Walking through the campus mall today, I noticed something different.

The cherry blossoms that so beautifully filled the mall are now gone, feeling empty and unwelcoming.

One of the things I always tell people about Eastern is we have a beautiful campus and when families visit, they are impressed by what they see. Between the oranges, yellows and reds of fall and the pinks and greens of spring, campus is beautiful for a good chunk of the year.

I can’t help but wonder why such a big part of campus would be made to look so boring. It’s upsetting. There are some parts of campus that need to be spruced up a bit.

Right outside of Patterson Hall there is a hole in the ground and next to it, lying on the ground, is a car barricade.

Eastern Washington University Facilities and Planning is in charge of the landscaping at EWU. For the most part, I feel the department has done a decent job, but taking the cherry blossoms out of the campus mall has put a bitter taste in my mouth.

The department claims its staff  “supports campus facilities and provides leadership to support the development of the university’s infrastructure,” according to the EWU Facilities and Planning page on Eastern’s website.

The campus mall situation does not support this claim. Taking out the cherry blossoms only hurt Eastern’s infrastructure.

Students I talked to about the trees being taken out said they didn’t notice the trees were gone. However, when I showed them, all seemed to have the same question.

“Why?” EWU junior Amanda Aragundi said, rhetorically.

Aragundi said she could understand taking the trees down if there was problem. Yet, if there was no reason, she said cutting them down took away from the quaintness of Eastern’s campus, one that has an impressive landscape, according to Aragundi.

Jessica Murillo, a senior at Eastern, said she thought the cherry blossoms in the mall were helpful because they provided shade for events like Diversity Week.

“They were really nice because they looked like [the other cherry blossoms on campus] during the springtime when they blossomed,” said Murillo.

EWU senior Raul Aranzazu said he noticed something wasn’t right when he walked through the campus mall.

“[The cherry blossoms] added a lot more life to the mall and now it just looks bland,” said Aranzazu.

EWU Landscape Maintenance was contacted via telephone. No one could be reached for comment.

“[Landscape] maintenance is responsible for mowing, irrigation, fertilizing, leaf collection, snow removal, litter patrol [and] pruning of outside plants …” according to the facilities services page on Eastern’s site. The landscapers did a lot more than just pruning in the campus mall.

For a school that prides itself on building an image, and one that believes it has an image problem — a timely example being the PUB remodel — taking the cherry blossoms out of the campus mall seems to be a step backward.
It really is unfortunate that such a beautiful part of campus turned into an uninviting space for students and visitors.