As Miami University advances plans for a new multipurpose arena, a growing coalition of faculty, students and community members is raising alarms over what could be lost alongside the project: a grove of historic trees that advocates say includes one of the oldest Osage orange trees in the country.
For Joel Armor, an assistant teaching professor in the Institute for Innovation in Arts + Design at Miami University’s College of Creative Arts, the debate is about more than landscaping. It is about preserving what he describes as a living ecosystem, a source of artistic inspiration and a piece of campus history that cannot be recreated.
Armor said he first learned during the past academic semester that the university was reevaluating green space near the future arena site, which will be on the current Cook Field grounds. Later, he heard discussions about the possibility of constructing a parking lot in the same area — a plan that, should it come to fruition, would fundamentally alter the landscape…