NW Missouri Times

Pollinator plots near the Dean L. Hubbard Center for Innovation at Northwest Missouri State University were showcased Friday during a visit by Jason Sumners, director of the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). Sumners toured local conservation sites and met with university staff to discuss recent projects that have benefited from state funding.

The new pollinator plots, featuring native prairie grasses and forbs such as black-eyed Susan, cover 2.5 acres across three locations on campus. These areas bloom at different times throughout the year and contribute to both the campus landscape and regional biodiversity.

Sumners oversees MDC’s efforts in managing fish, forest, and wildlife resources in Missouri. During his visit, he highlighted the value of working with institutions like Northwest: “It’s great to have a partnership with Northwest Missouri State and to be able to do projects like this,” Sumners said. “It’s beneficial to many people.”

Northwest is also recognized as the Missouri Arboretum, which features more than 1,700 trees representing 160 species. The arboretum serves as a resource for research and teaching in biology-related fields.

Tim Hill, environmental sustainability coordinator at Northwest, described ongoing collaboration between the university and MDC: “We’ve worked with the department in a lot of different ways,” Hill said. “Some of the faculty tap the local staff’s expertise, educational resources for the classes and projects on campus, and Shane (Baumgart, director of landscape services at Northwest) and the landscape services team have been fortunate to work with the department on some cost-share projects.”