Protect Goldsworth Valley Woods: A campus and community appeal for Western Michigan University's Administration development plans to reflect WMU's role as a leading sustainable university

We, the students and faculty of Western Michigan University and members of the wider community, are concerned about impending development of the Goldsworth Valley Woods for the construction of a new dining facility. We believe in the intrinsic value of natural areas and consider it essential to the well-being of those who live, study and work on campus. We believe the destruction of several hundred trees will tarnish our reputation in the wider community, damage the relationship of students and faculty with the administration and cause devastating damage to campus ecology. This is unacceptable at an institution which professes to support sustainability.

We, the undersigned, petition the administration to delay the development of Goldsworth Valley Woods until alternate sites are considered and public and internal opinion are surveyed. We insist that development decisions are consistent with sentiment expressed in the survey.