It is undeniable: MSU’s campus is beautiful. On any given summer day, students can wander through numerous gardens, listen to the bells toll from Beaumont Tower or sit under the shade of a mighty tree.

All of these aesthetic extras are important to our campus.

Each one brings an unique quality to the school on the banks of the Red Cedar River.

They help to make this university what it is.

But one of those fixtures was removed from campus this month.

The Butterfly House was closed because of demand for campus-greenhouse space and a lack of funding from the Department of Plant Pathology.

The move is disappointing, but not all that surprising.

MSU is making cuts universitywide, and the Butterfly House would seem to be an easy target.

Campus already has flirted with cutting costs at the expense of campus beautification.

The university’s fountains at the Main Library and Student Services remained dry well into the spring because maintenance and weather issues. After some debate, the water has begun to flow, but officials said they haven’t ruled out shutting them off to save money.

And if MSU officials think they can cut such corners without raising much of a fuss, then they probably will.

It seems few people have tried to stop the Butterfly House’s closure, and so MSU has lost another interesting part of its beautiful and unique campus.

There are plenty of people who will miss the serene place.

They will wish they had the numbers to oppose the closing, or to find a way to keep it open.

Yes, campus still is beautiful and filled with plenty of spaces to enjoy. The loss of the Butterfly House is a shame, but hardly debilitating to MSU.

But it is now one space shorter - a space that epitomized the natural beauty this university is known for.