Let the women have their flowers!
Article written for a UT journalism course assignment; not published
By Ella Hicks
For years, University Avenue, the main entrance to the University of Texas campus, was more like a boulevard for broken dreams rather than a byway to the future for its promising 50,000-plus students.
That is until Eliza Stedman and the women of the University of Texas Beautification Council took out their trowels on the Forty Acres and created nothing short of spectacular.
Leading up the storied Littlefield Fountain, the "six-pack" of the campus' original liberal arts buildings punctuated by the iconic tower of Main Hall, and complete with Capitol views, University Avenue has been a scene of Longhorn life since the school's founding in 1883.
But like so many places in Austin, Texas, America, and beyond, a special place had fallen into spectacular neglect.
It was "dirty, there was litter, there were leaves that needed to be picked up," said Texas Ex Sissy Roberts B.A. '87, and the overall consensus was that "the campus did not reflect what the school was," Roberts said.
Since opening its doors, the University of Texas at Austin has accrued an endowment of over $42.3 billion, putting it in second place only to Harvard regarding U.S. university endowment. U.T. sits at spot No. 9 for best public universities and No. 32 for all college institutions. Over 66,109 students applied to the competitive university in 2022, contributing to its acceptance rate of 28.7%. Its world-renowned alumni network, the Texas Exes, provides graduates with career introductions and a pathway to success. Proving an education at Texas is one that consistently pays itself forward.
Yet, from the looks of it, it was difficult to distinguish the University of Texas at Austin, from neighboring Austin Community College, just a few blocks down the street.
Eliza Erwin Stedman, Houston native and U.T. graduate from the class of 1980, has been a frequent attendee of Texas football games for over four decades. With her husband Stewart in tow, Eliza would trek down to the stadium Saturday after Saturday, prompting her initial scrutiny of the landscape surrounding DKR.
"I would see all these empty pots along San Jacinto going down to DKR and every game, I would say "Stuart, why don't they put flowers in that pot?" Eliza said.
A few potted plants and a freshly mowed lawn are the accessories that quietly say someone inside is proud of their property. Yet, for years, it was hard to tell that the University of Texas cared about the first impression it made.
So when the new U.T. athletics director Chris Del Conte walks into the Stedmans' home on a meet and greet in Houston in the spring of 2018, Eliza asked him, "Totally naively, can I get some girls together and we'll put some flowers in those pots," to which Del Conte replied, "well, I don't see why not." From that short conversation, the University of Texas Beautification Council was born.
"Both of us laugh now because if we tried to go through any channels or rules, nothing would have happened," said Eliza.
After the greenlight from Del Conte, Eliza ran two blocks over to her old friend and fellow Texas Ex Sissy Roberts' house and explained her idea. Immediately, Sissy was in.
From there, both Eliza and Sissy started calling up all their "mom friends that went to U.T." to see if they were interested in joining the UTBC by donating $1,000 each and traveling down to Austin twice a year for their meetings.
"All of a sudden, we have all these people very interested in us and willing to donate their money and time. It just really resonated with everybody, but Eliza is the one who took the torch and ran with it," Sissy Roberts said. Forty girls attended their first meeting.
Despite their serendipitous beginnings, success took time to come to the UTBC. They spent some of their initial raised funds on painting the peeling railings and installing potted flowers around DKR. The result was an improvement, no doubt, but was "just no bang for the buck," said Stedman, "you wouldn't have even noticed it," she added.
Enter Johnny Steele Design, a renowned Houston-based landscape architecture firm. The group does everything from the sprawling estates in River Oaks to East Texas golf courses and has been commissioned by the city of Houston when "they need something big." All members of the UTBC were familiar with Johnny Steeles' work in both public and private contexts, and many– like Eliza and Sissy– were longtime clients of his. They were confident in the team's abilities to make their campus beautification efforts last.
"Out of the goodness of his heart, because he knew a lot of us," Johnny Steele himself paid a visit to campus to offer his creative insight. Steele suggested they focus on the University Avenue esplanade, a "high visibility area," he told design partner Taylor Moore.
"You need an identity, and the campus, other than the tower, doesn't have an identity," Steele told the ladies. "You need to create that identity in an entryway by taking this beautiful esplanade on University Avenue, put some makeup on it," to create this feeling of "you have arrived at U.T.," Steele said. Eliza and her girls loved it, so from then on, the group focused all their efforts on beautifying University Avenue.
While their creative vision was finally realized, it took over a year to break ground on the project partly because this project functions as a "public-private partnership" between the women of the UTBC and the University of Texas.
Eliza recalled dealing with many "no people" in the beginning. It was all "just no, no, no. But women just don't take no for an answer," Eliza said.
And "Eliza Stedman definitely does not take no for an answer," said Taylor Moore.
There was pushback from the university landscape department, whose landscape designers were not used for the University Ave. project, as their quality (and limited budget) could not deliver Eliza and the group's goal of the esplanade being "beautiful year-round." University executives were skeptical of the UTBC being able to raise enough money to pull this off, an acceptable concern as it was to be entirely privately funded. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a slew of obstacles hit the project.
But as for Eliza Stedman, "she just kept pushing forward," said Sissy Roberts.
And while Stedman is a very well-connected individual, she needed someone from the top of the University of Texas totem pole "to believe in this project and to champion it," said Melinda Perrin. "You needed somebody on the board and somebody in the president's office" to give the University Ave. project the go-ahead, which is enormously easier said than done.
