Perimeter College Recognized for Protecting Bees and Trees

DECATUR, Ga.—Bees.

They are marvelous collaborators and exacting engineers. They exist on every continent except Antarctica. Possibly three quarters of the world's flowering plants—from chrysanthemums to coffee—can trace their germination back to them. They are our potent pollinators. They are essential. Yet, their populations have declined.

Trees.

They are filters, removing carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air we breathe and cleaning our water. They catch rainwater, slow down storm water and provide homes for our wildlife. They can lower our household energy costs. Tree-filled neighborhoods even have been found to make communities safer and more sociable and improve the mental and physical health of residents. Yet, the earth loses 24 million acres of forest annually—an area the size of Indiana.

Recently, Perimeter College received national recognition for its work to protect these two vital natural assets.

In September 2024, the Xerces Society designated Perimeter College a Bee Campus USA affiliate, reflecting the diligent efforts of GSU leadership, Perimeter administrators, students, faculty and staff to create a haven for bees and other pollinators. Perimeter’s Decatur Campus is the flagship Bee Campus, with its 5-acre Native Plant Botanical Garden and a separate 2-acre community vegetable garden that produces 1,000 pounds of food a year.

The botanical garden, established in 1990, serves as a place for hands-on learning for Perimeter students and a resource for the region’s science community. For more than 30 years, the college has supported the garden, which has more than 5,000 native plant species and offers the world’s largest collection of ferns.

In January 2025, the Arbor Day Foundation awarded Perimeter College’s Clarkston Campus a Tree Campus Higher Education certification. The designation follows the creation of a campus tree care plan and several campus-wide projects and will provide Perimeter College greater access to grant resources.

Both designations bring visibility to Perimeter's conservation practices and to Georgia State University's goal of building a culture and example of sustainability. Both support Georgia State’s strategic plan by fostering and supporting identity and placemaking. They provide opportunities for students, faculty and staff to engage in enhancing the campuses while encouraging stewardship of the environment and building pride of place.

Collaboration was important in attaining each of the designations. The projects drew energy and interest from Georgia State’s Atlanta Campus as well as the Perimeter campuses. The committees that helped launch and continue to guide each effort include staff, students, professors and administrators.

Michelle Arth, college operations officer for Perimeter College, learned of the Bee Campus committee and its work to attain a designation and saw the opportunity, not only to build more student engagement with the native plant botanical garden, but perhaps to raise the garden’s profile in the community. She joined the committee and became an active member, representing Perimeter’s facilities.

"It seemed like it might be a win-win," she said.

While on the committee, Arth worked with Susan Ridley and Jennifer Wilson from Georgia State University's Atlanta Campus. Wilson, director of sustainability initiatives, and Ridley, senior director of finance, administration and risk management, recognized the value a Bee Campus designation could bring to Perimeter College and Georgia State. The label encourages and draws attention to an increase in pollinator-friendly gardens and supports   the human benefits of providing natural places on college campuses.

"We've got these great green spaces across multiple campuses," Wilson said. "They make the campuses special places. How do we grow that and support recognition of those?”

Wilson said the Decatur Campus gardens are good examples of assets, yet more might be done to let the community know about them.

"Bee Campus allows multiple departments to come together and support that,” she said. “Facilities, Sustainability and academic departments – it’s collaborative across different staff groups and areas."

Perimeter College worked to expand pollinator gardens across its campuses and took part in the 2024 Great Southeast Pollinator Census, organized by graduate students Aaron Pacheco and Julia Simonsen. During the August 2024 event, volunteers at the Decatur Campus botanical gardens counted 1,069 pollinators. The total count for the state of Georgia reached 13,269 during the event.

Wilson, Ridley and Arth also worked together—along with other staff, students, professors and administrators—to seek the Tree Campus designation.

“I’m thankful for the Arbor Day Foundation for recognizing the Clarkston Campus with the Tree Campus USA designation,” Arth said. “This achievement reflects hard work and dedication to care for and conserve our campus trees and engage students in environmental conservation.”

A tree advisory committee has been formed and will be meeting to develop goals and plan Arbor Day events for the Atlanta and Perimeter College campuses.

The designations draw attention to the scope and impact that bees and trees have on the environment and everyday lives.

Georgia has about 250 native tree species, 12 of which are endangered or critically endangered. And, while the word “bee” conjures common images, the variety is vast. Twenty thousand pollinator species populate the earth, with more than 500 native to the Southeastern United States. From the tiny, ground-dwelling iridescent sweat bee to the large, gentle-natured bumblebee, the insects have adapted to woodlands, deserts, mountains and swamps.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the worldwide impact of pollinators, which include bees, amounts to $200 billion annually, due to their importance in global food production by pollinating crops such as fruits and vegetables. The department says one out of every three bites we eat can trace its origins to a pollinator.

The Bee Campus designation was awarded by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Ore. Xerces provides a framework of conservation best practices for universities and college campuses to follow, ranging from cultivating native plants to creating online awareness of campus conservation activities and placing signage on garden grounds.

In pursuing its Bee Campus designation, Perimeter College has expanded pollinator beds, reduced insecticide use and agreed to draft annual reports on conservation efforts. It also has increased the information it provides online about its sites and work.

To assist with that, Wilson tasked Sustainability Initiatives intern and recently-graduated geosciences student Aaron Pacheco (B.S. ’24) with creating digital StoryMaps for the Atlanta, Clarkston, Decatur and Dunwoody campuses. The interactive, scrolling “maps” feature photos from the campuses and screenshots from Google Earth, informing users about the gardens' history and Perimeter's conservation work.

Similarly, Sustainability Initiatives interns Sean Max (B.S. ’24), Chris Brissett, Olivia Sanford and Daley Wittmeyer have supported the push for Tree Campus certification. The four interns completed tree inventories of the Atlanta and Clarkston campuses that include data on the size and species of each tree. Individual trees are uniquely identified with a metal ID tag so maintenance can be easily logged when performed.

Meanwhile, on Clarkston Campus, a Tree Canopy Enhancement and Parking Lot Resurfacing Project continues to make progress. The project, supported through the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Trees Across Georgia grant program, will add hundreds of new trees and replace older trees that are reaching their end of life. The project also will replace parking lot surfaces and provide soil reconditioning. Replacing the canopy coverage will take a few years, but the additional trees will offer improved environmental benefits to the campus and surrounding communities.

Although the Bee Campus and Tree Campus designations are new, the respect for nature they reflect is longstanding at Perimeter College. The Native Plant Botanical Garden at Decatur Campus is supported by 250 volunteers and has served for decades as a natural refuge for native species of plants and animals. Students following a variety of Perimeter’s learning pathways, from life sciences to art, have used the botanical garden as an inspiration and site of study. Through the garden, Perimeter collaborates with outside organizations, such as the Atlanta Science Festival and Georgia Native Plant Society. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources currently is partnering with Perimeter to foster pitcher plant growth.

Arth appreciates how everyone worked together to attain both designations for Perimeter College.

"It does mean a lot to me,” Arth said. “It was a collaborative partnership. Perimeter was a beneficiary, but the Atlanta Campus was instrumental in the process."

“A big thank you to everyone involved for their commitment to sustainability and for continuing to preserve and enhance our natural environment for future generations,” she said.

Story by Ben Austin