Entrance to building blossoms under care of Computer Science staffers

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

Priscilla Coe (right) and Barbara Sutherland plant bulbs near the entrance of the Computer Science Building. Behind them, Laurie Downey (right) and Kate Moruzzi also tend to landscaping chores. All four are clerical staff in the Computer Science Department. (Stan Sherer photo)

s part of an ongoing volunteer beautification project around the entrance to the Computer Science Building, four Computer Science clerks planted flower bulbs in the area Oct. 9.

     Building staff split bulbs from plants at home and donated them to the effort. Priscilla Coe, Laurie Downey, Kate Moruzzi and Barb Sutherland, all clerk IVs, did the October planting.

     It wasn't the first time the department has been involved in landscaping around the two-year-old building.

      As staff transitioned from the stage where they were moving into the building in 1999 to preparation for the fall 2000 celebration of the space, they noticed the inside was looking better than the outside.

     "By the time we got [moved in], there wasn't much money for landscaping," said business manager Claire Christopherson. "And we were getting ready for the gala opening.

     "There was a group of people who felt the outside was too bare, so we considered the alternatives. Marla Michel [then interim executive director of the Electronic Enterprise Institute; now in the same position at Strategic Technology Alliances] and Priscilla [Coe] suggested that if the department could buy the material, that we in the department could provide the labor. Labor is the expensive part."

     Around the same time, Computer Science staff organized a fund-raiser, called the "Path of Pride" - a rectangle of bricks, engraved with messages from their buyers - that was placed outside the main entrance on Governors Drive.

     "We encouraged people to buy these [$250 and $500] bricks, and they could write anything they wanted on them," Christopherson said.

     Armed with a design by campus landscape architect Bruce Thomas, the group scheduled the planting of an approximately 3,600-square-foot area around the Path of Pride stretching to the sidewalk. Coe and administrative coordinator Wendy Cooper did much of the plant shopping. Grounds Management prepared the beds, and staff members did the planting. The first effort was mainly to install shrubbery. Subsequent plantings have included more than 100 chrysanthemums and the recent flower bulbs.

     "It really dresses up the entrance," Christopherson said.

     The area boasts lilacs, butterfly bushes, ornamental grasses, rudbeckia, goldenrod, liberty apple trees, ornamental Japanese maples, coral bells, and other plants.

     "[Thomas] wanted to put some plants in that had been lost in other areas of the campus," Coe said.

     "I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out," Thomas said. He praised the staff's ongoing efforts to keep the area watered, weeded and adjusted.

     "It's getting that eclectic feel without being messy," Christopherson said. "What's most striking to me is the follow-up these guys have done. It's one thing to get up the energy for the new building and the gala opening, but it's another to do the follow-up so that the garden improves every season, adding new things, taking care of old things."

     "Faculty have been involved with the maintenance and improvements," Coe said. "Al Hanson [associate director of the Computer Vision Lab] is always there. And the department has continued to provide money.

     "It's nice to have that connection with the people I work with that goes beyond the office. It's been a fun project and a little diversion.

     "It helps it not look like a new building plunked in-to the ground. We get a lot of compliments about it."