ST. BONAVENTURE — St. Bonaventure University celebrated its 16th consecutive year of being a certified Arbor Day Foundation Tree Campus USA on Friday by planting a white pine tree outside its Administration Building.
The white pine was chosen to honor the Seneca Nation, upon whose ancestral land the university sits. Several members of the Seneca Nation attended the ceremony, held near the university’s newest flagpole bearing the Seneca flag that was dedicated in the fall.
The white pine is profoundly significant to the Haudenosaunee people as the Great Tree of Peace, symbolizing the unity, strength and harmony of the five nations. It represents the Great Law of Peace, which brought warring tribes together, and its roots represent peace and strength extending in all directions.
The five needles grouped together on a white pine represent the original five nations — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca — bound together as one.
“I’m thrilled that it was students who decided to choose this tree,” said Flip White, a Seneca educator and member of the Wolf Clan. “From a contemporary standpoint, this tree is representative of lifelong learning because of the branches that continue to grow.”
St. Bonaventure and the Seneca Nation formed a friendship committee three years ago to strengthen their bonds and deepen their shared connections.
The flag dedication in the fall came just months after the university issued publicly for the first time a Land Acknowledgement Statement to recognize the “the stewards of the land” upon which the school was built almost 170 years ago. The university has also offered a minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies since 2022.
“Of all the things I’ve been involved with in my time at St. Bonaventure, renewing our relationship with the Senecas is what I’m most proud of,” Dr. David Hilmey, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, said at the ceremony.
The Tree Campus Higher Education program honors colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals.
The annual event is coordinated by Kevin Vogel, longtime member of the Biology faculty and chair of the Environmental Studies program. Br. Kevin Kriso, O.F.M., guardian and animator of Mt. Irenaeus, blessed the tree.
