface South Campus Drive near the Mark A. Murray Living Center and the Ronald F. VanSteeland Living Center. The drive is currently damaged from the buses that travel through there on a daily basis.

Stanton would also like to resurface the parking lot at Meadows Golf Course. For the time being, the grounds crew can patch these surfaces with the money coming from the general operating budget. Stanton is working on getting these two large-scale projects approved.