Align | Realign: Dialogues between Academic Pursuits and Professional Demand

August 30, 2022

by David N. Myers, Ph.D., PLA, ASLA

ASLA 2021 Professional Research Honor Award. Ecoregional Green Roofs: Theory and Application in the Western USA and Canada. Bruce Dvorak, ASLA. A representative from CELA participates in ASLA's professional jury for the selection of the Research Category. In 2022, CELA's representative was Taner Ozdil, ASLA, from the University of Texas at Arlington. / image: Bruce Dvorak, October 2018
Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Call for Abstracts

Deadline: September 12, 2022

The theme of the CELA 2023 Conference directly involves landscape architecture professionals. Align | Realign: Dialogues between Academic Pursuits and Professional Demand investigates the overlaps and misalignments between what is both taught and researched in academia compared to what the professional market demands.

As you all know, landscape architecture has long been broadly defined as the integration of art and science. Both the profession of landscape architecture and the education of the discipline have historically been dependent upon a constant dialogue between the arts and the sciences.

Recently, the growing role of research within the profession of landscape architecture has created a shift in more scientific thinking to help reinforce evidence-based design decision making. The degree to which scientific research is given emphasis in a design inevitably varies. This variance is generally dependent upon the values and findings within the given research and the specific goals and needs of a given design project. Educators and professionals can also fluctuate in their locations along the art/science continuum, sometimes creating misalignments within what the landscape architecture profession demands and what is being researched or taught in landscape architecture education.

Align | Realign explores these relationships. Submissions to the Align | Realign theme track include research or scholarly inquiries related to comparisons or synergies between design education and professional needs, collaborative research and/or design projects, design impact measurements and techniques, student placement or student skills vs. needs in the workplace, software taught vs. software used in practice, advisory board interactions and activities with programs, or other related phenomena.

We highly encourage submissions from landscape architecture practitioners, research departments within firms, and other similar units.

The Call for Abstracts for CELA 2023 closes September 12, 2022, so submit soon!

The conference will be held in-person from March 16-18, 2023, in San Antonio, Texas. CEUs are also available at the conference.

David N. Myers, Ph.D., PLA, ASLA, is CELA President and University of Maryland Landscape Architecture Associate Professor, Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture.