Tree Stands in Way of Costly UMich Renovations, So Admin Will Spend $400K Moving It

The University of Michigan is
spending millions of dollars to spiff up its Ross School of
Business—a building that is already among the most opulent school
facilities in the country, having been renovated less than a decade
ago. But a historic tree stands in the way of the construction
project, so university officials have budgeted $400,000 to relocate
the 200-year-old bur oak.

Consultants give it a 70-80 percent chance of surviving the
move, according to the
Ann Arbor News:

Workers dug a four-foot-wide trench and will place steel beams
more than four feet below the tree’s base. Lifting devices will be
used break the the roots from the ground in order for it to be
unearthed. The tree will then be loaded onto a flat bed and
transferred less than a football field’s distance away from its
current location.

Jenny Cooper, a graduate student at the business school and
U-M’s School of Natural Resources, is one of 291 students, faculty
and staff who signed a petition urging the school to save the
tree.

“As I see it, the rationale for preserving the (legacy bur oak)
tree is about history, tradition, pride and respect,” she told The
Ann Arbor News in a previous interview. “The tree is a symbol of
strength and resilience and far predates the university as part of
the landscape.”

By the way, it should be noted that neither students nor
taxpayers are directly covering the cost of the project, which is
being paid for by billionaire philanthropist Stephen Ross, for whom
the building is named. Ross has given hundreds of millions of
dollars to the important cause of fancier buildings at UM,
including $200 million in 2013 for the Business School and athletic
facilities.

Ross can spend his money however he likes, of course. However, I
can’t help but wonder whether the students of this public
institution would have been better served by a generous
contribution to the university’s general fund—and an accompanying
tuition decrease. According to reports, UM fundraisers solicited
Ross for the latest donation; they came to him, in other words.
$200 million would have gone a long way toward halting the upward
spiral of tuition prices at UM, but I guess that didn’t come up in
the conversation? (“Thanks for transforming our Business School
into a spaceport, Mr. Ross; now let’s turn our attention to the
thousands of students who can no longer afford to attend UM, a
public university that exists for the primary purpose of educating
the children of Michigan residents.”)

Good news for the tree, though.