Principle 3

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Principle 3: Promote Optimal First Impressions and Perception

The existing campus landscape will be renovated over time to mitigate both ongoing maintenance issues and safety concerns. Removal and replacement of tall shrubs next to buildings that have outgrown their intended size are good examples of a change that will improve aesthetics, reduce maintenance, and address perceived and real safety concerns. New landscapes will incorporate plant materials identified in the campus guidelines and standards. Walks, trails, and parking lots will be designed to minimize the risk of slips, trips, and falls.

Objectives and Strategies

  • Campus lighting to be reviewed to increase lighting along pathways and parking lots where necessary.
  • The campus landscape will be reviewed and designed to minimize security concerns.
  • Walks, trails, and parking lots will be designed to reduce the risk of slips, trips, and falls.
  • New and renovated landscape areas will be designed to CPTED standards and design guidelines.
  • Exterior lighting will be dark-sky compliant.

Welcoming Campus

EWU has several primary vehicular and pedestrian entry points that provide opportunities for first impressions of the campus. The current primary entry sign on Washington Street needs to be clearly connected to the campus. Improvements to the streetscape and strategic landscaping around the sign can improve this first impression and better connect it to the campus.

Campus Safety

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles should guide walkway design and maintenance. For example, the use of large shrubs should be restricted to areas that can accommodate them without compromising pedestrian sight lines. Increased visibility and clear site lines provide natural surveillance resulting in a safer environment for students, faculty, and staff.

Natural surveillance also increases the perceived risk of getting caught, which can reduce opportunities for crime to occur. Strategies include proper lighting of walkways, stairs, entrances, exits, and parking lots; and properly trimming trees and shrubs to increase landscape visibility.

EWU Office of Sustainability
117 Showalter Hall,
Cheney, WA 99004
Contact
Erik Budsberg, Director of Sustainability
ebudsberg@ewu.edu
509.359.6476

The Office of Sustainability seeks to serve as a source of sustainability-focused initiatives, a central hub of information for sustainable practices at EWU, and to engage with community members to promote sustainability in the Inland Northwest.

Eastern Washington University resides within the traditional homelands of the Spokane People and other tribes who are connected through their shared history of this region.

This land holds their cultural DNA and it is their Ancestors who are here and bring forth the knowledge of this place—the knowledge that comes from the land.