con'text Magazine 2006

Why we need to break our dependency on carbon David W. Orr | “The Carbon Connection,” p. 22

con'text Conway School of Landscape Design Alumni Magazine, Fall 2006

Conway School of Landscape Design Graduate Program in Landscape Planning, Design, and Management

Carl Heide ‘00

The mission of the Conway School of Landscape Design is to explore, develop, practice and teach planning, design and management of the land that is ecologically and socially sustainable.

STAFF Faculty Paul Cawood Hellmund, Director & President; Core Faculty

Ken Byrne, Humanities & Curriculum Coordinator; Core Faculty Kim Erslev, Landscape Design

The intention is to: ■ Provide graduates with the basic knowledge and skills necessary to practice planning, design and management of the land that respects nature as well as humanity; ■

Develop ecological awareness, understanding, respect and accommodation in its students and project clients;

■

Produce projects that fit human uses to natural conditions.

& Graphics; Core Faculty

Susan Reed, Residential Projects; Core Faculty (Fall)

Bill Lattrell, Ecology Adjunct Mollie Babize, Planning Projects Adjunct (Winter)

Facts in Brief

Jono Neiger, Community Projects Adjunct (Spring)

Founded 1972

Administration

Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Design & Planning

Nancy E. Braxton, Director of Administration, Admissions, and Development

Ten months (September through June) of applied study in an integrated format. Core instruction relates directly to term-long projects.

Ilze Meijers, Office & Alumni Coordinator, Financial Aid Advisor

David Nordstrom, Accounting Manager & Maintenance Coordinator

Conway School of Landscape Design 332 South Deerfield Road P.O. Box 179 Conway, MA 01341-0179 413-369-4044

www.csld.edu con'text is published annually by the Conway School of Landscape Design Nicholas T. Lasoff, Editor

Terry Blanchard, Graphic Design

The Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit corporation under Chapter180 of the General Laws, is a professional training school of landscape design and land use planning. As an equal opportunity institution, it does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital or veteran status in the administration of the educational, admissions, employment, or loan policies, or in any other school-administered program.

Emphasis. Ecologically and socially sustainable design of the land,

integrated communication skills, individual educational goals, learning through real projects with real clients.

Size. 18-19 graduate students.

Faculty. Three core faculty, an ecology adjunct, a studio instructor each term, and over sixty guest speakers, lecturers, and workshop leaders each year.

Degree Granted. Master of Arts in Landscape Design, authorized

by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.

Accreditation. New England Association of Schools and Colleges,

Inc. Location. Scenic western Massachusetts near the academic, cultural,

and natural resources of the Five Colleges and the Connecticut River Valley. One hour from Bradley International Airport, Hartford, Connecticut.

Campus. 34.5 acres of wooded hilltop located one-half mile east of Cover: Mountaintop removal, Kayford Mountain, West Virginia © Vivian Stockman, www.ohvec.org, used with permission.

Special thanks to SouthWings, Inc.

Conway town center.

Facility. 3000 square feet with four wood stoves and passive solar design, spacious design studios with individual drafting stations, library, classroom, design/print area, and kitchen.

A Note from the Director The Mat is Out, Please Stop By AS

AN ALUM OF THE

David Brooks Andrews

SCHOOL,

you already know the intensity of our graduate program, because you have experienced it! Just because we’re working intensively, however, doesn’t mean that we don’t have time for alums who stop by when passing through town. Indeed, we thrive on communication with graduates and friends of the school. That’s why you have Con'text in your hands. We want to let you know what we’re up to, and we love to hear from you! A very common question we get from prospective students and new friends of the school is, “What do your graduates go on to do?” The more examples we can supply the better. Hearing your stories—through email or letter or in person—helps to strengthen us as an institution and helps us teach the new class better. Let us hear from you and please stop by sometime.

This year we have set a significant admissions goal and would like to ask your help with it. Our goal is to have a full class already lined up by June ’07 for the next school year. Frequently, admissions review has spilled over into the summer, making it hard for staff to get other important work done. Can you recommend a prospective student to us? It would be best if you contact that person directly and tell them about the school, but if you prefer, we can contact the person. Just let us know how to make contact. We’d like to invite prospective students to the information session on February 10, 2007. It will be an informative and enjoyable day-long event, with an on-campus forest walk with ecology adjunct Bill Lattrell and a complimentary lunch.

This issue of Con'text is filled with the kind of thoughtful discussion for which Conway is known, starting with the cover and its photograph of the landscape decimation that David W. Orr exhorts us to ignore no longer. Orr’s cover article, an adaptation of

his address at Homecoming ’06, begins on page 22 and is insightful and hard-hitting. “The root of all evil does not begin with money, but with the Carbon in the various forms that money can buy,” he warns. Other authors in this issue also point out challenges confronting our planet and describe solutions they are finding in their practices of landscape design.

Comments from some of the graduation as well as inaugural speakers are also included. Kathy Connor ’07 and Nicko Rubin ’07 share their experiences on the new fall orientation Great River Road Trip along the Connecticut River beginning on page 14. And as always, there is other school news, profiles of several of last year’s projects, and updates from your classmates.

We hope you enjoy this issue and find it thought provoking. And don't forget to drop us a note or visit the school.

Paul Cawood Hellmund

con'text

Fall 2006

School News ..............................................................................2 An Invitation to Panama.............................................................5 Master Plan Moving Forward......................................................6 Conway Authors Publish.............................................................8 Landscape Design across Scales by Paul Cawood Hellmund.............9 Development: Our Shared Legacy .............................................10 Unknown Knowns by Ken Byrne..................................................13 Great River Road Trip ...............................................................14 Highlights from 2006 Homecoming and Inauguration...............18 The Carbon Connection by David W. Orr......................................18 Highlights from Graduation 2006 .............................................27 Student Projects 2005–2006....................................................30 News from Alums.....................................................................34 Annual Report..........................................................................38 Letter from the Chair................................................................41

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School News FACULTY/STAFF UPDATES Conway Honors Jean Akers Following the trustees meeting on May 5, 2006, the Conway community gathered at a reception for outgoing core faculty member, Jean Kilhour Akers. Faculty, staff, trustees, students, and alumni thanked Jean for her steadfast support and expertise, and honored her four years of service that encompassed major school transitions: moving from sugar shack to hilltop, hiring the new director, and renewing accreditation status. Jean can also be credited for spearheading the greater use of technology in the curriculum. In the midst of their spring projects, students from the class of ‘07 presented Jean with a journal of artistic and appreciative musings. Student spokesperson, Danny Stratton, eloquently expressed for everyone the way in which Jean, with patience and devotion, has helped students survive and thrive during their intense ten months at CSLD. Jean will not be leaving CSLD entirely, however; she has joined the school’s advisory board. As Jean contemplates traveling, writing a book on stormwater design, and exploring new opportunities, of two things we can be certain regarding Jean’s future: she will always give her best, and she will continue to find ways to care for and share the magic that lies outside.

—Kristen Nelson ‘05

New Adjuncts With the departure of Jean Akers, CSLD has decided to divide her responsibilities among a part-time core faculty member and several adjuncts in order to promote outreach and increase the variety of perspectives to the curriculum. Architect and landscape architect, Kim Erslev joins the school as a core faculty member, teaching half time. Kim, who has been a frequent visitor to the school as a critic and speaker, has her own design firm, Salmon Falls Ecological Design, based in Shelburne Falls. Kim is a talented designer and

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is especially skilled at drawing. In a continuing effort to increase the interaction between alumni and students, three alumni and long-time friends of the school will work with students this year. Drawing on her considerable experience in residential landscape design and her many prior years as a Conway fall studio instructor, Sue Reed ’87 again plays a significant role in fall term 2006 as a fall term core faculty member. Sue, who is a gifted teacher, lives and has her design practice in Shelburne. Mollie Babize ’84 will work with students on their planning projects in the winter term. Mollie works as a land use planner with CSLD founding director Walt Cudnohufsky at his firm in Ashfield. Besides her extensive experience in planning, she has served as CSLD’s Administrative Director as well as a studio instructor and critic.

In the spring, Jono Neiger ‘03 joins the adjunct faculty to assist students with their community design projects.

Jono is the owner and operator of Regenerative Design in Leverett, MA. He has extensive experience as a conservationist, restorationist, and educator. Paul Hellmund and Ken Byrne continue as core faculty. Ken has also taken on the role of Curriculum Coordinator. Bill Lattrell continues as an adjunct teaching wetland ecology through lectures and field trips throughout the school year.

at the University of Pennsylvania, will introduce GIS to students at the start of winter term. Dana is the originator of the concept of “map algebra.” He lives in Petersham, MA and was a speaker at Paul Hellmund’s inauguration. (See related feature on page 18.)

Guest Faculty

CAMPUS UPDATES

Two guests will be joining the adjunct faculty this year. Longtime Conway advisor, yearly speaker, and frequent summer workshop leader, Darrel Morrison will be visiting twice to teach student workshops. Darrel, who is former Dean of the School of Environmental Design at the University of Georgia, now lives in New York, NY. He was invited by the class of ’06 to be their commencement speaker. (See his address to the graduates on page 27.) Dana Tomlin, a highly regarded expert in geographic information systems (GIS) and a Professor of Landscape Architecture

New Roles for Staff The staff members of CSLD function in many capacities. Administrative and Admissions Director Nancy E. Braxton has increased her previous development role, adding the title of Development Coordinator. Office Coordinator Ilze Meijers has formalized her previous role as Alumni Services Coordinator in addition to her other duties, including Financial Aid Advisor. Nancy’s development work includes staffing the class agent initiative and working closely with the board’s Development Committee regarding annual fund support, forming a legacy society, and capital campaign initiatives, as well as coordinating the initiative of the board’s Outreach Committee for a Conway Business and Civic Association. Ilze’s alumni emphasis includes coordinating alumni involvement in Conway, representation at conferences around the country (suggestions welcome), and supporting the class agent initiative, as well as helping assure current alumni news for each Con’text and for CSLD’s new eTapestry database.

CSLD Reaches Out In its continuing effort to expand the reach of the school and raise its profile, CSLD has teamed up with a number of local, regional, and international groups to create mutually beneficial programs. In this academic year, the fall series of public talks is cosponsored by the school and the New England Wild Flower Society.

The public talks are given once a month on a Monday at the Conway Grammar School, which makes it possible to accommodate larger audiences. The September talk, by

Charles C. Mann, was attended by more than 120 people. The October talk, by Frances Clark, had forty in attendance. There was also excellent attendance at the November talk by Edwina von Gal and Mark Wishnie and the December talk by Bill Cullina. The winter series of public talks will be cosponsored with the Haydenville-based Highland Communities Initiative of The Trustees of Reservation. For the latest information on the public talks, check the school’s website, www.csld.edu.

In addition, this winter Sue Reed ’87, CSLD fall term core faculty member, is offering a non-credit course in landscape design for the homeowner at Greenfield Community College, cosponsored with CSLD. In other outreach efforts, CSLD is teaming up with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to identify appropriate community projects for students.

The school is also working to create a Business and Civic Association made up of local business and civic leaders who have an interest in the school and its work. Finally, the school is in the process of creating a Sustainability Advisory Board to advise the school on sustainability issues.

CSLD Forms Academic Alliances To complement its long-standing agreement with the UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning program, under which CSLD graduates may be able to receive advanced standing for their work at Conway, Conway has joined with two other institutions to offer students educational opportunities after their graduation from CSLD. Conway collaborates with Anhalt University in Bernburg, Germany to facilitate international study in landscape design, especially digital technology. The graduate courses in landscape architecture at Anhalt, conducted in English, offer Conway graduates an opportunity to work with teachers and students from many parts of the world. At the Prescott,

The class of 2007 poses for a group photograph during the fall orientation trip along the Connecticut River.

Arizona-based Ecosa Institute designers can explore an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable design through a semester-long study.

New Technologies CSLD is moving with the times on many fronts this year. For the first time, students will be introduced to computer-assisted design (CAD). This will give them the opportunity to complement their skills in hand drafting and lettering with drafting skills on the computer. In the classroom, a new sound system has been installed to enhance computer-based presentations, and the space is being hardwired to improve its internet connection. In the development area, CSLD has moved its database of more than one thousand donors to eTapestry, an internet-based program that will allow staff more flexibility and greater access. And if you haven’t visited lately, be sure to check out the CSLD website, www.csld.edu, newly redesigned by CSLD Webmaster, Carrie Makover ’86. As always, the movement to new technologies requires new equipment. If you have equipment that you no longer need and that the school might be able to use, be sure to check out the school’s wish list on page 38 to see if the school can use it.

Welcome New Students This fall, CSLD welcomed sixteen new students to the school, ten women and six men. As is typical for Conway, they come from a variety of backgrounds: six have degrees in the natural sciences, six in the humanities, and six in the fine arts. Ten have worked in landscape-related jobs.

Their life experience ranges from several recent graduates to the long-time owner of a nursery. They come from as near by as Williamsburg, MA to as far away as Portland, OR. We look forward to hearing about their insights and growth and wish them the very best for their year at CSLD.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES/ ADVISORS/COMMITTEES Board Committees Work to Ensure the “Permanent Conway” The work of the Board of Trustees is augmented by five active committees.

As well as board members, each committee is comprised of alumni and occasionally, friends interested in the sustained welfare of the school. The Strategic Planning Committee helps the school develop long-term goals and creates a roadmap to help the school reach those goals. Currently, this committee is overseeing the

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School News

Priscilla Miner ‘07

development of the school’s master plan. (Read about progress on the master plan on page 6.) The Finance Committee oversees the budget and financial health of the school. The Academic Committee advises on matters of curriculum and accreditation.

Their recent work has involved working to address the recommendations of the accreditation report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (see fall 2005 Con’text).

The committee has also consulted on the awarding of scholarships and honorary degrees. The Outreach Committee acts as a liaison to the school’s many constituencies, including current students, and helps the school to communicate its mission through promoting new constituencies, such as the nascent Conway Business and Civic Association. The Development Committee works to strategize and implement the annual fund goal, to support volunteers, particularly the class agents, to create a program of planned giving, and to develop strategies for capital giving.

