This summer, the area around the Hintz Family Alumni Center will be wrapped in yellow tape as the university plants and weeds its way to a more beautiful campus, courtesy of alumni donations.

Roger Williams, executive director of the Penn State Alumni Association, said construction plans for the summer include the completion of the Obelisk Garden and the University House Terrace Garden, both in front of the Alumni Center, which will be the final additions to the area.

"We want to make this area a campus within a campus for alumni and alumni-in-training," Williams said.

The funding for the gardens comes from private gifts, he added.

The Obelisk Garden is a $125,000 gift from the Parmi Nous Alumni Interest Group(AIG) and the University House Terrace Garden is a $50,000 gift from Ron and Nancy Ewing.

Matt McDonald, a spokesman for the association, said the gardens are part of a multi-year project, which is in its last stage. "It's going to update and revitalize the gardens around the Alumni Center," he said.

The Obelisk Garden will be on the northeast side of the center near the Obelisk, the stone tower that stands between Willard and Sackett buildings. Surrounding the garden will be a sitting wall and a patio with a view of the Obelisk where students and alumni can sit outside.

"Our goal has been to complete all of the gardens by the end of Penn State's sesquicentennial year," Williams said.

Additions to the University House Terrace Garden, which will surround the University House, will include a patio, new walkways and foliage.

Williams said one of the purposes of the gardens is to give students a chance to relax outside and become familiar with the Alumni Center. "We want them to start identifying with us while they're still students," he said.

John Stewart, a member of the Parmi Nous AIG, said the group donates annually, and this year Williams suggested the group's funds would be most needed for the completion of the gardens.

"It'll be an area where alumni and students can congregate," he said. "That's why we're Penn Staters -- we come back and we help each other out."

Ron Ewing, who also donates annual engineering scholarships, said he thinks the University House Terrace garden will bring back a lot of the beauty he experienced at Penn State when he was an engineering student in 1959.

"When my wife and I visited the campus, we had fond memories of the [University House], and we saw an opportunity to restore the beauty of the area," he said. "We wanted other people to enjoy what we enjoyed as well."

Williams added that a unique aspect of the construction is that students in landscape architecture classes are doing a significant part of the work.

Dan Stearns, professor of landscape contracting, said the work is part of about 70 students' landscape contracting classes Horticulture 368 (Landscape Planting Design) and Horticulture 464 (Landscape Construction I).

"Right now we're mostly working on installing utility lines," he said. "We're also doing stone paving for walkways, and next week we're doing planting."

Annabelle Tunderman (senior-landscape contracting), a student participating in the construction, said it gives her a chance to supplement what she has learned for the past four years.

"It helps to get some real world experience," she said.