Central College continues its commitment to environmental stewardship with the installation of a second student-designed sticker mural on the windows of the Roe Center. The window, which faces north, has caused significant bird deaths for many years.
Russ Benedict, professor of biology, and Mathew Kelly, professor of art, collaborated with students across the biology and art programs to create and design CollidEscape stickers for this window. According to Benedict, he typically records 10-20 bird deaths at that window each year.
“Birds are drawn to the windows because they reflect the sky and trees so well. They cannot differentiate between what is real and what isn’t real until it’s too late,” Benedict says. “One of the leading causes of bird deaths is collisions with windows, with an estimated half a billion birds dying across the U.S. annually.”
Funding for the window mural came from an Iowa Department of Natural Resources grant and the Green Fund from the Central Student Senate. Cassie Severson, Class of 2023, co-authored the grant along with Jocy Timmerman, Class of 2024, and Benedict.
The art majors who designed the window coverings to prevent bird collisions were Amelia Brown, Fynn Wadsworth and Madilynn Peitzman, all in the Class of 2025.
Central students, who volunteered to help install the window stickers, are Summer Chambers, Class of 2027; Jillian Fairbanks, Class of 2027; Jordan Helmick, Class of 2027; Carley Underwood, Class of 2027; and Madi Whalen, Class of 2026.