(See the feature with further development news on page 10.) Usually meeting three times a year and working by email and phone, committees welcome your ideas and energy. If you would like to be involved with the school in this way, contact Art Collins (acollins@collins-llc.com) or Nancy Braxton (nebraxton@ csld.edu).

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Farewell and Thank You Carrie, Candace and Jonathan!

At its October 2006 meeting, the Conway board of trustees said farewell to three key members, who have serve the school with skill, vision, and heart over many years’ time.

Carrie Makover '86 joined the board in 1993 and served for thirteen remarkable years. She was the first woman board chair and served in that leadership role during a major transitional period in the school’s history, Oct. 2001–Oct. 2005, when Conway moved its campus, underwent a ten-year accreditation review, and hired its third director. She headed and co-chaired the Development Committee for two years, was a key player in the capital campaign that enabled purchase of the new facility, served as a member of the board’s Executive Committee, and led the Board Development Committee resulting in the October ’06 election of six new, energetic members to the Conway board of trustees. Carrie designed and created the school’s website in 2000 and serves as volunteer webmaster. Not resting on her laurels, she redesigned it in 2006.

Carrie thus enabled this small graduate program to be on the same playing field as larger institutions. Today, internet searches are second only to word-of-mouth for prospective students learning about the school.

For her quiet and diligent behindthe-scenes devotion to the school for more than a decade, all of us join in

thanking Carrie warmly for her hard work and generous dedication.

Retired since 2003 from her position as planner for the Town of Westport, CT, Carrie works part-time as Westport’s website project manager and creates other websites as well.

She now hopes to spend more time on retirement, but we are very fortunate that Carrie will continue as a Conway advisor and also as its webmaster.

Candace Currie '97 served on the board of trustees from 2003 to 2006, during which time she spearheaded and accomplished several key tasks that will serve the school far into the future. As a chair of the Annual Fund committee, she instituted professional fundraising methodologies and drafted a five-year development plan for consideration by the Ad Hoc Conway Development Committee, which she created and co-led in spring 2006.

She served as an advisor to the Director Search Committee. She was a key member of the thirtieth anniversary reunion committee. Drawing on her pre-Conway experience as a database developer and administrator, Candace spent countless hours in the conversion of the school’s obsolete database to a new, internet-based database, thus enabling us to have maximal impact in our development and outreach work. As in her work for Conway, Candace has served a number of important roles at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, MA, where she is currently Mapping and Planning Projects Manager. In 2005, she hosted two

School News

Achiote Invites Conway Alums and Friends to Help in 2007 Residents of the Panamanian village of Achiote and the Panamanian Center for Research and Social Action (CEASPA) have invited alums and school friends to join Conway Director Paul Cawood Hellmund on a natural and cultural adventure to this rainforest village near the new San Lorenzo National Park. We will provide volunteer assistance to the community of Achiote in the buffer zone of this new national park that formerly was a US military base.

World-Ranked Birding Locale

The village of Achiote is located along the Achiote Road, a world-renowned birding site, where the annual Christmas bird count consistently exceeds 300 species in a 24-hour period, making it the No. 1 or No. 2 birding spot in the world. In addition to birds, the diversity of other wildlife and plants in the area is quite impressive.

Conway School's Paul Hellmund, who was born and raised in Panama, has worked in the community of Achiote since 2003. During the winter of 2004-2005, he facilitated the design and construction of an observation deck in Achiote, with US volunteers and local community members.

Volunteer Opportunities

The 2007 trip will also have a volunteer focus: working with CEASPA and local community members on simple plans and projects, and helping assess ecotourism potential. We will work at a relaxed pace and spend part of each day exploring resources in and around the new San Lorenzo National Park.

events at Mount Auburn, drawing together area alums to learn about and later meet Paul Hellmund.

Candace, we take off our hats in thanks for your prodigious accomplishments on behalf of the school.

We will miss you on the board, but we anticipate continuing to be in close touch with you, fostering your special connection to this institution.

Jonathan Tauer joined the Conway Board of Trustees in 2002 and served in several dynamic capacities while on the board. He stepped down reluctantly in October 2006, because the responsibilities of family and a new business in green building insulation require his full attention. Jonathan came to the board when he was Building Programs Director for

Each day on the Panama trip will include a balance between providing volunteer assistance in the village and enjoying ecotours conducted by local guides. Here a 2005 trip participant sizes up the buttresses at the base of a rainforest giant.

Time for Work and Play

A typical day will include a half day of volunteer assistance and a half day of natural heritage or ecotourism trips conducted by local guides. No knowledge of Spanish is required.

A donation will be made by the trip organizers, Emerald Planet (www.emeraldplanet.com) to the Conway School of Design on behalf of each participant.

Key info: March 29 - April 4, 2007, $1499 (from Panama City) See trip details at: www.csld.edu/whatsnew.htm or call Emerald Planet (Katherine King) toll-free: 888-883-0736; or call CSLD (Paul Hellmund) 413-369-4044 x4

Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) in Greenfield.

He brought valuable contacts, energy and expertise to the Facilities Oversight Subcommittee of the LongRange Planning Committee during the crucial period when contractors’ bids for renovating the new facility were being sought and reviewed. As a key member of the Student Liaison Committee, he made a point of getting to know members of the classes of ’03,’04, and ’05 through Wednesday night potlucks, talks, and special sessions to listen to students’ concerns. As one of two members of the Board Development Committee, Jonathan brought many worthy, nonalum candidates to the board’s attention and was consistent in articulating

criteria and processes for selection.

An active contributor at board meetings, Jonathan will be greatly missed.

We thank him for his dedication to the school and are delighted that he will continue his association with CSLD as an advisor. We thank you, Jonathan, for the level of time, skill, energy and caring that you demonstrated these past four years.

New Board Members Welcomed On October 13, the CSLD Board of Trustees welcomed five new alumni trustees as well as returning board member, Rick Brown, onto the board.

Rick has served the school in many Continued on page 7

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School News

Master Plan Moving Forward BY WILLIAM RICHTER ’77 A P R O G R E S S R E P O R T of the Conway School Master Plan study was presented on August 12, 2006 at the homecoming and the inauguration of Paul Cawood Hellmund.

The study is necessary to help the Conway School develop a strategic plan in order to program the school land for campus use, teaching, expansion, and other sustainable, environmental uses of its 34.5-acre parcel. The study serves as a working tool to determine what is physically needed on the school site in order to achieve a desirable school program for the future, what those improvements might cost, and how the plan might be implemented over time. A master plan is an important component for: ■

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identifying the resources and capabilities of the campus parcel and its facilities representing and demonstrating the sustainable planning and design focus of the school establishing long-term and shortterm improvements for the site and facilities contributing to the development of an implementation strategy as part of the school’s growth plan

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The analysis portion of the presentation at the inaugural and homecoming highlighted the consolidation and integration of all the previous school studies into a single computer-based format, so that now all information from survey to reports will be available for the school to use on the computer.

The architects on the study team, Moser Pilon Nelson, have spent time with Paul Hellmund to assess the needs and deficiencies of the present building and to develop an initial building program. With this program, ten possible building plans were presented. These plans are still evolving, but do consistently focus on: ■ ■

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The initial study program, as presented, included: ■

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expansion and reorganization of the school building with more flexible classroom, presentation, and community meeting spaces demonstration of sustainable and outdoor classroom opportunities improved and noteworthy campus entrance and arrival sequence, along with driveway improvements improved arrival area with expanded parking improved and usable activity areas

at the school, including courtyard and natural amphitheater spaces for graduation, special events, and informal gathering enhanced community connections and trail system

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creation of a better entrance area development of a multi-purpose room for presentations, community lectures, workshops, etc. consolidation of studio space along with adjacent staff space(s) refocus of present meeting, presentation, and library areas into dining, lounge, library, and quiet areas reorganization of staff spaces improvement of toilet facilities reorganization of indoor and outdoor spaces

While the study is still underway, but knowing that the Conway audience would want to see some level of a campus plan, the landscape architect on the study team, Richter & Cegan Inc., prepared an Initial Concept Thoughts plan,

which illustrated the following site components: ■

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new campus entrance off Route 116 with island, signage, and selective highlighting of the rock outcrops and vernal pool would require purchase of additional land driveway improvements to paving with widening, better drainage control, use of vegetative retaining walls, the creation of a second gateway to the school at the Hobby driveway, and the possibility of opening the view to the school as one approaches it reorganization of the upper plateau by developing a circular drive, framing a new, sunny activity yard and setting up the formal drop-off and courtyard space increased parking, relocated behind the stone wall and interspersed and softened with the existing trees new entry courtyard for the school to include entrance area, convocation area, gathering areas, possible amphitheater, outdoor class areas, and opening up of views to the valley integration of the existing stone wall as an axis that organizes and links gateway, school, yard, pond, and community walk

The next steps for the study are to finalize the program, building plan, and site plan in order to develop a cost estimate of the anticipated improvements. With this cost estimate and closure of the study, the board of trustees and school staff can evaluate the feasibility and reality of achieving the desired school program on this site. The goal is to complete the master plan study for presentation to the board at the next trustees’ meeting on February 2, 2007.

Have you been a volunteer with the Peace Corps or are you one now?

If so, CSLD director Paul Hellmund would like to speak with you.

Please contact him at 413-369-4044 x4 or hellmund@csld.edu.

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School News

Priscilla Miner ‘07

capacities, as Administrative Director from1998—2001, as an Advisor, as a member of the board of trustees from 2003—2005 and member of the Finance Committee, which he chaired from 2004—2005, as chair of the Capital Campaign drive that resulted in the purchase of the school’s new campus, and as a member of the Director Search Committee that recommended Paul Hellmund to the school’s leadership position. With a long career as an educator from elementary to graduate school, Rick now chairs the history department and is Dean of Faculty at the Darrow School where he has also been Business Manager and Development Director. Rick has said that he missed being a board member, and we are glad to welcome him back.

Since graduation, Nicholas Lasoff ’05 has served CSLD by working on the Ad Hoc Development Committee.

He brings to the board twenty years of experience as an educator at precollegiate, post-secondary, and graduate schools, where he has taught courses in German language and culture, English, and technology. Nick has mentored beginning teachers and assisted others in professional evaluation and growth. Nick has assisted with grants and development at Bennington College, where he was also Coordinator of Language Technologies. He served on the Board of Trustees of the New School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Nick currently operates Lasoff Landscape Design in Bennington, VT. He will be serving on the Development Committee and is the contributing editor of Con’text.

Virginia Sullivan ’86 is known to Conway students for the stimulating

workshops on school grounds that she gives with Ruth Parnall, her coprincipal of the design firm Learning by the Yard, based in Conway and Chapel Hill, NC. She previously served on the CSLD board and is currently pursuing a PhD in children’s environments at the College of Design at North Carolina State University.

As well as her twenty years of design experience, Virginia brings a broad experience in non-profits and fund raising. She has been on the boards of the Northampton Education Foundation (co-founder and president), the Parents Nursery School, and the Children’s Museum of Holyoke. As a member of Conway’s board of trustees, she is particularly interested in bringing “a perspective on the school’s past to its future as it develops the world leadership in design education that it deserves to have.”

Aaron Schlechter ’01 has been a consistent supporter of CSLD by serving on the Green Building and Long Range Planning Committees. A Project Manager at Creative Habitat Corp. in White Plains, NY, Aaron has consulted on numerous public space projects, including park designs, interpretative gardens, wetland restorations, and habitat improvements. The planting that he supervised for Pryer Manor Marsh, Mamoroneck, NY won an award for successful habitat improvement. In 2004, he won awards at the Connecticut Flower Show for best naturalistic garden, best demonstration garden, best demonstration of environmental sensitivity, and a special appreciation award. A pond study for Paine Lake at New Rochelle, NY was covered by the New York Times. Aaron is honored to join the board and is eager to have a role in shaping CSLD’s future.

Special guests of CSLD who participated in the November ‘06 Frank Lloyd Wright Charette: Darrel Morrison (Charette leader); Melissa Mourkas ‘94; Chris Connors (NH Landscape designer); Terry Marvel ‘01.

Susan Van Buren ’82 has more than twenty years of experience as a planner who has worked in the private sector, in the public sector, and with non-profits. As a member of several community organizations as well as a member of the board of the Friends of Mt. Vernon Place and the Connecticut chapter of the ASLA, she has experience in strategic planning, fund raising, program planning, and master planning and site improvements. Susan is currently working as a Community Planner and Educator at the Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens in Baltimore, MD, where she also does interpretative planning.

Seth Wilkinson ’99 has served on many non-profit boards and community organizations, often in leadership positions as well as CSLD’s Green Building Committee. As principal of Wilkinson Ecological Design in Orleans, MA he has offered his expertise in land management and ecological restoration while a member of several civic boards and committees in Orleans as well as the Cape Cod Lighthouse Charter School, the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions, the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Working Group, and the Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts. As a director and trustee, Seth has shepherded a charter school and a conservation organization through their strategic planning process. He states, “I am immensely grateful for my Conway education and would do whatever I could to improve the institution and advance the goals of the school.”

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School News

Members of the CSLD Community Publish Measuring Landscapes, A Professional Planner's Manual

by Andre Botequilha Leitao, Joseph Miller, Jack Ahern, Kevin McGarigal Published by Island Press This practical handbook bridges the gap between those scientists who study landscapes and the planners and conservationists who must then decide how best to preserve and build environmentally-sound habitats.

Until now, only a small portion of the relevant science has influenced the decision-making arenas where the future of our landscapes is debated and decided.

The authors explain specific tools and concepts to measure a landscape's structure, form, and change over time. Metrics studied include patch richness, class area proportion, patch number and density, mean patch size, shape, radius of gyration, contagion, edge contrast, nearest neighbor distance, and proximity. These measures will help planners and conservationists make better land use decisions for the future.

