Maple Leaf

Maple On The Hill

Daniel Morris

Trees are some of the oldest loving organism on the plant and most likely the oldest things to make up IUSB’s campus. If you don’t know of the maple on the hill, it’s the large tree between the Schurz library and the old Northside hall. The maple on the hill alone is the largest tree on the campus of IUSB, towering higher then the library itself. The maple on the hills branches stretch over the concrete walkways that pass beneath the tree, blanketing the people that walk under the tree with its large leaves from the sun light above. These days the tree is naked and bare, having lost it oddly shaped leaves for the winter.

The maple on the hill is apart of IUSB itself, having its very roots in the soil of IUSB’s campus. The tree doesn’t have a wiki page about it nor would it be mentioned in any books about IUSB. The maple on the hill has been standing silently, changing ever so slightly with out ever someone taking notice. This one tree would have experienced decades of change and while slowly changing itself. The maple on the hill has experienced the building of the Schurz library in 1986 to which it became the shadow that stands next to the tree. It only took the maple on the hill time to become the library’s shadow these days.

The tree represents the tower that students must pass under as he or she starts and ends their day on campus. One of the first thirsty-one students to receive a four-year degree could have sat under that maple on the hill and to think about all the biology students that have had to identify what kind of tree it is throughout the years.

The maple on the hill has been around for so many years that hundreds of thousands of students and professors have come and gone from IUSB. There may have only been a few handfuls of people like myself that have come to appreciate the sight of the great maple tree. To be able to really look at this tree as a whole and to marvel at the magnitude of something that is so big. To understand and look at what the maple on the hill was able to be apart of through its lifetime here at IUSB. The maple on the hill has a history here at IUSB and history with each one of us that walks underneath it.