The Arboretum

Today I came across the official web page for the University of Kentucky's arboretum which is written and maintained by the university's college of agriculture. The web page can be found at this address: http://www2.ca.uky.edu/arboretum. 

The web page is a general information source that details the conception and purpose of the arboretum. Cited as having "began in 1991" the park was created to be a sort of escape for stressed students and inhabitants of the city. The park was joint project created by the University of Kentucky and the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. To revisit the point of the arboretum being boasted as a place where "stresses melt away" hints at an underlying frustration that students had very few means to outlet their tensions about classes and college life in general. There was a double incentive for creating the arboretum however, as it also servers the purpose of being a place that "serves as a resource center for environmental, and horticultural education, research and conservation."

The web page gave me a good indicator of what the arboretum is all about as a nature sanctuary, and as a functioning part of the university and general education. I am curious now as to who initiated the proposal, either the university of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government and what prompted the proposal in the first place? Was there a call for a stress relieving center? A need for a new research center dedicated to the college of agriculture? I would like to see the cities report on the project.