Jack Ahern sits on the CSLD Board of Trustees. He is Professor and Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning at UMass/Amherst. http://www.islandpress.org/books/detail. html/SKU/1-59726-086-X

Edible Forest Gardens

by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier Published by Chelsea Green Publishing Edible Forest Gardens is a groundbreaking twovolume work that spells out and explores the key concepts of forest ecology and applies them to the needs of natural gardeners in temperate climates. Volume I lays out the vision of the forest garden and explains the basic ecological principles that make it work. In Volume II, the authors move on to practical considerations: concrete ways to design, establish, and maintain your own forest garden. Along the way they present case studies and examples, as well as tables, illustrations, and a uniquely valuable "plant matrix" that lists hundreds of the best edible and useful species.

Taken together, the two volumes of Edible Forest Gardens offer an advanced course in ecological gardening—one that will forever change the way you look at plants and your environment.

Dave Jacke, CSLD Class of 1984, is the owner of Dynamics Ecological Design, a consulting firm in Keene, New Hampshire. He teaches courses in ecological design and permaculture and consults on, designs, and builds landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in many parts of the world. www.chelseagreen.com/2005/items/ edibleforestset

Have you written a book or article that you would like to see featured in Con’text?

Let us know so that we can include it.

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Designing Greenways, Sustainable Landscapes for Nature and People

by Paul Cawood Hellmund and Daniel Somers Smith Published by Island Press How are greenways designed?

What situations lead to their genesis, and what examples best illustrate their potential for enhancing communities and the environment?

Designing Greenways is a key to protecting landscapes, allowing wildlife to move freely, and finding appropriate ways to bring people into nature. This book brings together examples from ecology, conservation biology, aquatic ecology, and recreation design to illustrate how greenways function and add value to ecosystems and human communities alike.

Encompassing everything from urban trail corridors to river floodplains to wilderness-like linkages, greenways preserve or improve the integrity of the landscape, not only by stemming the loss of natural features, but also by engendering new natural and social functions. From 19th-century parks and parkways to projects still on the drawing boards, Designing Greenways is a fascinating introduction to the possibilities—and pitfalls—involved in these ambitious projects. As towns and cities look to greenways as a new way of reconciling man and nature, designers and planners will look to Designing Greenways as an invaluable compendium of best practices.

Paul Cawood Hellmund is President and Director of CSLD. http://www.islandpress.org/books/ detail.html/SKU/1-55963-325-5

Landscape Design across Scales Responding to Powerful and Urgent “Letters from Home”

A broader sense of landscape design enables a person to see and work across scales, to make connections between seemingly small landscape actions and global problems, and to design accordingly.

BY PAUL CAWOOD HELLMUND IN HIS CLOSING COMMENTS at a recent Darfur (Sudan) benefit dinner, I heard a state legislator encouraging people to “contact your elected representatives. If they don’t hear from you, they won’t do anything about this problem.” Then he referred to the late Senator Paul Simon, who suggested that the US response to atrocities in Rwanda would have been different if each member of congress had received a hundred letters from home.

My immediate response was to wonder why it takes a hundred letters from home for a politician—or anyone—to act on something so serious.

Then I started thinking about landscape planners and designers and what we are doing about our “letters from home,” the pleas we are receiving about serious problems in our home—the earth. Clearly some of these problems are global and very significant. How do we make sure we notice and heed such “letters” before problems get out of hand? And also how do we forward these letters to others to read?

It’s interesting that some environmental problems seem so big or so far gone, that it’s hard—at least for some people—to see how our actions at this late date can make much of a difference. Other problems or practices seem so small and our contribution to the problem so inconsequential that it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

These are really just two sides of the same coin.

Global climate change, for example, is really about many small choices, in which we all participate. The widespread epidemic of invasive exotic species, both plants and animals, results from many small actions—

some even by horticulturalists and landscape designers.

Degraded water quality in streams results from countless small actions in a watershed—actions like applying fertilizers and pesticides to a lawn, or clearing streamside vegetation. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” operates in a community to devalue degraded lands, making them “attractive” to less well-off people for whom they are a last resort. This process can result in environmental injustice.

Contaminated water flows into more contaminated water. Patches of invasive plants coalesce. Neighborhoods of disadvantaged people become more abundant. What was once inconsequential—no big deal— grows before our eyes to become very serious.

It’s interesting how much impact on the world landscape designers and planners really have through so many of these processes and yet how little recognition there is of this. These are the professionals who are making countless decisions that have a profound effect on aspects of quality of life for people and the environment.

This is why I’m so impressed with what Conway graduates and friends of the school are doing to make a difference through careful landscape design. The number of people in this community may seem small, but their impact is significant and being noticed. That’s why experts with a global perspective—people like Oberlin College’s David Orr—spend time at the school Continued on page 17

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Our Shared Legacy

BY CHUCK SCHNELL ’01

A commitment to the earth and a commitment to community

EVERY YEAR A HANDFUL OF STUDENTS comes together to continue building upon a community that has at its foundation the collective experiences, values, and beliefs of each individual member. Led by the faculty and the guiding principles set forth in the CSLD mission, the individual personas and skills of each student are combined together to create a learning experience that is life-changing. For the past thirty-five years, each new group of students builds upon the discoveries of previous students. Every field trip, lecture, project presentation, late-night charette, and report becomes part of an amazing iterative process that “grows” the school. They, in essence, become the beneficiaries and the most recent contributors to a collective legacy of experience and wisdom.

As this process of community building and development takes place over the course of the next ten months, these newest members of the CSLD community come to several realizations. It takes time and great effort to create something that is elegant and authentic.

There is so much more to learn and relearn. They are contributing to something much larger than personal goals and individual project demands; they are making a tangible difference in peoples’ lives and in the environments we inhabit. They are part of that important work of furthering the mission of the school and are only able to do so through required investment of resources and a basic support structure. Community health is paramount to the success or failure of this place.

How do we ensure that this place, this community remains intact and healthy?

The Amish take an approach to problem solving and decision making that begins by asking the most basic of questions, What is best for our community?

And once consensus is reached, they act without regret and with conviction. In the simplest terms, this describes the basic charge of both the board of trustees and the newly formed development committee. This

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new subcommittee of the board is formed out of the long-understood realization that as a whole CSLD alums are a valuable and under-utilized resource in maintaining the health of the school and prove to be its best advocates. Each person who chooses to make that leap of faith which throws them headlong into this unique graduate program develops and internalizes a piece of institutional memory built upon experiences and discoveries. Internalizing the tenets of the institution creates a commitment to the ongoing health of the community. This commitment is probably one of the most valuable pieces of capital that any institution or community can hope to invest in and keep safe. It is the biggest and most important challenge facing any place devoted to education.

As with any challenge, design-based or otherwise, the best means for first defining the true problem and then getting at the most appropriate solution is through asking questions and assembling the relevant facts. Let’s first start with the fundamental challenge every member of the board of trustees, past and present directors, faculty, staff, and alums consider by phrasing it in the form of a question: How do we enable the school to continue to thrive while making sure it has the resources and the stability to carry out the stated mission effectively and help our collective community keep the promise of becoming better stewards of the places we all call home?

Before attempting to answer this question, let’s take a brief look at the basic financial needs of operating the primary CSLD community resource—the physical school. This includes all of the things that keep the lights on and support the students for a single year of graduate studies including: staff, faculty, technology, utilities, building maintenance, and the list goes on.

There are two primary revenue streams that support the basic operations of the school on a yearly basis:

Priscilla Miner ‘07

Building a Healthy Community through Commitment

Helping our Collective Community Affirm the Future: Conway Bequests The Conway board of trustees has unanimously established planned giving as a primary initiative this year.

As we approach Conway’s thirty-fifth anniversary, we seek to ensure the perpetuity of this unique institution by establishing a Conway endowment fund. A Conway endowment will eventually assure support, from interest on endowed principle, for a portion of the school’s annual operating costs, as well as enable the school to realize such goals as providing substantial student scholarship support. As a simple and straightforward way to endow the long-term future of the school, we are launching a bequest program during 2006–07.

PLANNED GIVING. A “planned gift” is simply any gift that requires planning. As a donor, you can make such a gift in a number of ways that can provide benefits for you and your family as well as for Conway, including a bequest, life income gifts, charitable remainder trusts, and charitable gift annuities. We invite you to consider taking steps to accomplish your personal, family, and philanthropic goals through gift planning that will also help ensure the continuation of CSLD. We are available to assist you in your planning. In particular, we urge you to make a bequest to Conway.

Bequests are the easiest planned gift to accomplish. Without parting with a current asset, and regardless of your age, you can include the Conway School of Landscape Design in your will.

You can use any asset. A charitable bequest has many

CONWAY BEQUEST PROGRAM.

tuition-based income and non-tuition based income.

Tuition revenue covers approximately 70-75% of annual operating costs with the balance accounted for by non-tuition-based resources. These other resources include contributions made to the annual fund and reimbursement fees from student projects.

At the core of the non-tuition revenue stream are the contributions made during the annual fund drive.

It can be said without question that this fundraising campaign is the primary vehicle for closing the 2530% gap between tuition revenue and the balance of operating expenses. Fortunately, CSLD is blessed with committed friends and alums, whose continued generosity and devotion allows the current graduate students to be immersed in a truly authentic and diverse learning environment—the Conway experience. Over the course of the school’s history this support has consistently grown so that today nearly 50% of our alums make regular annual contributions. This a remarkable

benefits as a planned gift, such as unlimited federal estate tax deductibility, confidentiality, simplicity, revocability, and minimal cost—and the knowledge that you will be making a valuable contribution to the school and the field of sustainable landscape design and planning.

Your bequest to Conway can take several forms, the simplest being an unconditional outright gift, or a gift of all or a portion of the assets remaining after specific bequests have been made (a residuary gift). You may also make a bequest designated for the Conway endowment, under which CSLD will invest your gift when received in its endowment fund and can credit the interest to the annual fund each year in your name.

Educational institutions with planned giving programs have found that a substantial portion of the gifts they receive comes in the form of bequests. At least three alums and three friends of the school have already made bequests to Conway and one alum has named Conway as the beneficiary of an annuity. (See Con’text, fall 2005.) By naming Conway as a beneficiary in your will or making other planned gifts to the school, you will be helping ensure the school’s stability for carrying out its important mission effectively into the future.

Please contact Nancy Braxton if you have made a bequest to Conway or wish to do so, or for other planned giving information. As with any gift to the school, a request for anonymity will be honored. nebraxton@csld.edu; 413-369-4044 x 5.

feat, not often achieved by even the largest or most prestigious universities in this country. It also serves as one of the best indicators of the level of emotional commitment people have to this institution and the values it represents. There are countless other reasons for contributing towards the advancement of the school, and it is proving especially important in a time in history when the voices of modern-day environmental prophets are becoming louder and stronger. The approach to teaching the communication of design for the land and communities that is practiced at the school is needed now more than ever.

It is often said in fundraising circles that donors get excited about seeing things being built at a college, museum, or other non-profit institution and that this encourages healthy levels of giving. One could argue that the converse of this can be true at the Conway School of Landscape Design by working towards the idea that people can get excited about what the school

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builds as a community and for the community. This simple statement celebrates one of the most remarkable aspects of the school. Unlike other educational institutions, CSLD chooses to manifest itself almost entirely through a body of project work produced at a professional level that continues to serve countless individuals and communities; and through thirty-five years of graduates manifesting sustainable design and planning goals in their communities around the country and in other parts of the world—our shared legacy.

Small is beautiful indeed!

We need your support to achieve the board-established goal of $76,500 in unrestricted giving in order to balance the budget this year. Although ambitious, the early response to the FY ’07 annual fund appeal makes us certain that this goal is attainable. Please join those who have responded! Send your gift in the enclosed envelope, or you can make a credit card donation on our website (www.csld.edu) through PayPal. You may also receive a call from a class agent, classmate, or alum during one of several phonathons to be held this year. Thank you in advance for supporting Conway’s 2006-07 programs through your generous donation!

Like the mighty maple, the Conway School has been spreading its seeds for well over thirty years, and a veritable forest of alums has formed. To cultivate and nurture this forest, CSLD has formed an Alumni Association. All graduates are de facto members of the association. The association will help in keeping friendships alive, in cultivating life-long learning, and in identifying ways to insure the longevity of the school. Volunteers wanting to re-engage with CSLD and formalize the rigors of volunteer work, annual support, and future initiatives of the school are the core of the alumni association: the class agents. Two class agents from each class past and from each year forward are invited to represent fellow classmates and maintain a vital connection to the school and each other.

The alumni association and class agents are supported in their efforts to keep the Conway connection alive by the board and staff of the school. Class agents are invited to be members of the development committee and are an inportant conduit between the school and individuals. Sue Crimmins ‘91 and Ian Hodgdon ‘06 are the current co-chairs of the alumni association and are invited guests at meetings of the board of trustees. Director of Development, Nancy

CSLD Invites You to Be a Class Agent Many alums have already volunteered to be class agents and to assist in maintaining the vital connection among classmates and to the Conway experience. If you are interested in joining them, please contact Nancy Braxton at 413-369-4044 x5 or nebraxton@csld.edu.

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N.T. Lasoff ‘05

Conway Alumni Association Taking Root

Class agents at fall meeting: Kate Kerivan ‘84; Chuck Schnell ‘01; Will Waldron ‘88; Ian Hodgdon ‘06; Amy Craig ‘93; and Cindy Tavernise ‘99.

Braxton, and Alumni Services Coordinator, Ilze Meijers, provide the association and class agents with staff support.

The alumni association is in the seedling stage with many grand heights and ideas awaiting its future. As part of this budding initiative, the class agents will be like stewards of the forest, assisting with the school’s growth and helping to coordinate events that cultivate alums and others in the continuation of the CSLD experience, whether it be a reunion, an employment opportunity, a meeting with a prospective student, donor, or client, or a chance for professional growth.

—Ian Hodgdon & Sue Crimmins, Class Agent Co-chairs

Don't miss an opportunity to hear important news from the Alumni Association!

Send your email address to info@csld.edu.

