The Friends of the Arboretum will celebrate the grand opening of the new teaching nursery this Saturday by holding its 34th annual Plant Faire.

The sale features over 10,000 plants – mostly “All-Star plants” – Californian natives that have been hand selected by horticulturists on staff that will prosper in Davis’ Mediterranean-type climate.

“[All-Stars are selected] for their toughness, drought tolerance, tolerance of boron and bicarbonate water, beautiful flowers and foliage and their ability to support wildlife through providing nectar, pollen and edible fruits,” said Ellen Zagory of the UC Davis Arboretum.

The faire runs between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., with a special preview sale for Arboretum members from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and will include live music and free children’s activities.

“We would love to see people from all over the Sacramento region and hope to become a regional resource for all of the gardens in our area,” said Mary Patterson, president of the Friends of the Arboretum.

The new teaching nursery, located on Garrond Drive, east of the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, recently had its first workshop on Great Plants for Valley Gardens in partnership with the California Center for Urban Horticulture (CCUH). The nursery will be a basis for people from the community to learn more about taking care of their own gardens.

“I would like to think that in the next six months we will start to have more workshops,” said Patterson. “Eventually we will have some regular classes and gather resources to do that by partnering up with [organizations] on campus.”

Plant Botany graduate students are planning to start a plant disease education program where people can have the opportunity to come in with their dying or diseased plants to get help.

“It’s a good way for the regional community to interact and share their expertise with the gardening community,” Patterson said.

The Friends of the Arboretum and the UC Davis Arboretum aims to spread knowledge about sustainable gardens in the community.

“Our long-term goal for the UC Davis Arboretum is to connect the knowledge and work of the campus to those that live in our area by introducing them to environmental science through plants, gardens and their connections to native flora and fauna around our urban landscapes,” Zagory said in an e-mail interview.

This first sale at the brand new facility includes partnership with Tree Davis, Master Gardeners and California Center for Urban Horticulture.

New members of the Friends of Arboretum will receive $5 off a membership and a free plant on Saturday.

“It’s just a fun, feel-good event,” said Heather Jones, a propagator volunteer for the Friends of the Arboretum.

The Plant Faire is one of the most important events for Friends of the Arboretum, which fundraises year-round for the Arboretum. Over 50 student volunteers come to each faire.

“We could not put on these sales without them,” Patterson said. “It makes a big difference.”

ANGELA RUGGIERO can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

Schools are used to giving grades – not receiving them. But when the tables are turned, the truth about a university’s real desire to “go green” comes out – at greenreportcard.org.

The College Sustainability Report Card, found at greenreportcard.org, evaluates 300 schools in the United States and Canada across nine categories before assigning them a letter grade -aiming to identify colleges and universities leading in their commitment to sustainability.

Fifteen institutions – notably Stanford, Washington, and the University of New Hampshire – received an A-, the highest score on this year’s report card. UC Davis received a B and matched UC San Diego for the top grade in the system.

“[The colleges given an A-] are across the board from really small colleges to large private universities,” said Lisa Chase, senior communications fellow for the Sustainable Endowments Institute which created the website. “Some of them, UNH for example has a much smaller endowment than Harvard, and that underscores how much a school can do if committed.“

SEI is a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Other groups, such as the Princeton Review, do similar evaluations – but none at the same scale, Chase said.

“The report is intended to be a collection tool, but also an information sharing resource so schools will talk to each other and hopefully get ideas about how to better their own sustainability,” Chase said.

Camille Kirk, assistant environmental planner in the Office of Resources Management and Planning pointed out that UCD is on target for complying with UC policy on sustainable practices.

Within the UC goals and benchmarks is a requirement for campuses to do a feasibility study and develop a climate action plan to meet three goals: to lower greenhouse gas emissions to year 2000 levels by 2014, be at 1990 levels by 2020, and to become climate neutral as soon as possible.

“We are right now in the thick of putting together data to undertake that feasibility study, and are in the process of hiring a sustainability manager to coordinate that,” Kirk said.

John Seden has been working on campus sustainability since joining UC Davis as assistant director of Campus Unions last spring – specifically lighting and energy systems.

This increase can take many forms, and spans all the way from hallway lighting to making sure all the appliance systems we use are energy star efficient.

Seden’s staff has looked into daylight harvesting, which targets areas where enough natural sunlight makes lights unnecessary. The way is to place a small light sensor that turns on lights only as needed.

“This is something that is built into nearly all new buildings now, but we have a relatively old building [in the MU] so we’re trying to do all we can do reduce the energy use,” he said.

The department has already taken some unnecessary lights off the main circuit and put them on limited nighttime use.

“Because it’s brand new, we don’t have numbers on exactly how much specific changes save, but of course when it comes to energy every little bit counts,” Seden said. “And of course every month they’ll save more money and energy in a compounding rate.“

When a school is committed to environmental sustainability, it shows up in their bank account as well as on their brochures, Chase said.

“It’s good business and it’s good for the bottom line,” she said. “Schools can even gain money over time by making renewable energy – traditionally there is a perception that being environmentally responsible means losing money – which is really not the case – it’s a smart move for many reasons.“

Chase said this report is especially valuable, because a university is a microcosm of a city or corporation. With energy going in and waste coming out – and still seeing a return on endowments – it provides a solid institutional model.

