Subject: Re: Future of LA

From: [email-masked] (Kevin M Lyles)
Date: 14 Feb 1995 16:34:19 GMT

I am *elated* to see that some sort of discussion is taking place in this
newsgroup.  I thought my and Lance's postings might end up with nothing. 
As a student in the pre-professional program at Iowa State, I am very
frustrated with LA students' lack of interest in its future. *Their* future. 

Most of the students in my studio have no clue what they want to do when
they graduate (understandable to some extent, as we have another three years
to go), have little clue as to what's going on in the "real world", if there
is such a thing, and absolutely no desire to learn more about the
profession. 

As the Secretary of ISU's chapter of SSLA (Student Society of
Landscape Architecture), I am ticked (I would like to use more choice words)
at the lack of interest in our meetings. Our SSLA meeting last night had an
attendance of 11 people, 5 of which were officers.  This is absolutely
pitiful!  Maybe LA's really do want to ostracise themselves. 

I think more of the problem stems from student's lack of knowledge about the
profession.  They feel they can get by as LAs merely by completing the
minimum requirements of their instructors.  There's this whole attitude that
doing the minimum is acceptable; any more is a waste.  Sorry, but I don't
wish to be a shmoe "LA" that ends up doing nothing but planting bushes
around the neighbors yards.

I'd like to end this posting with a passage of "Whither the Garden?"
by Steven Krog in Denatured Visions: Landscape & Culture in the Twentieth
Century. 1991

	Perhaps never in its history has the profession of landscape
	architecture been more thoroughly confounded with self-doubt.
	To their credit, landscape architects have qualified themselves
	to deal competently with an extraordinarily wide range of environ-
	mental, planning, and design issues; and yet, along with this mobile
	center of gravity comes an imbalance of collective ideological will.
	Contemporary landscape architecture finds itself experiencing an
	intellectual interregnum, a disconnection from any continuum of
	reasoned ideas for the garden. Now, faced with a stylistically
	freewheeling last quarter of the twentieth century, landscape
	architecture seems to be prepared to do little more than reflect,
	or react to, cacaphonous outside influences.

This sure seems to sum up the current status of LA pretty well. Where should
we go from here?

Kevin Lyles
[email-masked]

-- 
Kevin M Lyles		"What is the hardest task in the world?  To think."
[email-masked]			- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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From: [email-masked] (Mayer Reed)
Date: 22 Feb 1995 19:02:45 -0500

In response to Kevin Lyles: >> They feel they can get by as LAs merely by
completing the
minimum requirements of their instructors.  There's this whole attitude
that
doing the minimum is acceptable; any more is a waste.  Sorry, but I don't
wish to be a shmoe "LA" that ends up doing nothing but planting bushes
around the neighbors yards.

You've got it in a nutshell, Kevin. We are a landscape architecture firm
in Portland, OR that's been in business 10 years. We get 2-3 resumes a
week from budding college grads. Bare minimum is not enough in that kind
of competition. And may I suggest that it's not enough in any career. We
are a multidisciplinary design firm, which also does site planning, urban
design, environmental graphics, print graphics. We get all excited about
talented designers who are willing to do what needs doing around here,
which rarely will limit itself to 'planting bushes around the neighbor's
yards'. Be willing to go beyond your job description, and you will make
yourself indispensable in your company.
Su Elliott
MAYER [email-masked]