Unknown Knowns How perilous is it to choose not to love the life we’re shown

BY KEN BYRNE

THE GENERALIZED FEELING OF EXHAUSTION so many of us feel these days may be less the result of physical exertion than the energy we spend repressing knowledge of a very awful future. Facts—global warming, the persistence of poverty, acid rain, drug-resistant illnesses, the melting icecaps and dead spots in the ocean, the loss of species—are presented, absorbed, and then forgotten, and we carry on as if. As if we will live forever, as if the world will continue as it is, as if things will be fine. We’re exhausted from knowing there are problems and we’re exhausted from the effort to act as if we don’t know. We carry on, on these two tracks, running two races, and it’s no wonder we’re tired.

This makes “knowledge” a problem because simply presenting the facts is not enough to initiate an alternative future. Do you remember what Donald Rumsfeld said about facts? “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” As the political philosopher Slavoj Zizek has pointed out, there is one combination that the Secretary of Defense did not mention, maybe did not realize he had left out: the unknown knowns.

These are the things we know, under the surface, but which in our daily lives of running around acting as if, we are apparently unaware of, the unpleasant facts that we hide away from ourselves.

The universe is nothing if not ironic, however, and the effort to repress facts, to act as if, tends to come back around and make things worse; the more we repress, the more anxious we are, the more guilty we feel, and the actions that follow create more reasons to be anxious and to be guilty.

For example: Let’s assume that those who buy very large, inefficient cars understand on some level that gas will run out, that wars are being and will be fought, and that there are some repercussions for the environment. Their anxieties about the future, which they feel

unable to control, make them want a safe car. Things may get bad, but they and their families will be safe.

But the reality is that larger cars are more dangerous; because they are less nimble, they avoid accidents much less often than small cars. Of course, they also create more oil dependency, environmental degradation, political instability—and more reasons to be anxious and want an even “safer” car. So here is a cycle of repressed guilt and anxiety translated into fear of a danger that is made more likely to happen because of the steps they take to be safe.

Another self-perpetuating cycle stems from a fear of solitude and helplessness, and anxiety over the loss of connection and community. Perhaps with repressed guilt over our complicity in the situation, we take actions to address the anxiety—comfort ourselves with material goods, move to gated communities with security guards and people who look just like us, seeking out protection from the wounds of being unmoored.

And the consequence is that we become even more alienated, alone, helpless, anxious, fearful of the world we have in our fear created. And so it goes.

These two fields (in whose intersection Conway graduates work)—Nature and Community—are marked by ambivalence: We long for them and we fear them. As with so many of our barely hidden anxieties, the ambivalence is expressed in horror movies. Godzilla serves as a stand-in for wounded nature, and so to our surprise we root for Godzilla, pleading: Punish us for what we’ve done! In other horror movies, zombies are the stand-in for the community we are separate from (the dispossessed, the poor, the scary stranger). And because they are zombies, not real people, we can root for their destruction.

In “Badgers,” Seamus Heaney speaks about the need to identify with what causes us anxiety. Badgers terrified him when he was a child, and as an adult he still felt a shiver of disgust and fear when he saw “the bogey of fern country” suddenly appear from the darkness: Continued on page 26

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The Great River Road Trip This fall, Conway students, accompanied by core faculty Paul Cawood Hellmund and Ken Byrne, took a nine-day trip within the Connecticut River watershed, during which they were introduced to the themes and methods that they would be working with throughout the year. The group began in Conway, headed south to the mouth of the river in Connecticut, and then traveled back through the Pioneer Valley on their way to the headwaters at the Connecticut Lakes in New Hampshire. Along the way, they met with thirty-eight professionals, including designers, ecologists, conservationists, planners, community activists, business representatives, and government officials.

They saw projects in all stages of development, in different kinds of environments, and at many scales. Upon their return, the students wrote about some aspect of their experience. The papers featured here reflect two types of experience: in the city and in the forest.

From a drawing by Ben Groves ‘06

Two Approaches to Reconnecting with a River in Hartford, Connecticut Learning in the City

BY KATHY CONNOR ‘07 The road trip that the CSLD class of ’07 took this year was focused on studying the Connecticut River from its mouth on Long Island Sound to the headwaters straddling the Canadian border. The river travels over four hundred miles through woods, farmland, exurban and urban settings. In Hartford, Connecticut we were introduced to two very different approaches to bringing a city back to its rivers. The first way is a grassroots effort to create a green corridor along the Park River. The second way is a large scale landscape engineering effort headed up by the non-profit organization, Riverfront Recapture.

North Park River

When we arrived in Hartford, we met Mary V. Rickel Pelletier who is involved with parkriver.org. The Park River is a tributary of the Connecticut River.

Parkriver.org is a network of individuals, community groups and regional environmental organizations working towards protecting waterways throughout the Park River watershed.

Mary took us on a walking tour of neighborhoods

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near the North Park River in a historical part of the city. As we walked along busy streets, I noticed that there were apartments and multi-family housing.

Public access to the river comes in the form of small areas of naturalized land located beside the river.

Mary referred to them as urban wild areas. Having city-owned wild areas around the river is problematic, because often there is no sense of community ownership. Many such wild areas seem abandoned, and people dump trash there. Mary pointed to a large pile of decomposing grass clippings as we walked beside one wild area and remarked on the irony of landscaping companies who cut grass and then dump the clippings in wild areas, which then causes abutters to want the land developed so that the new homeowner can hire a company who will cut the grass and look for a place to dump it. This cycle might be interrupted if the city had funds to maintain the riverside wild places, but it doesn’t. Hartford is not a wealthy city, so the opportunity to sell a wild area to someone who will pay taxes and maintain the property is difficult to turn down.

One solution to the urban wild space dilemma is to encourage public use. This could be done by linking the wild areas with each other to create a greenway along the river. The greenway would give city residents an opportunity to enjoy the river in a natural setting.

This is one of the goals of parkriver.org. But the challenge to financing the greenway creation is getting entire neighborhoods and riverfront property owners

Architect/planner Mary V. Rickel Pelletier showed the potential of Hartford’s urban wilds to provide city residents an opportunity to enjoy the river.

cityscape sights. The bottom level is crowned by a tentlike structure with an interesting asymmetrical shape, which serves to frame the magnificent view of the river from each level. Events are held there. A sight-seeing cruise boat is docked some steps away. Visitors and downtown office workers can walk to and across the river to reach their office buildings, hotels, restaurants and a convention center. The river and the city complement each other in this sleek, urban riverside setting, which encourages pedestrians with broad, smooth, well-lit walkways. Hartford is pinning its hopes on the riverwalk project to bring much-needed revenue to the city from visitors and residents. Bill explained that the project is being done in phases since it is a huge effort.

When it is completed, the riverwalk will link large Riverside Park to the north to the Colt Park/Charter Oak area to the south with the pavilion and plaza.

Conclusion

Connecticut River

We met next with Bill Richter, alum of CSLD and a principal landscape architect with Richter and Cegan Inc. He took us to see downtown Hartford’s Riverwalk. The riverwalk is a carefully engineered and constructed elevated hardscape of retaining walls and walkway. Large planters integrated into the walkway hold grasses. Next to and below it flows the Connecticut River. Bill explained that the entire riverwalk and pavilion is designed to be submerged because the river floods several times a year. I thought this was fascinating, because it put the engineering efforts into making the man-made structures cope with the river’s nature rather than the reverse as has happened so often in the past.

We stopped to eat lunch (provided by Bill) near the Riverside Pavilion. The interstate vaults across the river close by. The pavilion is terraced with stairs leading to the plaza above, and each level has walls that serve as benches and bollards lining the edges. An integrated promenade encourages people to cross the river from the plaza at the top level and take in some great

Priscilla Miner ‘07

invested in the river. It is one of those problems where you need to gather momentum to make things happen.

To begin meeting that challenge, Mary will be leading a walking tour of the Park River to discuss the past and the future of the Park River later this fall. The tour is called appropriately enough, “A River Runs through Hartford—Who Knew?”

These two approaches to reuniting Hartford to its rivers offer an interesting contrast in both end result and methodology. One intends to encourage nature back into the urban riverside setting while the other uses the riverside setting as a playground and backdrop. One is an engineering marvel that celebrates its urban center location while the other will be a restful retreat from the urban setting. Despite their differences, however, both strongly encourage city residents to get acquainted with the rivers. I believe that the proponents of both projects are hoping that for Hartford: to know the river is to care about the river.

Bill Richter ’77 showed the class his work on Bushnell Park (here) and downtown Hartford’s Riverwalk, a carefully engineered and constructed elevated hardscape of retaining walls and walkway adjacent to the Connecticut River.

The Riverwalk is designed to be submerged because the river floods several times a year.

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The Forest Classroom

BY NICKO RUBIN ’07 Our Connecticut River Road Trip began in the classroom here at the Conway School. Geologist Richard Little gave a very well assembled PowerPoint presentation. I struggled to keep up with the rapid stream of data and his razor-sharp wit. When the presentation was done, I had a few pages of notes and a vague grasp of what I had just learned. We soon piled into the vans and headed into the landscape, where we could experience and understand the patterns described to us in class; river terraces, tectonic rebound, and armored mudballs all became tangible and meaningful phenomena. During our nine-day trip up and down the Connecticut River, I was fortunate to attend class regularly outside of the classroom and often in the woods.

Repeatedly, I found myself involved in exciting learning experiences as the forest provides a unique set of classroom conditions. Guided walks in the woods offered new sets of challenges and opportunities as we made our way first south and then north along the Connecticut River Valley. The effectiveness of the forest classroom may hold particularly well for those subjects connected most directly to the forest itself, but the benefits are not limited to these subjects. On our trip we held class in the woods with John O'Keefe in the Harvard Forest, and again with Tom Wessels in Vernon, Vermont. At various other forest sites along the way, we were joined by foresters, ecologists, and conservationists. Throughout the trip, the forest was demonstrated to be an ideal classroom space.

Upon our first venture into the woods, while still in Conway, Kim Erslev and Bill Lattrell advised us to use all of our senses in our observation of the woods. After briefly discussing a few basic ecological concepts with which to engage our surrounding landscape, Kim directed us to draw. Given the directive to draw, it is easy to focus attention on only what I see in front of me. My natural tendency is not to heighten my listening, my awareness of physical sensation, or smell, but rather the opposite; however, the richness and complexity of the forest environment begs a deeper sensitivity. Relative to a conventional indoor classroom setting, where information is directed from a source in front of class, be it a teacher or television, to the attentive students, the forest bombards the student with raw

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information, coming in to all senses from all sides. The entire landscape can become the educator. Practicing use of a broader range of our sensitive capacity can be a powerful tool for learning in the forest. In addition to educational benefits in the forest, this practice of sensitivity, honed in the forest, translates to benefits in other spheres as well.

Drawing in the forest context is one way to find this sensitivity. It encourages observation and connection to one’s surroundings. The practice of drawing can assist a shift in awareness, away from language and symbolic interpretation to a more holistic perspective. Betty Edwards quotes a neurosurgeon in her book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, “your left brain is your verbal and rational brain; it thinks serially and reduces its thoughts to numbers, letters, and words... Your right brain is your non-verbal and intuitive brain; it thinks in patterns or pictures composed of ‘whole things.’” (Edwards 1999) This assessment may be a bit of a generalization, but it describes a valuable phenomenon. Drawing engages the non-verbal brain and allows for a different type of learning to take place.

The sensitivity to one’s surroundings, so useful to learning in the forest, can be gained through the practice of drawing. One is opened up to the possible teaching that the forest landscape can provide.

Walking through the forest with a class of fifteen others inevitably provides opportunities for the students to become teachers themselves. The sheer variety of information the forest presents allows for individual strengths to come to the fore. One student may delight in ornithology, another in plant identification; all become valuable resources to the class as a whole. The very newness of the experience to one student may cause a shift in the perspective of those more seasoned.

Methods of drawing, note taking, and observing also become subjects shared between students in the forest.

The combined role of student and instructor allowed in the forest provides an additional layer of educational possibility not always present in typical classroom settings.

Walking in the black gum swamp in Vernon, Vermont, Tom Wessels pushed us to observe the forest as deeply as possible. While Wessels led the class through the forest, the contrast between the typical educational setting and the environment became crystal clear. As an ecologist with a specialization in “forest forensics,” he challenged us to question every element of our surroundings. Wessels handled the forest classroom

The final stop on our Great River Road Trip was a small pond at the headwaters of the Connecticut River right along the border between Canada and New Hampshire. We were set loose on the trail, one of the few times we had no sort of arranged guide, free to walk on our own. We had by now received the tools to lead ourselves in learning from the landscape. Walking through the northern forest classroom, we listened to the forest for answers to our own questions.

Priscilla Miner ‘07

expertly; he led the class comfortably and chose his stops carefully, in such a way that everyone could see, hear, and understand. Through brief lectures, he gave us bits of information about history and ecology, then asked questions best answered by observation of the forest. The bits of data served as tools with which to probe deeper, question, and comprehend the forest landscape; they were not the ends in themselves.

The forest came alive as an active teaching element.

Suddenly, what had been only a curved tree became a precious indicator of one hundred years of forest history, elucidating a few of the infinite patterns of change in the forest. A tree blows down in a long forgotten storm and provides exposed earth for a white birch seedling to emerge; the mound of the stump settles, and the young birch shifts; while it had set out on the most direct path to the light of the canopy, it now must change its course, and we can know this simply by observing its pattern of growth. After only a few moments in the forest with Wessels, literally every aspect of the forest landscape became an instructor in the patterns and processes of change in the forest.

Throughout the Connecticut River Road Trip, the forest was demonstrated to be an ideal classroom space, as when John O'Keefe made forest dynamics come alive at Harvard Forest.

Landscape Design across Scales | continued from page 9

and have been so encouraging. Orr sees patterns across scale and makes connections between the local and the global. In his talk here at homecoming last summer (see page 22), he masterfully tied global climate change to coal mining in Appalachia, and the impacts of Katrina on a heavily modified Gulf coast landscape.