The website is not only a blueprint for other schools to succeed, but also for prospective students to see what their college candidates have to offer. A recent Princeton Review poll showed 63 percent of more than 10,000 applicants polled say that a college’s commitment to the environment could affect their decision.

MIKE DORSEY can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

Graduate School of Management Dean Nicole Woolsey Biggart has announced her intention to resign from her post in July and return to full time teaching and research in the fall of 2010 after a year-long sabbatical.

“I had several projects that I wanted to see put in place,” Biggart said in an e-mail interview. “When I saw that these were all coming to fruition I thought it was a good time to step down and to attract my successor.”

During her tenure as Dean – which began in 2003 – Biggart added a second MBA program to the school in the Bay Area, instituted an undergraduate technology minor and extensively expanded the school’s external relations and involvement in the Northern California community.

“[Biggart] stepped in at a time when the previous search for a dean was a difficult process,” said Frank Washington, a longtime member of the Graduate School of Management’s Dean’s Advisory Council.

“She stepped into a bit of a vacuum but did a magnificent job continuing the school’s momentum,” Washington said. “It’s one of the top schools in the country and the world, and things like the new facility that’s being built on campus reflect this constant growth.”

Biggart has been involved with the school since its doors opened in 1981 as The Graduate School of Administration, initially as an assistant professor.

Today, the UC Davis Graduate School of Business is one of only 35 business schools to be ranked in the top 50 for 13 consecutive years, according to the schools website.

“I think she would point to one of her biggest accomplishments during her period as dean being the construction of Gallagher Hall and securing 10 million to help outfit the new building and establish an endowment to help the school,” said Tim Akin, senior director of Marketing and Communications in the school.

The $34.5 million Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Hall, the Graduate School of Management’s new campus headquarters, is currently being constructed directly across from the Mondavi Center and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009.

“The new dean will be walking into a brand new building which will be a major attraction for the types of candidates that we want to attract to the school,” Akin said.

A committee on campus is currently being finalized to begin the search for a new dean, who will ultimately be selected for a five year appointment at the discretion of Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef.

“I think it would be great if the school can recruit a dean that has the same qualities as Biggart,” Akin said. “These include her ability to be an effective chief executive of the graduate school of management by focusing on the quality of the MBA experience here, continuing to foster and make new connections in the business community and to be an effective leader on and off campus for grad school of management.”

During her one-year sabbatical Biggart intends to return to writing about the economy, specifically focusing on the movement toward a clean tech economy, and is looking forward to getting back into being a teacher and a researcher, she said.

“She’s got a lot of energy and lots of ideas,” Washington said. “She’s wonderful at attracting people, not just students but also outside investors, and its not just money either, its attention and ideas and energy that she brings to the school.”

CHARLES HINRIKSSON can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.

University of California President Mark Yudof expressed tentative support for a faculty-originated plan to restructure the freshman admissions process at the regents‘ September meeting at UC Irvine.

The plan, which would take effect in fall 2012, aims to expand the number of applications entitled to review by eliminating the SAT II subject test scores requirement. Supporters say this would allow a pool of otherwise qualified applicants who failed to take the test to be visible to UC.

“I was very reserved about this proposal because, frankly, it took me a very long time to understand it,“ Yudof said during the meeting.

After two information sessions dedicated to the proposal, Yudof said he was 80 percent convinced but still had concerns about the increased workload the plan would cause admissions offices. Yufof’s provisional support could enable the plan to see a formal vote at the regents‘ November meeting.

“I think I’m sensing support for the proposal but it’s in the hands of the regents,” said Mark Rashid, UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering and the former chair of the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, the committee that originated the proposal. “They had some things they wanted to get better understood.“

The current admissions process determines UC eligibility based on three factors – completion of 15 college preparatory courses, submission of SAT reasoning test scores as well as SAT subject tests and academic performance in high school.

Students who are deemed UC eligible – currently the top 12.5 percent of California high school graduates – are guaranteed admission to at least one of the nine undergraduate campuses. Under the proposed plan, this would be reduced to 10 percent to make room in the system for the new pool of applicants entitled to review.

“One problem with the current system is that many, many students who are actually very good high achieving students wind up ineligible for trifling reasons,” Rashid said. “They didn’t take the right course or the right test and a lot of them have very high GPAs. They just didn’t get good advice.“

Every year, 15 percent of the California applicant pool is deemed ineligible. In fall 2007, of the 11,000 ineligible applicants, 2,200 had GPAs over 3.5, according to the documents accompanying the regents‘ discussion.

“The current structure is a hoop jumping exercise,” Rashid said.

The proposal would introduce a “gray” zone for these applicants so they would at least have their applications reviewed, although they aren’t guaranteed admission as other traditionally eligible applicants are.

“Most universities now sort of have three zones: a presumptive admit, a broad discretionary zone and presumptive denial,” Yudof said. “California was odd because you’re either eligible or ineligible. If you’re eligible, you have a shot. If you’re ineligible, you’re out.“

According to a 2003 study done by the California Post-Secondary Education Commission, students that fall into the ineligible category are from traditionally unrepresented ethnic groups and from lower income areas that don’t have college-going cultures.

“We have a public institution and we shouldn’t say, ‘Sorry you didn’t get good advice, but that’s too bad,‘” Rashid said.

There is no organized opposition to the faculty proposal.

ALYSOUN BONDE can be reached at campus@californiaaggie.com.