Hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the eastern U.S. own acres of forested land, ranging from Virginia Tech’s modest 11-acre Stadium Woods to Rutgers University’s 500-acre William L. Hutcheson Memorial Forest.
The forthcoming “Woodlands of the Mind” features 15 campus forests in 11 states, spanning from North Georgia to the Ohio Valley to coastal Maine. The selected forests represent diverse ecosystems and management systems, with some left wild and others more controlled and aimed for recreation than conservation. While some are protected in perpetuity, others face development and money troubles, and all face ecological threats. But each forest is unique, representing the various ways they serve their campuses, whether for research, recreation or preservation.
For wanderers and armchair adventurers alike, these essays discuss each forest’s ecology, landscape architecture and history.