Ecological or sustainable landscape design, in the eyes of such visitors and of the Conway community, is broad and potentially powerful. It has solved pressing environmental problems and has capitalized on important opportunities. It’s much more than merely arranging pea gravel and petunias, or any other conventional sense of landscape design. But even when it does include arranging pea gravel and petunias, it’s done with an awareness across time and space that contributes to landscape integrity and health, an awareness that asks, “How will this place function in the future? How will it effect and be affected by its environs?”

Others too are catching this broader vision for landscape design. Scientists William Laurance and Claude Gascon, for example, have suggested that there should be creative ways of guiding landscape fragmentation by developing guidelines for landscape design—their

words—that would encourage retaining those elements of the landscape that are most ecologically important.1 With a similar frame of reference, USDA Forest Service employees Nancy Diaz and Dean Apostol wrote a guide entitled Forest Landscape Analysis and Design.2 This broader sense of landscape design enables a person to see and work across scales, to make connections between seemingly small landscape actions and global problems, and to design accordingly. Through her or his own practice, a sustainable landscape designer is acknowledging the “letters from home.”

The designer’s careful process, the analysis of the needs of people and nature, respond to these letters. Effective design is the result, design that is backed up by something substantial, careful analysis and creative synthesis—and the life work—of the designer.

It’s hard to imagine a more noble or urgently needed profession.

1. How to Creatively Fragment a Landscape, William F. Laurance, Claude Gascon, Conservation Biology, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), pp. 577-579 2. Nancy Diaz and Dean Apostol (1992) U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, R6 ECO-TP-043-92. Available from http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/flad/

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Conway Inaugurates New Director and Celebrates Homecoming

David Brooks Andrews

THREE MONTHS AFTER the Conway School’s homecoming weekend and inauguration of its third director, Paul Cawood Hellmund, the words of keynote speaker and honorary degree recipient, David Orr, are fresh in my mind. “We are, all of us, looking down the barrel.

We have to see the world as it is,” said Orr. “And in so doing, and in taking action now, our descendants will see that this was our finest hour.”

My return to the Conway School this past August was filled with inspiration about the school, its mission, the people there, and my own commitment to good work in landscape design. I moved tables, shared stories, listened to lectures, connected with old friends, and made new ones. I celebrated our new director, Paul Hellmund, and learned a bit about the school’s direction from chair of the board of trustees, Art Collins ’79, and vice chair, Bill Richter ’77. A new chapter has opened at Conway, and years from now, looking back, the August 12 weekend, 2006, will mark the official start of this era.

Still, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of what I love about Conway remains, despite important changes of location and leadership. We were not in the barn on Delabarre Avenue, of course, and the new campus is different, perched on a mountain overlooking the rolling countryside. But now that

David Orr receives an honorary degree from Board Chair Art Collins ‘79 and Director Paul Cawood Hellmund.

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David Brooks Andrews

BY SELINA ROSSITER ‘02

Paul Cawood Hellmund greets a well-wisher at his inauguration.

it is filled with trace paper, the library, the chore wheel, and site analyses left behind, the feeling is much the same.

The weekend was kicked off on Friday by an invitational evening to A Conversation with David Orr, as a way of thanking the school’s major donors, new class agents, trustees, and the inaugural committee. We sat in a circle of chairs in the library. (Surely a sign of a CSLD homecoming, if there ever was one!) Paul made some brief welcoming remarks and then opened a dialogue between the assembled and Dr. Orr, Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College.

David Orr stressed the need for having plans for winning the environmental challenge facing us, plans setting forth “the vision of a decent, self-sustaining future at the community level.” As part of the lively exchange with him, Conway participants were able to see ourselves as part of the movement that he encouraged, the movement of trying to recover a larger sense of ourselves and humanity through our work at the school and in support of its visionary, sustainable planning and design of the land.

As we pondered important questions such as, What’s the role of ecology in a city? How can we facilitate food production in our local communities?

I was reminded of the hours, weeks, and months as a student, where I had the blissful luxury of talking, writing, thinking, exploring, and reading about things that matter to me.

For me, on this weekend attended by more than 125 alums and friends of the school, I was buoyed once again by what is intangible at CSLD: the notion of belonging to a community of people who share a world perspective—a connectedness to and responsibility for the earth. On Saturday morning, David Orr’s keynote talk, Landscapes and Inconvenient Truths, (see page 22) highlighting his recent on-site opportunities to review environmental calamities in West Virginia and post-Katrina New Orleans in the light of global climate change, was a thought-provoking and inspiring call to action. He also emphasized the need for “sustainable hope”—to keep confidence in the future of our planet alive in the face of the formidable environmental emergency confronting us today. And he honored Conway with his view that there is “enormous fecundity at the rural level” and that the needed “revolution will happen in places with long names and small buildings—like [the Conway School of Landscape Design].”

At the conclusion of his talk, David Orr lauded the school’s selection of Paul Cawood Hellmund as its third director and congratulated Paul on the creative leadership he has already provided during his first year.

Board Chair Art Collins ‘79 and Paul then presented David Orr with an Honorary Degree in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design, the first such degree the school has awarded.

The morning session was rounded out by Bill

David Brooks Andrews

Sandy Ross

Walt Cudnohufsky leads workshop on design principles.

Richter’s progress report on the school’s facility and campus master plans currently being undertaken by the architectural firm Moser Pilon Nelson and landscape architectural firm Richter & Cegan (see page 6).

Saturday afternoon workshops were offered as part of the homecoming. I spent two hours in former humanity professor Maureen Buchanan Jones’ creative writing workshop. By looking carefully and writing about pinecones and maps that Maureen had brought in, I celebrated the natural world and exercised my writing muscles and imagination. As ever, I was engaged by conversations with faculty, friends, prospective students, and alums.

In other workshops, participants discussed career building with Annette Shultz ’71 and explored principles of landscape design with Walt Cudnohufsky, Founder and Director 1972–1992. Some chose to travel off site to practice landscape sketching with Cindy Tavernise ’99 and others walked the CSLD campus on a site tour with Don Walker, Director 1992–2005.

Board chair Art Collins ’79 facilitated a conversation about the future direction of CSLD and David Buchanan ’00 led a workshop on food gardens focused on the role of food production in sustainable landscape design. Sharing the folklore of the native and naturalized plants, Del Orloske’05 led a “walk and talk” for children through various habitats near the school. As always, Conway asked everyone present to stretch their minds and participate in a festive exchange of ideas.

Cindy Tavernise ’99 helps Greg Salzman ’06 with a sketch.

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David Brooks Andrews

Carla Cooke ’92 and Ann Sinclair ’93 investigate creative writing in Maureen Buchanan Jones’s workshop.

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David Brooks Andrews

Don Walker leads alums and friends on an exploration of the campus.

in the school are tangible. In his remarks, Paul recognized that CSLD is a small school in a small town so it is an unsuspected powerhouse, whose mission is ever more critical. He noted that, to the uninformed, landscape design may be mostly about petunias, but it is more centrally about keeping the human and natural landscape connected; it is about preserving the habitability of the planet. David Orr was right, our finest hour is ahead of us, and there is no time like the present to act. With Paul Hellmund leading the way, CSLD is certain to be leading the charge.

David Brooks Andrews

As the day wound down, we gathered under a tent to inaugurate Paul Hellmund as the new director of CSLD. Less inauguration than family reunion, and fresh from a day of study together, it was with enthusiasm and appreciation that we officially welcomed Paul and his family to the school. Petersham resident C. Dana Tomlin, a former professor of Paul’s at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and now a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Landscape Architecture, addressed the crowd. He offered affectionate reminiscences of Paul and did not pass up the opportunity to give some friendly advice concerning the building of trails, both physical and metaphorical. Tomlin was followed by Jill Ker Conway, author and Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, President of Smith College (1975-1985). A Conway resident and neighbor of the school, Ker Conway recognized CSLD’s important role in the town. “The Pioneer Valley is threatened by the pressure to straighten out our roads—to enable faster truck transport—which threatens the trees and streams that give these roads their curves and their charm...We know [Paul] will be a resource not only for the school—but also for the community. We welcome him and all he brings to his new role—in an institution which sits at the heart of our community here in Conway.”

Ker Conway was on the mark. Paul’s commitment to sustainable design and his enthusiasm for and belief

Amy Klippenstein ’95 and David Buchanan ’00

Special Thanks CSLD is indebted to the many planners, organizers, and volunteers who made the festive celebration of the school’s homecoming and inauguration possible. Hearty thanks to the Homecoming and Inauguration Committee for all the pieces you orchestrated: Coordinator Jen Luck ’00, Kirsten Baringer ’04, Madeline Charney ’03, Clémence Corriveau ’02, Amy Klippenstein ’95, Del Orloske ’05, and Selina Rossiter ’02. Many thanks to Jen Luck, Nancy Braxton and Ilze Meijers for their exceptional organization! Special thank yous to David Andrews, Carla Cooke ’92, Andy Cawood Hellmund, Joan Cawood Hellmund, Noah Cawood Hellmund, Sarah Hills ’07, Ian Hodgdon ’06, Wendy Ingram ’98, Kristin Nelson ’05, Sue Reed ’87, Sandy Ross ’05, Johanna Stacy ’05, and Janna Thompson ’06 for volunteering their help on the day itself with registration and of-the-hour tasks. Special thanks, also, to Tara Hobby, the Greenfield Savings Bank in Conway, and the Conway Grammar School, for making their parking areas available during the day’s events.

And a warm thank you to those who took the time to prepare and lead workshops: David Buchanan ’00, Art Collins ’79, Walt Cudnohufsky, Maureen Buchanan Jones, Del Orloske ’05, Annette Shultz ’71, Cindy Tavernise ’99, and Don Walker ’79.

Jill Ker Conway, a resident of Conway, is an author and visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was president of Smith College from 1975 to1985.

TODAY WE ARE CELEBRATING THE INTERSECTION of two stories—the story of an institution founded thirty years ago by critics of established tradition in landscape design, and the story of a talented individual whose career has been built around ecological design and conservation planning.

The institution has, from its earliest days, built its program around understanding the interaction of natural and human social and cultural systems. Its students take pride in finding the meeting place and balance between a community’s desires for its landscape and the ecological balance that produces a sustainable natural environment. This means that the school’s graduates are experts, without a doubt, but experts with a professional ethos very different from the doctrinaire theoretician designer, who brings her or his vision to impose on the project.

Instead, they are experts at understanding human desires and finding the way to express them in ecologically sound design. So it’s an occasion of great celebration to see the ways in which Paul Hellmund’s career has given him such a remarkable preparation to lead the next iteration of the school and its educational philosophy. His professional life has spanned many different schools and environmental settings: the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Harvard, Colorado, Virginia Polytechnic, and the US National Park Service—all experiences which can be brought to bear on the fresh challenges graduates will face in these times when even the most skeptical naysayers are coming to accept the reality of global warming.

He comes back to this important institution in the Pioneer Valley at a critical time, when our landscape is threatened as never before by development, when our woods and hills represent a major segment of the remaining forest in a state where development is mov-

ing steadily west, and where the pressure to straighten out our roads—to enable faster truck transport— threatens the trees and streams that give these roads their curves and their charm. To deal with these challenges, we all need an education on how to think about design in relation to conservation, and we all need the enlarged perspective of region and nodal points for wildlife movement if we are to act as good stewards of the beauty of western Massachusetts.

So we greet him on this day of celebration—grateful for the achievements of this school and its founders, proud of the contributions of its graduates to a better balance between human community and ecological health, and hopeful for the knowledge and insight he and the institution he now leads will bring us in the future.

We know he will be a resource not only for the school—but for the community. We welcome him and all he brings to his new role in an institution that sits at the heart of our community here in Conway.

David Brooks Andrews

David Brooks Andrews

From Inaugural Speaker, Jill Ker Conway

Jill Kerr Conway, inaugural speaker, visits with guests following the inauguration.

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The Carbon Connection

BY DAVID W. ORR

David Brooks Andrews

David Orr chairs the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College.

He is the author of Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect, other books, and more than one hundred articles. He is the recipient of the Bioneers Award and the Lyndhurst Prize. Dr. Orr was awarded CSLD’s first honorary degree at Homecoming 2006.

This essay is based, in part, on Dr. Orr’s address at Homecoming 2006, Landscapes and Inconvenient Truths, in which he not only discussed the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina and by the channeling of the Mississippi as well as the environmental impact of coal mining in West Virginia and Kentucky, but also global warming and Wal-Mart.

HAVING SEEN PICTURES OF THE DEVASTATION did not prepare me for the reality of New Orleans. Mile after mile of wrecked houses, demolished cars, piles of debris, twisted and downed trees, and dried mud everywhere.

We stopped every so often to look into abandoned houses in the ninth ward and along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain to see things close up: mud lines on the walls, overturned furniture, moldy clothes still hanging in closets, broken toys, a lens from a pair of glasses… once cherished and useful objects rendered into junk.

Each house with a red circle painted on the front to indicate results of the search for bodies. Some houses showed the signs of desperation: holes punched through ceilings as people tried to escape rising water.

The smell of musty decay was everywhere, overlaid with an oily stench. Despair hung like Spanish moss in the dank, hot July air.

Ninety miles to the south, the Louisiana delta is rapidly sinking below the rising waters of the Gulf.

This is no “natural” process, but rather the result of decades of mismanagement of the lower Mississippi that became federal policy after the great flood of 1927. Sediment that built the richest and most fecund wetlands in the world is now deposited off the continental shelf—part of an ill-conceived effort to tame the river. The result is that the remaining wetlands, starved for sediment, are both eroding and compacting, sinking below the water and perilously close to no return.

