Boston Society of Landscape Architects Spring Fieldbook Volume 14.1 | Page 38

COLLEGE AND
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS

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University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Founded in 1903, the Landscape Architecture
Program at the University of Massachusetts
is part of the Department of Landscape
Architecture and Regional Planning. Our
distinctive academic department enables us to
connect spatial and social forms across multiple
scales, from the site to the region, from design
to policy implementation. We seek integrative,
regenerative, community-based, and beautiful
solutions to serve the ecological, economic and
social needs of both human and natural systems.

The Department offers accredited
professional landscape architecture
undergraduate and graduate degrees , as well
as a dual Masters in Landscape Architecture
and Regional Planning, and a certificate
program in Cultural Landscape Management.
Graduates of the UMass programs work in
numerous capacities as environmental stewards
and as guardians of our cultural landscape
heritage; as avant-garde designers whose forms
and spaces express the fundamental issues of
our times; as private and public planners whose
design perspective uniquely qualifies them to
evaluate, interpret and create the policies which
in turn shape our environmental framework; as
private practitioners who imaginatively interpret
and resolve environmental problems; and as
educators who continue to explore and teach
an array of important subjects in colleges and
universities throughout the world.
The Landscape Architecture Program provides
a studio-based degree focused on creative
responses to visual, physical, ecological and
cultural issues encountered in the urbanizing
landscape. Students experience expert guidance
while engaging real landscape problems.

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BSLA

Through lecture and discussion classes, labs and workshops, and
research projects, students gain the scholarly context necessary
for the applied problem-solving of the studios. Core courses teach
the skills that all landscape architects need, while our increasing
range of elective courses provides knowledge that is just emerging
into practice. This allows our students to graduate with strong
professional skills, while bringing fresh technological and design/
planning knowledge to their new employers upon graduation.

School Stats /

COLLEGE AND
UNIVERSITY PROGRAMS

Current Enrollment in Bachelor’s Program 54
Current Enrollment in Master’s Programs 40
Year Program Founded
1903
LAAB Accredited Since:
BLA
1959
MLA 1971
Faculty/Student Ratios
1:8
Receive Tuition Assistance
approximately 50% of MLA students are supported
Department Head
Elisabeth Hamin
Program Directors
Ethan Carr, BSLA program;

Mark Lindhult, MLA program;

Robert Ryan, MLA/MRP dual degree
Student Chapter President:
Dan Kamins, BSLA Senior
School Term:
Two semesters
Program Length:
4 years BSLA

3 years first professional MLA

2 years second professional MLA

4 years dual MLA/MRP
School Session:
September through May

Elective classes offered during the summer session
Currently Accredited Through:
2016, BSLA; 2018 MLA

The Department faculty is engaged in several areas of
excellence demonstrated through their scholarship, teaching,
and practice:
Community Engagement – understanding the needs, dreams, values,
and goals of those who use places, and the interconnections
between engagement, justice, and multiple and diverse publics in
design and planning.
Culture, Heritage and Society – investigating design, planning, and
policy issues in the identification, interpretation, and conservation of
the living heritage of cultural landscapes, from historic urban centers,
to rural countrysides, to designed parks and gardens.
Design Exploration – linking scholarship and creative works through
award-winning exhibitions and built works, exploring spatial
experience, design thinking, and making places in public art,
intimate gardens, neighborhoods, communities, and the cityscape.
Economic Development and Technological Change – focusing on
entrepreneurship, development and redevelopment, the reuse
of existing physical and cultural assets, and ways in which new
technologies can help design programs and policies to meet the
needs and aspirations of communities.
Regenerative Urbanism – connecting emerging best practices in built
form to the municipal, state, national and international policies and
processes in order to address climate change, resilience, sustainable
and low-impact design and planning practices in small towns, cities,
and global metropolitan regi