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University of Kentucky, Department of Landscape Architecture01-06-25 | Feature

University of Kentucky, Department of Landscape Architecture

2024 Year-In-Review
by Chris Sass, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair

Note from Chris Sass, PhD | Associate Professor and Chair

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Greetings from Lexington! I hope this note finds you and yours well. I am excited to share with you some of our plans for the academic year of 2024-25. I continue to be humbled and excited at the outpouring of support from our faculty, staff, alumni, students, and program friends.
We have entered our first full academic year in the Gray Design Building and are excited by the opportunities it presents. While the March move was challenging, our faculty and staff took those challenges head-on and provided our students excellent learning experiences. This year, we look for opportunities to grow with our allied disciplines that we share space with. If you haven't seen the building, check out our Instagram page or just stop by to say hello!
Over the past three years, we have seen a steady increase in enrollment. We have grown from about 50 students in the program to just over 75, which is a wonderful problem to have. With a group this size, student leadership is imperative, and as such, we are working to develop student leaders through varied resources. One such opportunity is the Design Futures Leadership Forum, an interdisciplinary leadership conference held every year. This past year, we took five students from different class levels and one faculty member to the week-long summit in St. Louis. We learned a lot! Those students have come back fired up and ready to make a difference. Our goal is to send five different students this year to Tulane to experience the Design Futures Leadership Forum again. If you would like to help us with this goal, please consider a donation to our LA Program Enrichment Endowment Fund.
Christina Wilson, our department's academic coordinator, continues to recruit high-achieving students to our program. We currently have a first-year studio class of 30 students! If you meet a prospective student who would like to learn more about our program, please reach out to Christina. She, along with the faculty, can provide a building visit and program overview.
One last thing: as we move forward in our new space, we are working toward providing students a first-class landscape architecture education. We have many outstanding alumni who continue to support us financially and with their time and knowledge. We greatly appreciate you all. Please consider investing in students right now, especially one of our scholarship endowments or our LA Program Enrichment Endowment Fund. These accounts directly help students in our program. You can find a list of possible investments on our departmental philanthropy webpage.
As you can tell, UKLA is moving forward. I want to wish you and yours the best from the faculty and staff in the Department of Landscape Architecture here at the University of Kentucky.

As seen in LASN magazine, December 2024.

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