Oil extraction has done most of the rest by cutting channels that crisscross the marshlands allowing the intrusion of salt water and storm surges. Wakes from boats have widened the original channels considerably, further unraveling the ecology of the region. The rich-

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est fishery in North America and a unique culture that once thrived in the delta are disappearing and with it the buffer zone that protects New Orleans from hurricanes. “Every 2.7 miles of marsh grass,” in Mike Tidwell’s words, “absorbs one foot of a hurricane’s storm surge.” (p.57) And the big hurricanes will come. Kerry Immanuel, an MIT scientist and once greenhouse skeptic, researched the connection between rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, warmer sea temperatures, and the severity of storms. He’s a skeptic no longer (Nature, August 4, 2005). The hard evidence on this and other parts of climate science have moved beyond the point of legitimate dispute. Carbon dioxide, the prime greenhouse gas, is at the highest level in at least the last 650,000 years. CO2 continues to accumulate by ~2.5+ parts per million per year, edging closer and closer to what some scientists believe is the threshold of runaway climate change. British scientist James Lovelock compares our situation to being on a boat upstream from Niagara Falls with the engines about to fail.

If this were not enough, the evidence now shows a strong likelihood that sea levels will rise more rapidly than previously thought. The third report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001) predicted about one meter rise in the twenty-first century, but more recent evidence puts this figure at six to seven meters, the result of accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet and polar ice along with the thermal expansion of water (Science, March 24, 2006).

Nine hundred miles to the northeast, as a sober crow would fly it, Massey Energy, Inc., Arch Coal, and

other companies are busy leveling the mountains of Appalachia to get at the upper seams of coal in what was one of the most diverse and relatively undisturbed forests in the US and one of the most diverse ecosystems anywhere. Throughout the coalfields of West Virginia and Kentucky, they have already leveled 456 mountains across 1.5 million acres and intend to damage a good bit more. Coal is washed on site leaving billions of gallons of a dilute, asphalt-like gruel laced with toxic flocculants and heavy metals. An estimated 225 such containment ponds are located over abandoned mines in West Virginia held back from the communities below only by earthen dams prone to failure either by collapse or by draining down through old mine tunnels that honeycomb the region. One did in October 11, 2000 in Martin County, Kentucky when the slurry broke through a thin layer of shale and into mines and out into hundreds of miles of streams and rivers. The result was the permanent destruction of waterways and property values of people living in the wake of an ongoing and mostly ignored disaster. This is typical of the coal fields. They are a third-world colony within the United States, a national sacrifice zone in which fairness, decency, and the rights of old and young alike are discarded as so much overburden on behalf of the national obsession with “cheap” electricity. For his role in trying to enforce even the flimsy laws that might have held Massey Energy slightly accountable for its flagrant and frequent malfeasances, the Bush administration tried unsuccessfully to fire Jack Spadaro from his position as a mine safety inspector in the Interior Department, but eventually forced him to retire.

Jack is in the first plane to take off from Yeager field in Charleston along with the chief attorney for the largest corporation in the world. Hume Davenport, founder of Southwings, Inc. is the pilot of the four-seat Cessna. The other planes carry more executives from Wal-Mart. We are headed to Kayford Mountain. The ground recedes below us as we pass over Charleston and the Kanawha River lined with barges hauling coal to power plants along the Ohio River and points more distant. Quickly, on the horizon to the west appears the John Amos plant owned by American Electric Power that, by one estimate, releases more mercury into the environment than any other facility in the US as well as hundreds of tons of sulfur oxides, hydrogen sulfide, and CO2. For a few minutes, we can see the deep green of wrinkled Appalachian hills below, but

very soon the first of the mountaintop removal sites appears. It is followed by another and then another.

The pattern of ruin spreads out below us for many miles stretching to the far horizon on all points of the compass. From a mile above, trucks with twelve-foot diameter tires and drag lines that could pick up two Greyhound buses at a single bite look like Tonka toys in a sandbox. What is left of Kayford Mountain comes into sight. It is surrounded by leveled mountains and a few still being leveled. “Overburden,” the mining industry term for dismantled mountains, is dumped into valleys covering hundreds of miles of streams— an estimated 1,500 miles in the past twenty-five years.

Many more miles will be buried if the coal companies have their way. Coal slurry ponds loom above houses, towns, and even elementary schools. When the earthen dams break on some dark, rainy night, those below will have little if any warning before the deluge hits.

Jack Spadaro is our guide to the devastation. He is a heavy set, rumpled, and bearded man with the knack for describing outrageous things calmly and with clinical precision. A mining engineer by profession, he spent several frustrating decades trying to enforce the laws, such as they are, against an industry with friends in high places in Charleston, Congress, and the White House. In a flat, unemotional monotone, he describes what we are seeing below. Aside from the destruction of the Appalachian forest, the math is all wrong. The slopes are too steep, the impoundments too large. The angles of slope, dam, weight, and proximity of houses and towns are the geometry of tragedies to come. He points out the Marsh Fork elementary school situated close to a coal loading operation and below a huge impoundment back up the hollow. In the event of a dam failure, the evacuation plan calls for the principal, using a bull horn, to initiate the evacuation of the children ahead of the fifty-foot wall of slurry that will be moving at maybe sixty miles an hour. If all works according the official evacuation plan, they will have two minutes to get to safety, but there is no safe place for them to go. And so it is in the coal fields—ruin at a scale for which I have no adequate words—ecological devastation to the far horizon of topography and time.

We say that we are fighting for democracy elsewhere, but no one in Washington or Charleston seems aware that we long ago deprived some of our own of the rights to life, liberty, and property.

On the circle back to Yeager field in Charleston, Tom Hyde, a corporate attorney, calls this a “tragedy.”

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Š Vivian Stockman, www.ohvec.org, used with permission. Thanks also to SouthWings, Inc.

We all nod knowing the word does not quite describe the enormity of the things we’ve just seen or the coldblooded nature of it. In our one hour flight we saw maybe one percent of the destruction now metastasizing through four states. Until recently, it was all but ignored by the national media. But we have known of the costs of mining at least since Harry Caudill published Night Comes to the Cumberlands in 1963, but we have yet to summon the moral energy to resolve the problem or pay the full costs of the allegedly cheap electricity that we use.

Under the hot afternoon sun, we board a fifteenperson van to drive out to the edge of the coal fields to see what it looks like on the ground. On the way to Kayford Mountain, we take the interstate south from Charleston and exit at a place called Sharon onto winding roads that lead to mining country. Trailer parks, small evangelical churches, truck repair shops, and small, often lovingly tended houses line the road intermixed with those abandoned long ago when underground mining jobs disappeared. The two-lane paved road turns to gravel and climbs toward the top of the hollow and Kayford Mountain. Within a mile or two, the first valley fill appears. It is a green V-shaped insertion between wooded hills. Reading the signs made by water coursing down its face, Jack Spadaro

notes that this one will soon fail. Valley fills are mountains turned upside down: rocky mining debris, trees illegally buried, along with what many locals believe to be more sinister things brought in by unmarked trucks in the dead of night. He adds that some valley fills may contain as much as five hundred million tons of blasted mountains and run for as long as six miles.

We ascend the slope toward Kayford, passing by the no trespassing signs that appear around the gate that leads to the mining operations.

Larry Gibson, a diminutive, bulldog of a man fighting for his land, meets us at the summit, really a small peak on what was once a long ridge. The family has been operating a small coal mine on Kayford since the eighteenth century. Larry is the proverbial David fighting Goliath, but he has no slingshot unless it is that of moral authority spoken with a fierce, inborn eloquence. Those traits and the raw courage he shows every day have made Larry a poster child for the movement with his picture in Vanity Fair, National Geographic, and other newsstand magazines. Larry’s land has been saved so far because he made forty acres of it into a park and has fought tooth and nail to save it from the lords of Massey Energy. They have leveled nearly everything around him and have punched holes underneath Kayford because the mineral rights below and the ownership of the surface were long ago separated in a shameless scam perpetrated on illiterate and trusting mountain people.

Larry describes what has happened using a model of the area that comes apart more or less like the mountains around him have been dismantled. As he talks he illustrates what has happened by taking the model apart piece

Containment ponds, held back from the communities below only by earthen dams, are the geometry of tragedies to come.

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by piece, leaving the top of Kayford rather like a knob sticking up amidst the encircling devastation. So warned, we walk down the country lane to witness the advancing ruin. Fifteen of us stood for maybe a half an hour on the edge of the abyss watching giant bulldozers and trucks at work below us. Plumes of dust from the operations rise up several thousand feet. The next set of explosive charges is ready to go on an area about the size of a football field. Every day, some three million pounds of explosives are used in the eleven counties south of Charleston. This is a war zone. The mountains are the enemy, profits from coal the prize, and the local residents and all those who might have otherwise lived here or would have been re-created here are the collateral damage.

We try to wrap our minds around what we are seeing, but words do no justice to the enormity of it. The oldest mountains on Earth are being turned into gravel for a pittance; their ecologies radically simplified, forever. Perhaps as a defense mechanism from feeling too much or being overwhelmed by what we’ve seen, we talk about lesser things. In the late afternoon drive back to Charleston, we pass by the coal-loading facilities along the Kanawha River. Mile after mile of barges lined up to haul coal to hungry Ohio River power plants, the umbilical cord between mines, mountains, and us—the consumers of cheap electricity.

Over dinner that night, we hear from two residents of Mingo County who describe what it is like to live in the coalfields. Without forests to absorb rainwater, flashfloods are a normal occurrence. A three-inch rain can become a ten-foot wall of water cascading off the flattened mountains and down the hollows. The mining industry calls these “acts of God” and the thoroughly bought public officials agree, leaving the victims with no recourse. Groundwater is contaminated by coal slurry and the chemicals used to make coal suitable for utilities. Well water is so acidic that it dissolves pipes and plumbing fixtures. Cancer rates are off the charts, but few in Charleston or Washington care enough to notice. Coal companies are major buyers of politicians, and the head of Massey Energy, Donald Blankenship, has been known to spend lots of money to buy precisely the kind of representatives he likes—the sort that can accommodate themselves to exploitation of land and people and the profits to be made from it. His campaign to ravage the rest of West Virginia is titled “For the Sake of the Kids.”

Pauline and Carol from the town of Sylvester, both

in their seventies, are known as the “dust busters,” because they go around the town wiping down flat surfaces with white cloths that that are covered with coal dust from a nearby loading facility. At open hearings, these are presented as evidence of foul air to the irritated and unmovable servants of the people. Black lung and silicosis disease is now common among young and old alike, exposed to the dust from surface operations, but who have never set foot in a mine.

They have little or no voice in government; they are considered to be expendable. Pauline, a fiercely eloquent woman, whose husband was wounded and captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, rhetorically asks, “Is this what he fought for?”

The clock reads 9:30 pm; we quit for the day.

To permanently destroy millions of acres of Appalachia in order to extract maybe twenty years of coal is not just stupid, it is a derangement at a scale for which we as yet do not have adequate words, let alone the good sense and the laws to stop it. Unlike deep mining, mountaintop removal employs few workers. It is destroying the wonders of the mixed mesophytic forest of northern Appalachia once and for all, including habitat for dozens of endangered species. It contaminates groundwater with toxics and heavy metals and renders the land permanently uninhabitable and unusable. Glib talk of the economic potential of flatter places for commerce of one kind or another is just that: glib talk. Coal companies’ efforts to plant grass and a few trees here and there are like putting lipstick on a corpse. The fact of the matter is that one of the most diverse and beautiful ecosystems in the world is being destroyed and rendered uninhabitable forever along with the lives and culture of the people who have stayed behind in places like Sylvester and Kayford. We justify this on the grounds of necessity and cost. But virtually every competent independent study of energy use done in the past thirty years has concluded that we could cost-effectively eliminate half or more of our energy use and strengthen our economy, lower costs of asthma and lung disease, raise our standard of living, and improve environmental quality.

More complete accounting of the costs of coal would also include the rising tide of damage and insurance claims attributable to climate change. Some say that if we don’t burn coal the economy will collapse, and we will all have to go back to the caves. But with wind and solar power growing by more than 25 percent per year and the technology of energy efficiency advancing

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rapidly, we have good options that make burning coal unnecessary. And before long we will wish that we had not destroyed so much of the capacity of the Appalachian forests and soils to absorb the Carbon that makes for bigger storms and more severe heat waves and droughts.

No one in a position of authority in West Virginia politics, excepting that noble patriarch of good sense, Ken Hechler, asks the obvious questions. How far does the plume of heavy metals coming from coal-washing operations go down the Kanawha, Ohio, and Mississippi and into the drinking water of communities elsewhere? What other economy, based on the sustainable use of forests, non-timber products, eco-tourism, and human craft skills, might flourish in these hills? What is the true cost of “cheap” coal? Why do the profits from coal mining leave the state? Why is so much of the land owned by absentee corporations like the Pocahontas Land Company? Once you subtract the permanent ecological ruin and crimes against humanity, there really isn’t much to add as a country song once put it. Those touting “clean coal” ought to spend some time in the coalfields and talk to the residents in order to understand what those words really mean at the point of extraction. And for those who assume that the carbon from burning coal can be safely and permanently sequestered underground at an affordable cost, I have ocean front property to sell you in Arizona.

Nearly a thousand miles separates the coal fields of

West Virginia from the city of New Orleans and Gulf coast, yet they are a lot closer than that. The connection is Carbon. Coal is mostly Carbon and for every ton burned, 3.6 tons of CO2 eventually enters the atmosphere raising global temperatures, warming oceans, thereby creating bigger storms, melting ice, and raising sea levels. For every ton of coal extracted from the mountains, perhaps a hundred tons of what is tellingly called “overburden” is dumped, burying steams and filling the valleys and hollows of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. And between the hills of Appalachia and the sinking land of the Louisiana coast, tens of thousands of people living downwind from coal-fired power plants die prematurely each year from inhalation of small particles of smoke laced with heavy metals that penetrate deeply into lungs.

Like all life forms, we search out great pools of Carbon to perpetuate ourselves. It is our mismanagement of Carbon that threatens the human future, and this is an old story. Humans have long fought for the control of Carbon found in rich soils and deep forests and later in fossil fuels. The root of all evil does not begin with money, but with the Carbon in its various forms that money can buy. The exploitation of Carbon is the original sin leading quite possibly to the heat death of a great portion of life on Earth, including us.

This is what James Lovelock calls the revenge of Gaia which, if it comes to pass, will be hell on earth.

Unknown Knowns | continued from page 13

How perilous is it to choose not to love the life we’re shown?

His sturdy dirty body and interloping grovel.

