Cornell Plantations volunteer Betty Rowley conducts an interview of visitors. Photo courtesy of Cornell Plantations
This year Cornell Plantations is giving its visitors a chance to speak their minds. Until October, Plantations is conducting its first comprehensive visitor survey to find out who visits and why, and to give the community a chance to express its opinions about Plantations the arboretum, botanical garden and natural areas of the university.
Cornell Plantations has been an important part of the community for decades and, as it moves into the next century, is going to new lengths to find out how it can be a better, more useful and more beneficial place for its myriad users: students, researchers, horticulturists, gardeners, artists, joggers and those who simply enjoy relaxing with nature's majestic beauty.
A team of volunteers from in and around the county are interviewing visitors and distributing surveys at various times throughout the day in the botanical garden and the arboretum on campus. In addition, volunteers are stationed at various points around the Plantations, keeping track of the number of visitors that frequent Plantations through out the summer and fall.
The information collected from the visitor surveys will allow the Plantations staff to make better informed decisions, plan for the future and strengthen the bonds that have existed between it and the community for more 70 years.
Each year, an estimated 100,000 people visit Plantations' grounds, which are open daily, from sunrise to sunset, at no charge to the public.