For the third year in a row, California State University, Fresno has been designated a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation – one of just 74 colleges and universities across the United States to win the recognition in 2010.

The designation recognizes the university’s care of and concern about maintaining an urban forest that helps cleanse the air for the general community, provides shady refuge from summer heat and is one reason the 388-acre campus is a state-designated arboretum.

Together with the 1,011-acre Agricultural Laboratory (campus farm), a substantial portion of which is planted to a broad variety of fruit and nut trees, Fresno State forms the biggest green belt within the urbanized Fresno-Clovis metro region.

Besides Fresno State, Tree Campus USA recognition was granted to only three other universities in California –Redlands University and the University of California campuses at Davis and San Diego.

The Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree Campus USA program promotes healthy urban forest management and recognizes universities that work on campus and in the greater community to make environmental stewardship a high priority.

To be designated, the foundation insists on universities meeting the following core standards:

  • Establish a campus tree advisory committee.
  • Have a campus tree-care plan in place.
  • Dedicate annual expenditures for campus trees.
  • Observe Arbor Day on campus.
  • Institute service-learning projects aimed at engaging the student body.

Tree Campus USA is supported by a grant from Toyota.

For more information, visit to www.arborday.org/treecampususa.