The intelligence in his bone.

The unquestionable houseboy’s shoulders that could have been my own.

Presenting facts to audiences of all sorts is one aspect of Conway students’ future efforts—translating unknowns to knowns. But people also must be able to take in these facts, to respond not as if they don’t know, not with repression, guilt, and anxiety turned outward, cutting down shrubs to foil kidnappers, blockading rails-to-trails to keep out strangers,

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mowing down the meadows to protect us from ticks, draining swamps to save us from mosquitoes. And this is where you, Conway graduates, play your role, showing people multiple paths to a future that is not Utopia, meaning no-place, but Eutopia, meaning beautiful-place, instilling in them a desire to do this hard work, fusing ethical labor with pleasure and beauty. So you can serve, in whatever place you find yourselves in, as a kind of pressure valve for all the anxiety we feel and the exhaustion that comes with it.

Yes, you can say, the world is in a difficult spot, yes we all bear responsibility for it. But, you can say, it’s not too late; you and I can do something, other than make things worse by pretending not to know what we do know. And what a relief that will be, for all of us.

This is NOT the Dress Rehearsal Highlights from the 2006 Graduation Ceremony From an Introduction by Ken Byrne

identified “the six necessaries of life.” His list, not necessarily in this order: Food, Air, Sunshine, Work, Love, Adventure.

While I certainly have thoughts on Food, Air, and Sunshine, I’d prefer to reflect with you for the next few minutes on the other three “Necessaries of Life:” Work, Love, and Adventure. And then I will try to sum it all up with my own list of pointers to myself for living my life from here on out.

So let’s look at Work, Love, and Adventure.

Darrel Morrison is a landscape architect and a designer of ecological art whose works include the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in Texas, the Native Wisconsin Garden at the University of Wisconsin’s Arboretum, Storm King in New York, and the Utah Botanical Center. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Georgia (where he was also Dean of the School of Environmental Design), Utah State, and Rutgers. He regularly visits the Conway School to lead workshops and to speak about delight, patterns, and processes in the landscape.

He has lived in the Georgia Piedmont for twenty years, near the Oconee River, watching how former cotton farms transition to forest and collaborating with nature in the succession. While keeping his connection to that landscape, and to the midwestern prairie, Darrel has now spent four solstices in that green, energy-efficient, mixed-use, communal living experiment known as Manhattan.

There, he has also been a most unretired retired person. In the month before the Conway graduation, Darrel co-taught a Rutgers field course on Plant Communities of New Jersey; received the Landscape Design Award from the American Horticultural Society in Virginia; was inducted, in Vancouver, into the CELA Academy of Fellows for his lifetime contributions to landscape architecture education; did design work at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden; and consulted with Chanticleer Gardens near Philadelphia.

From Graduation Speaker, Darrel Morrison

First: Life is Short.

Second: All we really have is Now. (The past has passed, and the future is at best uncertain.)

Third: This is NOT the Dress Rehearsal.

(This is the real performance. This IS Life.)

Each of these three statements, reminds us of the tenuous and ephemeral nature of life. That being the case, we might well ask, what are the ingredients necessary for a good life?

One of my heroes, Aldo Leopold, wildlife ecologist, philosopher, and author of the classic A Sand County Almanac, gave a little talk in 1920 to a group of students at the University of New Mexico, in which he

Sandy Ross ‘05

MUCH OF WHAT I WANT TO SAY about Life and living a life can be summed up in the next three sentences:

Work. First the idea of work. Many of you have worked in a previous career, in an area that may have been closely related or remote from the one you’re about to embark on. Whether you’re entering your first, second, or third career, we hope it is work you can love doing. And there is much to love, potentially in the field of landscape design, planning, and management. You are in a position to preserve, restore, and/or create landscapes that are: experientially rich, ecologically sound, “of the place,” dynamic (changing over time).

I hope, of course, that each of you will find yourself in a work environment where your professional values are shared. But, being realistic, I should forewarn you that you could find yourself in a position where that is not the case. At that point, you may have to consider your options: Stay in that environment, and try to change it, or Move on, after giving the situation a fair trial.

But I hope you won’t: Sell out, and compromise your values and convictions, or Stay in an untenable situation for an unnecessarily long time, and become cynical.

You have to feel good about going to work every day, and cynicism can be destructive to your productivity, your creativity, your life.

Love. In the triad of Aldo Leopold’s “necessaries of life” that we’re discussing here today: work, love, and adventure, I feel least qualified to talk about love. But I do know we need to love and to be loved. We need to love our work; and especially in the field we’re in, we need to love places, and the uniqueness of places,

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as geographer Yi-Fu Tuan says in his classic book Topophilia; we need to love and revere all forms of life, as E. O. Wilson writes in Biophilia; and we need the love of family, of real friends, and of lovers.

Adventure. Right up there with food, air, sunshine, work, and love, is adventure, in Leopold’s list of the “necessaries of life.” Almost by definition, the sixteen of you graduating from the Conway School of Landscape Design today are adventuresome. Perhaps, especially, those of you who left perfectly respectable (and maybe even lucrative) previous careers to come to this fern-filled forest for ten month of your life have demonstrated your sense of adventure. But don’t stop with the Conway adventure. Let adventure became a habit, from here on out. In Leopold’s 1920 talk to the students at the University of New Mexico, he challenged them to “avoid the tragedy of prescribed lives.”

To be real, he said, adventure means going into “untrodden ground,” be it geographical or metaphorical.

5. Finally, quit while you’re ahead, Morrison. This, potentially, has both long-term and immediate implications. I was forcefully reminded of the longer-term implications for me, when, last Monday night, I saw Julio Bocca, Argentinean dancer, in his next-to-last performance, after twenty years as a lead dancer with American Ballet Theater, in Manon, a beautifully tragic ballet with music by Massenet. In the program notes, Bocca is quoted as saying, on the subject of his retirement from ABT, “From the time I was a little child, I knew I had to dance. It felt like playing games. I never wanted that joy to leave, so I’m stopping now. I respect ballet too much to continue at anything but my best.”

And his next-to-last performance last Monday night was dazzling, technically and emotionally. He quit while he was way ahead. What this tells me is that I need to know when it’s time to quit what I am doing, and move on to something else.

My Own Ground Rules

The time is NOW.

Now to wrap things up, let me give you my own, selfimposed rules to live by, for the rest of my run, however long (or short) that may be. So, here’s my conversation with myself—and you’re welcome to listen in.

1. Be true to yourself. Be yourself, openly, without apology.

2. Don’t look back. By this, I don’t mean that I should forget my personal history or the people who have been a part of my life. By this, I mean that I should not yearn to go back to some earlier, golden era in my life to relive it, since it can’t be relived. Further, I should not live in prolonged self-pity over tragedies that have befallen me over the years, since I can’t reverse them. All we have is NOW, and the best way to honor our past and the people in that past is to live fully and intensely in the present. In the moment. Now. 3. Don’t be too ready to go with the flow. My friend, Janisse Ray, in her book, Pinhook, quotes Mahatma Gandhi as saying, “More is required of us than being swept along.” In this connection, I’m promising myself to be more watchful, and more active, in vocally opposing such things as: environmental abuse, loss of our (and others’) human/civil rights, mistreatment of animals, mistreatment/torture of humans.

4. Adventure! Keep trying new things and visiting new places. It doesn’t have to be bungee-jumping or skydiving to be an adventure. It could be taking acting classes or even auditioning for a play or writing a play. “Untrodden ground,” as Leopold says, “geographic or metaphoric.”

From Paul Cawood Hellmund’s Graduation Remarks

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Betraying the Age in Order to Serve It CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW GRADUATES and a warm welcome to family and friends. And a special welcome to the alums of our school.

It’s good you guests came when you did. Having you here reminds the graduates and all of us that they are part of a larger circle. In essence you are calling these men and women to service in the larger world, to make a difference by design.

Now a word to today's visitors

Most of you are visiting our school for the first time today. Perhaps you’ve heard a thing or two about the school. Things like: ■ Dad, we pay tuition, but we also take out the trash.

■ Mom, we got our projects today, and we meet our clients on Thursday, but they haven’t told us how to do an open space and recreation plan yet.

■ There are only fifteen other students in the entire school.

■ I have classmates that just a few years ago were going to their high school proms.

■ I have classmates old enough to have been chaperons at my high school prom.

■ They use the term landscape for just about everything. This isn’t just about designing backyards.

And a word to today's graduates

Class of 2006, I offer you this charge, from the Irish poet, Brendan Kennelly: “If you want to serve the age, betray it.”

I like what another Irishman, rock star Bono, had to say about these same words: He said, “betraying the age means exposing its conceits, its foibles, its phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.” This is the essence of sustainable design: Danielle Allen ‘06 not being content with convention, taking a broader perspective in time and space, being willing to face harsh truths, betraying the age in order to serve it.

In landscape planning and design today, that means helping envision healthier and more enjoyable places for people, creating designs that won’t be a drain on the future. It means design that questions the status quo, such as when things are done solely for aesthetics without consideration of ecology or of important social dimensions. What does the possibility of the end of oil mean for our communities? What does the prospect of landscapes overtaken by invasive exotic species and chopped into ever smaller fragments mean, with areas denuded of their natural richness? All this suggests a different design paradigm, one that considers waste streams, such as stormwater and wildlife, as resources, not liabilities. It looks for opportunities to deal with problems before they aggregate and become concentrated and exacerbated.

But betraying is not all there is to serving, and that’s where a master’s education in sustainable landscape planning and design comes in. The world has need of landscape visionaries, who can see beyond the problems to meaningful—even inspiring—solutions. You are joining those visionaries who will reshape the settings for our homes, our neighborhoods, our parks, our towns and cities, and our conservation lands.

Your family and friends here today are calling you to this greater service in the world, to leave this hilltop and your ten-month incubation. The alums here today represent a much larger cloud of witnesses, reminding you of what is possible and offering their ongoing support.

In reality, the Conway School doesn’t really have a ten-month program. This program you are completing is merely a portal, a passage into a dynamic, committed community of like-minded designers and planners who are facing harsh truths and, more important, finding, creating, and conserving a brighter future for us all.

Thanks, best wishes, stay in touch.

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Jennifer McElligott ‘06

Now it seems only fair that the school have a chance to present its side of the story.

■ Yes, we are one of the smallest accredited institutions of higher learning in North America, but we are intentionally small. It’s a fundamental part of our teaching model. Fewer than twenty students is a manageable size for working in the studio, going on field trips, and generally interacting.

■ We find that a diversity of backgrounds and ages makes for a rich learning environment. We are all co-learners. We seek to bring everyone’s background to the discussions.

■ With the heavy emphasis on real projects for real clients, the curriculum is fresh every time. The projects and clients create the incentive, motivation, and inspiration to set everything in motion.

■ We respect very different learning styles, but especially seek students who like to learn by doing.

■ Students do chores, because we believe people should clean up after themselves.

I could go on and on, and we could debate the utility of various aspects of our unusual approach, but the proof is in the pudding.

As the new director this year, I saw it firsthand with this, the class of 2006, on Saturday, November 19, 2005 at about 4:00 pm. It was the end of the second day of fall formal project presentations. Students had just presented their work of the past eleven weeks.

Now I have taught or studied at several universities at both the graduate and undergraduate level, and I had never seen so much accomplished in such a short amount of time. The proof was there. This educational model produces real results.

The success of this school is even more apparent in the lives and work of thirty-three-year’s worth of graduates. There have been over 500 graduates in the school’s history, and hundreds of real projects have been completed for real clients. The reach and impact of the school have been tremendous, and they’re growing. That’s why we invited representatives from all of those classes to join us today. They stand testament to the pioneering vision of the school’s founder, Walter Cudnohufsky, and the shepherding of the school’s second director, Donald Walker. The success is also due to the dedication of the school’s faculty and staff and the more than fifty visiting teachers and trip leaders that join us each year.

Student Projects 2005-2006

A Cottage in the Woods The Fox Residence, Chesterfield, Massachusetts. Designer: Danny Stratten

Integrating a Home with its Surroundings

L

auren Fox’s new cottage-style house is nestled in a baresoil woodland clearing, surrounded by eastern hemlock, alder, paper birch, and American beech, with patches of yellow birch in low, moist areas. Nearby are wet meadows, forest and shrub wetland, and marsh, all draining to the Westfield River. Water drains onto the property from the north and south, feeding the wetland system and contributing to a high water table. The lack of barriers such as major roads allows wildlife to move safely, forage, and settle throughout the landscape.

The client sought help to establish a low-maintenance landscape, maintain privacy, improve the entrance experience, create an intimate outdoor gathering space, and integrate the house, garage, and immediate surroundings.

The house and garage sit on a mound of sandy fill brought in to raise them above the high water table.

Compaction during construction and the lack of an aggregate structure hinder the soil’s ability to support healthy plant growth. The bare soil and steeply graded slopes create the likelihood of erosion. In addition, slopes, vehicle circulation, shade in the forest clearing, and the septic leach field limit the area available for an outdoor living space.

FALL PROJECTS. CSLD students begin their year working with area residents on their home properties. Projects may involve siting a new house, reducing erosion, reorienting driveways, or making a property more habitable for wildlife. Through careful observation, students come to understand the relationships among natural systems.

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SAMPLE RAIN GARDEN

NOT TO SCALE

The final design recommends siting a patio with southern exposure to the rear of the house. Because aligning the driveway within the existing clearing would bring it to within ten feet of the house and would require a three-point turnaround encroaching on the entry area, the design brings the new driveway through the woods, preserving a screen of trees between driveway and house. The patio offers an intimate gathering space. A culvert directs roof runoff to a backyard rain garden and surface runoff flows to one in “I thoroughly the front yard. The lawn is limited to the level, sunny part of enjoyed my the site. Groundcovers, ferns, experience with sedges, grasses, and wildflowers the school and create a transition from the Danny. It was lawn to the woodland edge, where trees, shrubs, and groundmost useful, covers support erodible soils in educational, steep areas, provide visual interand inspiring!” est, and provide wildlife with Lauren Fox forage and shelter.