"Did she tell you about her dream," Melinda asked.
Stedman recalls having a dream where the name Melinda Perrin kept relentlessly appearing: "I kept going, I don't know Melinda Perrin, I can't call Melinda Perrin, trying to sleep," Eliza said. Yet with the uncertainty of the University Avenue project looming, Stedman paid mind to her dream and discovered that Perrin was the only other female serving on the Longhorn Foundation with her and is the wife of the former Texas Athletic Director, Mike Perrin. Days later, the two women met for breakfast, and immediately, Melinda was on board.
"Melinda was hugely instrumental in getting the powers at Texas to help me out. She went home and told Mike, and Mike called the President," of Texas at the time Greg Fenves, Eliza said.
To which Greg Fenves told Mike Perrin, "Let the girls have their flowers!" and did they ever have their flowers.
Sometimes, the wish to make something more beautiful has a frivolous undertone, a possible reason why the University system took so long to take this project seriously.
"This was one of those things where a man would come up and pat you on the head and say that's such a lovely idea, little lady. And then he would hope you would go plant a few pots, and that'll settle you down," Melinda Perrin said.
Luckily for us, these women did not settle down.
From there, Eliza and Johnny Steele presented their project renderings to UTBC members, and U.T. executives brought Melinda Perrin to the meeting. Eliza compared rival universities such as O.U. and A&M, which have beautiful campus garden entrances and green spaces.
The side-by-side comparisons were embarrassing, which was intentional. "You have to kind of shame these people," Melinda told Eliza while preparing for this monumental meeting.
The vote was unanimous, and the group raised over $10.5 million– the women would have their flowers.
"I think Eliza's force of will is really one of the reasons this happened the way that it did," said executive director of university events Lee Bash.
Bash was the executive director of operations in the university development office when he was brought on to the project, which marked the beginning of his relationship with Eliza and the women of the UTBC. A colorful group of women, mainly Houston mothers, Lee helped facilitate their meetings with unwavering hospitality.
"He has the patience of Job. He is the only person that could calmly, with a smile, deal with all these women and our chatting and still run the whole thing," Eliza said of Lee Bash.
While Bash passed the actual management of the group off a few years ago, he continues to attend the bi-annual UTBC meetings and has kept up with Eliza.
On the private side of the partnership is Taylor Moore, who has been working with the Johnny Steele Design group for over 30 years. Their dynamic functions, by Moore applying his horticultural knowledge and "specialty in plant materials" to Steele's creative vision and "divine taste," allowing for the firm to be the "leader in residential landscape architecture in Houston," Moore says.
Taylor Moore came onto the University Avenue project after a unanimous vote from the powers at Texas. While transforming a decrepit yet historic street is no easy task, he saw how he was "given a pretty good canvas to paint on," Moore said.
Johnny Steele's vision of the esplanade consisted of an evergreen lawn with changes in level, punctuated by flowers in the Longhorns' signature burnt orange and with dedicatory plaques and Texas motifs made of steel throughout.
"Then it sort of all ends in my lap, and they say make it orange," a difficult task as orange is a color rarely found in nature, and "not many growers grow much orange," Moore said.
Marigolds are a flower that is plentiful in the orange shade requirement. Moore buys his marigold seed on futures from Japan a year and a half in advance. Then, the seeds are shipped to Texas to be locally grown on a satellite farm in the Hempstead area. When the flowers currently planted in the esplanade are taken out, the marigolds are driven down to University Avenue to sit until the next scheduled crop replaces them. Most "commercial installations will do their change out three to four times a year," but for a school that always has eyes on it, it had to be beautiful 24/7.
As for the esplanade grass, which is suspiciously green year-round, Moore wouldn't divulge his secret, as he recently got a call from the woman in charge of SMU's landscape department. "What are y'all doing down there? How is your grass so green?" the woman asked Moore. "Of course, Taylor couldn't tell them our tricks!" Eliza Stedman, of the conversation.
Regarding the future of University Avenue, which has been complete for over a year, Eliza was wise enough to create an endowment for the esplanade. With the endowment, "U.T. will always have a seat at the table," but "our girls, our group will keep it going, as a third party handling it," she said.
It is understood that seeing the public's adoration and the overall success of the project has influenced how the University of Texas will approach its development projects in the future. SVP and COO of the University, James E. Davis, pulled Stedman aside recently and said, "I want you to know, Eliza, that we now look at everything through your eyes because you did all of this. We ask ourselves: Is it going to be beautiful?" Davis said. There are now plans in the works to beautify other greenspaces around the Forty Acres.
Eliza wrote down all the people, places, and things, such as the Melinda Perrin dream, immeasurably crucial to the project in a book she calls her "book of miracles." While many will pass these occurrences off as just lucky coincidences, Eliza sees them as true miracles, saying, "You can't imagine the joy surrounding this project! It's all just joy, joy, joy".
Seeing what University Avenue could be let Eliza Stedman look at the campus through her joy-colored glasses, to see a picturesque entrance to one of the most renowned universities in the world and a beacon of pride for all students, faculty, and alumni– which is nothing short of what this project looks like today.
"It was all a joy thing. I really thought if a kid failed a test and looked at this street, all is not lost. Why, there has to be some street of joy that you just go to, and you feel peace, and it makes you happy whenever you walk by it," Eliza said.
“After all, we were just a bunch of girls who wanted it to be prettier!”
