Looking around NIU’s campus, one is bound to see plenty of green. It takes a lot of hard work to maintain, and that’s where the NIU grounds department comes in.

The department oversees areas such as landscape maintenance, landscape construction, grounds maintenance and snow and ice removal.

In order to maintain NIU’s landscaping, the university employs three assistant grounds gardeners, one for each section of campus – east, central and west. Their duties include mowing the grass and pruning trees and shrubs.

The last big projects the department worked on were the pedestrian mall outside Cole Hall, the renovation of Altgeld Hall and the DuSable bus turnaround, said NIU’s landscape architect Jim Murphy, who develops ideas to maintain the campus and oversees large landscaping projects.

Murphy’s duties include designing exterior walk renovations, parking lots and roadways. Recently, he worked on the College Avenue and Gilbert Drive reconstruction. He also worked on the parking lot north of the Convocation Center and designed the fountain at the corner of Lucinda Avenue and Normal Road.

Normally, Murphy designs projects in winter, bids them in spring and constructs them during the summer months.

“But,” he said, “budgets and approvals can delay the process even longer.”

Murphy’s future plans include the recently announced NIU alumni and visitors center and the reconstruction of the recessed terrace north of Founders Memorial Library.

NIU spends about $229,000 each year on landscaping, said Bob Albanese, associate vice president of Finance and Facilities. This includes salaries, summer help and commodities, although different projects around campus have different budgets.

“The landscaping budget for the pedestrian walkway outside Cole Hall and the DuSable bus turnaround was $238,430,” said Melaney Arnold, communications manager for the Capitol Development Board, a state-funded organization that oversees the construction and renovation of all state-owned facilities.

Another recent landscaping project was the Altgeld Hall renovation, which Murphy said was on a budget of about $50,000.