Grounds team makes Carolina feel at home

Spring commencement is less than one month away, but Steve Gooch and his team have been preparing for it since campus was covered in snow. One particular spot gets extra attention about now.

“When it comes to the Old Well, Commencement Day is the date that we’re shooting for. A lot of people ask, ‘Will everything be blooming when commencement gets here?’ That’s what we work towards,” said Gooch, grounds services director.

This spring’s graduation photos will look a little different. The pink azaleas have been replaced by new landscaping with a lower-profile assortment of native, sustainable plants and flowers and pathways for strolling.

The changes began in summer 2023, when teams began construction of a much-needed sloped ramp to make the Old Well more widely accessible. They soon realized the modifications would extend beyond the structure itself.

“The existing plants had run their course and needed to be replaced, so we really dug into the history of the space,” said University landscape architect Daniel Widis. Instead of replanting what was put there in the early 1990s, “I wanted to take this chance to rethink and study everything. What is the Old Well’s relationship to McCorkle Place? How do people interact with it?”

Widis and Gooch both admit it’s no secret Tar Heels and visitors alike loved the bright pop of pink from the azaleas every spring.

“I would say that people’s emotional attachment and memory is a unique thing on a college campus,” said Widis. “And understandably so.”

But when the time came to plant around the Old Well, “we decided that we wanted to open it up and make the area more connected to McCorkle Place again,” said Gooch.

“The thing I’m most proud of is probably how it’s changed the way you interact with the Old Well and the adjacent landscape, how open and inviting it is,” said Widis. “It’s a return to the historic quad instead of a secluded garden space like it was before.”

The project is a prime example of how Widis and Gooch’s grounds team collaborate to continuously improve the campus landscape. Both alums of the University, they share a pride in their alma mater that fuels their motivation to make Carolina a beautiful home away from home for students, faculty, staff and visitors.

“I care deeply about this place. At the end of the day, I think it’s a benefit being an alumnus because this is a place that I have memories from and have an attachment to,” said Widis.

While Gooch admits that “nothing’s perfect,” he believes in first impressions. “My former director always used to say, ‘If a family pulls up and the parents see how well you’re maintaining the grounds, then they realize that their children will be taken care of, too.’”

As Commencement nears, the nearly 90 members of the grounds team will be pruning, edging, weeding and spreading mulch — a recycled product from trees and leaves that have come down on campus — and continuing to remove trash each day from the entire campus. “It’s a small city, when you really think about it,” said Gooch.

“We’re in the service business,” he added. “It’s about our students; it’s about our visitors; and it’s about our colleagues who work here. It’s about my team, who day in and day out are getting it done. If you’ve got a heart for service, you’re going to get a lot more fulfillment in what you do every day.”

Photo information:

1. Daniel Widis (left), University landscape architect, works with Todd Hannon, grounds supervisor, to lay out plants in the area around the Old Well.
2. The project was designed in a way to open the area around the Old Well up more toward McCorkle Place. 
3. Krystal King, leader on the Grounds Crew team, works with Widis to place plants into the ground.
4. Tom Bythell (seated), University arborist, looks on as soil is removed from beds around the Old Well.
5. Plants are removed from pots and prepared to be placed in the ground around the Old Well.