Originally, we were not supposed to have any grassed areas; grass -- as a monoculture -- is a terrible thing demanding constant care if it is to look good. The original plan was to have native New Jersey plants -- laurel, native grasses and that sort of plant -- but the college wasn't more than a few months old when grass planting started.

It is not as if the College was obsessed with all of the grass on the site. There is one athletic field, however, which consumes enormous amounts of time and money -- and this in a terrible budget shortfall year.

I know this field well; it is the center field of the 1/4 mile track that I walk on each day. I have watched it daily for two summers and the word "obsessed" is not an exaggeration.

For example, the field is mowed every few days (this is a field that will see no use until mid-Fall and the soccer season). It is fertilized which, of course, produces growth which, of course, has to be mowed. It is also covered with insecticides -- so much so that on those days, I can't walk (god knows what sort of ugly dosage the workers who apply it get). It is also seeded and re-plugged once a spring. I have seen it watered when it was raining and mowed on Sunday when the chap doing the mowing should have been home with his family.

Now that is obsessive!

One wonders what the engine is that runs this sort of thing. Is is some sort of athletic "pissing contest" where jocks compare their respective fields? Is it some sort of local pride? Is it blind obedience to the "process" of producing a grassed area? Who, and for what reasons, would someone order a worker to mow it on Sunday?

If I were the new president, this sort of plant "management" (pun intended) would be the first place I'd cut the budget from. We are a college whose purpose is to teach; anything that doesn't rather directly support that mission should be chucked totally or greatly reduced.
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