This year, students from Pennsylvania State University hosted the 48th annual Landscape Architecture Bash, or LABash. Approximately 400 professionals and students attended the completely student organized conference, themed "Identity." The event included 26 speakers.

"The theme suggests that landscape architects shall remain conscious of the ideas, people and experiences they encounter," states an online article by Christiana Usenza, the Penn State writer and social media manager. Kara Swanick, a fourth year landscape architecture undergraduate student was the overall communications director for the event.

"LABash is traditionally focused on the undergraduate student hosts and attendees," stated Kendall Mainzer, the strategy and planning manager for the department of Landscape Architecture at Penn State. "We raised the bar. We engaged professionals, academics, and graduate students"?uwithout losing site of the primary focus of LABash: to exchange knowledge and skills and inspire the students."

Three undergraduate student-organized comittees were tasked with establishing the conference, promoting it, choosing and managing professional speakers and sponsorship outreach. Tori Frydrych, Kara Swanick and Jeff Wertheim lead these three committees; all three are under graduate students at the university.

"It is predominantly a student-run conference; the faculty advisers give us the room to organize it," explained Swanick. "While I am the overall director, we all work side-by-side in our respective branches and it's really a system of checks and balances. We rely on each other, but we also give the space to do our own thing." If you would like to learn more about the LA Bash, visit the Penn State "Behind the Scenes" webpage HERE.