Putting Your Good Ideas to Work
Bill Powers, Jackie Dana, and John Burns
Last fall, Jackie Dana, an academic adviser in the Department of Sociology, suggested that UT plant more perennials and native plants on the campus and fewer annuals that require replanting each season. Jackie submitted her idea to the Ideas of Texas website, writing “there are a number of suitable perennial flowers, shrubs, and herbs that could withstand the hot summers in Austin and yet would be aesthetically pleasing.”
In response, this summer, Landscape Services, headed by manager John Burns, will consult experts at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center—and Jackie—to re-design the gardens on the east terrace of the Main Building. Thanks, Jackie!
In the past, as mature plants died, UT Landscape Services has replaced them with native and adapted plantings, but Jackie’s idea encouraged us to explore ways we could accelerate these efforts and consider new and sustainable approaches to landscaping. Pictured above is an example of one new native plant bed located on 24th Street outside the Biological Laboratories Building. Several other beds in this area will undergo similar transformations over the next few weeks.
Jackie voiced her ideas on The Ideas of Texas website. The site allows students, alumni, faculty, and staff to submit ideas for improving the University. It also serves as a forum where visitors may vote on individual ideas, as well as submit comments. A few ideas have already been implemented. Tower Talk itself was an idea contributed by staff member Stephanie Cardenas of the Cockrell School of Engineering. Thanks, Stephanie!
The Ideas of Texas website is more than an electronic suggestion box. It’s a way to have your ideas evaluated by the office or department closest to the relevant process—and to know that it will be considered. This summer nearly 400 ideas, submitted before April 1, are under review. In this period of limited financial resources, some good ideas will not be feasible at the moment. Nevertheless, we will implement ideas that make us more efficient, provide better services to our constituents, improve the student experience, and save money.
I hope you’ll visit the site and contribute your ideas for building a stronger UT.
Are the orange and white flowers in the planters by the Littlefield Fountain native plants? I just noticed them and thought they looked lovely. I am absolutely behind this initiative, which I think is long overdue, and am grateful to the Tower for listening.
Do we have plans to go solar yet? The spill in the Gulf makes all our attempts to reduce, reuse, recycle, and to move towards alternative energy, seem inadequate — but maybe that is just because we don’t know what the University is mulling over.
The orange and white flowers at Littlefield Fountain are “Cosmos” and they are native to Mexico. The goal at Landscape Services is to use plants that are native or well adapted to the Central Texas area and these plants fit this criteria very well.
Dr. Cullingford,
“Go solar?”
At a university founded on oil money?
That may happen if Kenneth Lay comes back to life & recommends it.
Have you noticed that “Tower Talk” has been fixed so that no more provocative comments or questions appear? I surely don’t expect to see this one on there.
Speaking of ideas, has UT-Austin considered developing a model like the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT? According to an article entitled “The Idea Incubator Goes to Campus” in the June 27, 2010 New York Times, this is a notion for universities to “work closely with investors to ensure that promsing ideas are nurtured and turned into promising start-ups.” The Cockrell School of Engineering appears to have developed something like this, but could it be something larger? “Rather than offering seed money to businesses that already have a product and staff . . . the universities are harvesting great ideas and then trying to find investors and businesspeople” who will carry the ideas to commercialization. I know UT-Austin is full of people who have creative ideas aplenty, and matching them up with investors and businesspeople could easily be turned into a course or seminar, that would feed into what could probably become a first class innovation commercialization entity.
John and his crew did a great job with the landscaping. The new cactus/rock gardens installed along 24th Street at University (where our photo was taken) are beautiful! I can’t wait to see the gardens in the planters near the Main Building, which will be developed soon.
I’m really excited to see the University moving in this direction, as it both saves money and makes the campus even more attractive and interesting.