Student Projects 2005-2006

Interpreting the Changing Landscape Middlebury Area Land Trust, Middlebury, Vermont Designers: Danielle Allen and Clare Bootle

A Management Plan for the Salisbury Mills Preserve

The Salisbury Mills Preserve concept plan proposes public access to the significant historic mill-complex ruins and unique natural features on the property. All development respects areas of historical and ecological sensitivity.

O

n the Middlebury Area Land Trust’s seventy-acre Salisbury Mills Preserve, wetlands occupy drained millponds, and diverse plant communities thrive on land once cleared for farming, grazing, and timber harvest. Remnants of mill buildings and dam foundations line the riverbank, and old roads cross the landscape. Seven distinct natural communities are found on the site. Contiguous forest cover extends for several miles north and south of the property, providing critical habitat for the black bear, fisher, hermit thrush, and northern saw-whet owl.

Wild nature and human culture are intricately interwoven here.

A ten-minute walk from the village center, the property has been used by local residents for running, walking, skiing, and hunting. Currently, there is no defined trail system and no formal access to the preserve; people enter the property by crossing private land. The Middlebury Area Land Trust (Executive Director, Gioia Kuss ‘99) sought help to create a management plan that would ensure the protection of the historical and ecological integrity of the preserve, while also encouraging historical and ecological education, providing appropriate public access to the property, and creating links with regional recreational opportunities.

The design team created maps using global positioning systems (GPS), conducted analyses and interviews, and held two community meetings, in which local stakeholders shared their knowledge of the site and responded to conceptual plans for its future. The management plan incorporates this community input, honors the trust’s mission and legal obligations, and

acknowledges regional and town planning goals.

Interpreting the Changing Landscape identifies the historical sites, natural communities, and sensitive areas of the property, and provides a concept plan for parking, trails, and signs on the site. The plan helps to define the vision for the Salisbury Mills Preserve and to outline steps to ensure appropriate historical preservation and forest management.

Development of the Salisbury Mills Preserve will provide an educational experience extending beyond the property, serving as a reminder of the great cultural and ecological transformation of Vermont’s landscape through the centuries, providing the community with an essential link to its past.

WINTER PROJECTS. For their second project, student teams work with local communities and nonprofit agencies throughout New England and eastern New York to develop long-range plans for conserving fragile ecosystems and placing human activities where the land can sustain them. Students identify and map natural resources and immerse themselves in local government issues, state regulations, and regional contexts.

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Student Projects 2005-2006

“Wasteland” Revitalized Winslow Park Design, Women Together, Worcester, Massachusetts Designers: Emma Cooke and Hannah Whipple

Planning a Park and Building Community

W

omen Together is a non-profit community group that plans to buy a neglected half-acre corner property and create a public park, where neighbors can come together and build relationships. The site is currently covered in thick vegetation, and views onto the property are obscured. The soil is urban fill, and refuse has been left on the site for many years. Mature trees, including a healthy, but invasive Norway maple, ailanthus, red maple, and locust, as well as groves of sumac, provide shade.

The design team and Women Together organized an initial community workshop to define the overarching goals for the project. Believing that interaction among generations builds a more cohesive community, residents wanted the park to have spaces for all ages and abilities. They wanted it to be sustainable and low maintenance so that residents would able to take care of the park, encouraging pride and ownership through stewardship.

At the workshop, participants also identified the elements the park should contain: a large gathering/audience space, a covered stage area, a natural play area, a space for community art, gardens, a memorial, and a bathroom. In a second workshop, residents responded to preliminary concepts and explored the spatial relationships of the elements.

The final plan proposes a flexible framework, within which the neighborhood can further develop the space to meet their needs. The sitting wall running through the park can be painted or covered with mosaics. A central gathering and audience space is ringed with flowering crabapple trees that provide visual interest throughout the year.

The cross-corner path accommodates an existing shortcut and enlivens the park by inviting people to pass through it. Performances, farmers markets, festivals, open-air galleries, and outdoor film showings are just a few of the activities that this safe, multi-generational, and sustainable community space can host.

The plan set, including a description of the community process, inventories, analyses, concepts, and final design, accompanied Women Together’s successful application for a grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Urban Self-Help program.

"The students did a great job on the Winslow School lot project. We were really, really happy with the work they did. It is one of the best investments we ever made here!"

Bob O’Connor, Director of the Office of Land and Forest Conservation Services, Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

SPRING PROJECTS. CSLD student teams spend the third term working with community and nonprofit clients to develop site-specific design plans for parks, town centers, and riverways. Students base recommendations on ecological conditions and on assessed community needs. Final designs illustrate foot and bike paths, planting choices, lamp standards and other relevant details.

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Other Community Projects 2005–2006 WINTER PROJECTS Open Space and Recreation Plan: Southborough, MA Jennifer McElligott, Brian Trippe, Greg Walzer

The team worked with the town of Southborough on their updated OSRP as a guide for appropriate land development. Public forums and site analyses provided a basis for recommendations to preserve the town’s character by encouraging conservation development, re-using brownfield sites, preserving historical features, protecting riparian corridors, and connecting protected corridors for human and wildlife use.

Open Space and Recreation Plan: Sherborn, MA Ian A. Hodgdon, Hannah Whipple

The composite layering of information and analyses of natural and historical resources informs a five-year action plan to help the Town of Sherborn protect groundwater resources, preserve its rural character, and increase greenbelts.

Recommended actions include researching and implementing methods to protect groundwater quality, creating greenbelts between protected lands, and preserving the remaining working farms.

Open Space and Recreation Plan: Ashland, MA Adam Bossi, Ben Groves, Danny Stratten

Due to its accessibility, attractive location, historical character, affordability, and top-notch school system, Ashland has been experiencing a period of rapid residential development. Such growth changes a town. Open spaces are turned into neighborhoods. Existing recreational amenities become inadequate. The OSRP helps the town make informed decisions about future growth.

The Western Traprock Ridge Project: Simsbury, CT Emma Cooke, Christopher Graves, Marcella Waggoner

The Simsbury Land Trust has a vision for the unique traprock ridge at the western boundary of Simsbury, Connecticut. This plan provides an inventory of selected properties and management strategies to promote sustainable land use and stewardship.

Open Space and Recreation Plan: Worthington, MA John Bisbing, Janna Thompson, Ian Warner

Protecting water quality, maintaining rural character, and planning for future development are Worthington’s greatest concerns. This plan presents the town with a tool to protect its riparian corridors, provide connections between existing open spaces, focus development in appropriate areas, limit low-density development, and promote the conservation of open agricultural land, saving the characteristic traits of Worthington.

SPRING PROJECTS Yanner Park Master Plan, Sandisfield, MA Adam Bossi, John Bisbing

The non-profit Friends of Yanner Park needed a master plan for a 257-acre parcel. Citing a lack of public recreation facilities in Sandisfield, the Friends wanted a small ice-skating rink, playground, ball field, pavilion, picnic areas, horseshoe pits, splash pool, and hiking trails included in the design. The plan outlines a phased approach for addressing the client’s requests.

Orion Group Campus Master Plan: Newport, NH Christopher Graves, Ben Groves

The Orion Group, a school providing rehabilitative services to youth and their families, sought a master plan for four properties, totaling eighteen acres. The plan addresses circulation issues; creates a defined ceremonial entrance; and sites a dorm, vocational-technology building, recreation center, and administrative building. The master plan serves as a long-term planning document for guiding campus development.

Hale Reservation: Dover and Westwood, MA Jennifer McElligott, Marcella Waggoner

Hale Reservation, outside Boston, covers more than 1,100 acres. This project focuses on a 200-acre, heavily visited area. In disrepair and having problems with soil compaction, traffic congestion, non-functioning out-houses, and structurally questionable buildings, it lacks usable spaces for gathering. The master plan for the area seeks to move the camp, which serves many inner-city youth, toward a sustainable future.

The Otter Creek Gorge Preserve: Middlebury, VT Brian Trippe, Janna Thompson

Stormwater Management Alternatives for Scenic Hudson: Kingston, NY Danielle Allen, Ian Warner

Contiguous forest, pastures, and a hayfield comprise the 311-acre Otter Creek Gorge Preserve. The owner, the Middlebury Area Land Trust, requested a space for events, the accommodation of existing nature walks, and farm access to pastures and fields.

Responding to these desires, the plan recommends relocating trails, providing event parking, and siting an information kiosk.

Noting unusual landforms and biodiversity, the client responded to concerns about the redevelopment of a former industrial site with an alternative plan.

To complement the plan, the CSLD team produced a manual of alternative stormwater management systems as a tool appropriate for presentation to the planning committee of the Town of Kingston and other towns in the Hudson Valley.

Bergstrom Property: Amherst, MA Clare Bootle, Greg Walzer

Katywil Community Commons Master Plan: Colrain, MA Ian A. Hodgdon, Danny Stratten

Previously used to raise tilapia and grow basil, this two-story, 65,000square-foot bioshelter in an environmentally sensitive area is ready for reuse. The feasibility study considers low-impact designs for an assisted-living facility or an aviary/aquarium tourist destination while maintaining the rural character of the property.

Katywil is a proposed ecologically and socially sustainable community. The adaptable, long-range master plan for the perimeter of the property responds to the needs of the community, while preserving the beauty and integrity of natural lands; fostering stewardship; and creating a permaculture zone system to help organize the spatial relationships between residents, the built environment, and the natural environment.

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News from Alums 1983

Class Agents As part of the CSLD’s continuing effort to connect with alums and to help alums connect with each other, Conway has initiated a system of class agents.

(See related article on page 12.) If you would like to become a class agent, please contact one of the Class Agent Co-chairs, Ian Hodgdon ’06 (ian.hodgdon @yahoo.com) or Sue Crimmins ’97 (sbcrimm@crocker.com). You can also contact Nancy E. Braxton, Administrative Director, at (413) 369-4044, ext. 5 or nebraxton@csld.edu. Don’t hesitate to contact your class agent with news, questions about the school, or ideas for get-togethers for your class.

Many of the firms mentioned in the News from Alums have websites. We regret that space and typographical issues do not allow us to include them in the news, but links to firms where CSLD alums are prominently featured can be found at csld.edu. If your site is not listed there, we encourage you to contact the webmaster for inclusion.

Links to further news about alums are also included on the CSLD site and are referenced in this section of Con’text.

1974 Floyd Thompson marks his thirtieth anniversary this year at the USDA Forest Service as National Tourism and Byways program leader.

Refer to the link at csld.edu for an interview with him in the May/June 2005 Vistas Newsletter.

1975 Class Agent: Betsy Corner (corner75@csld.edu) Betsy Corner continues to work primarily as a mediator with The Mediation and Training Collaborative in Greenfield, MA. Talking with CSLD alums at the August 12, 2006 inaugural event revitalized her connection to environmental and landscape design issues. She hopes to hear from other alums. ■ Sterling Hubbard is principal and owner of Rose Associates, Land Surveyors in Conway, MA. 1976 Class Agents: Kate Lowry, Andrea Morgante Kate Lowry is a landscape architect for the Universal Access Office of the Mass. Department of Conservation & Recreation in Amherst, MA. 1977 Class Agent: David Paine Thomas Long is a graphic designer with Apple Designs, Inc. in Silver Spring, MD. 1978 Class Agent: Susanna Adams (susanna.adams@earthlink.net) Bruce Stedman continues as Senior Mediator for RESOLVE, Inc. in Washington, DC. His son, Connor, took a course on permaculture from CSLD alum David Jacke '84, and received an internship at The Regenerative Design Institute, Pescadero, CA. Bruce’s daughter, Nora, is attending an outdoor academy for first semester tenth graders in Pisgah Forest, NC.

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1979 Class Agent: Lila Fendrick Ken Botnick, assoc. professor of art at Washington University in St. Louis, MO, received a Fulbright Fellowship and spent five months at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India as a research fellow in typography and graphic design. ■ Lila Fendrick’s design firm in Chevy Chase, MD, has produced designs for Madeleine Albright, as well as a prospective presidential candidate and historic neighborhoods in Washington, DC. Lila continues to enjoy the inspiration of meeting with enthusiastic clients, doing field surveys, and seeing designs become reality during construction and installation. She finds the work exhilarating and demanding, while enjoying the intellectual challenge of assembling construction documents and thinking three-dimensionally. Her escapes include hiking, biking, and swimming.

1980 Class Agent: Byrne Kelly (kelly80@csld.edu) Kate Troast has relocated to Amherst, MA, where she has a small practice as a landscape architect. She is enjoying being back in Massachusetts now that her husband has finished medical school and has done his residency.

She divides her time between landscape architecture, art work, and raising their two daughters.

1981 Class Agent: Elizabeth French Fribush (elizabeth.fribush@phra.com) Michael Gibbons is senior project manager with Chas. H. Sells, Inc. in Cary, NC. 1982 Class Agents: Suzanne Barclay (smbarclay@optonline.net), Susan Van Buren (susanvb@verizon.net) Peter Van Buren is starting a new company, Terra Logos Green Home Services, in Baltimore, MD. He and his two partners, both practicing architects, focused on sustainable design, will provide a one-stop resource for homeowners interested in reducing their home energy usage, improving their indoor air quality, and lowering their impact on global warming. ■ Susan Van Buren is working as a community planner and educator at the Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens in Baltimore, MD, where she also does interpretative planning.

Priscilla Davies Brennan is a landscape designer for her firm, Professional Landscape Associates, in Schnecksville, PA. She is a member of the Heidelberg Township Environmental Advisory Council & Land Planning Commission, which has reviewed some interesting plans in the past year. The pressures of development are on that rural community, which now has a ten-acre minimum in the conservation district of Blue Mountain; they seek to build more protective measures for preservation. The EAC is involved in a local greenway project, naming unnamed streams, documenting historical properties, and developing a model riparian stream project behind the township building.

Her fifteen-year old son, Will, hopes to use the latter as an Eagle Scout project with a spring 2007 grant; he also plays clarinet in his high school band, runs cross-country, is a member of the Key Club, and ushers at church. ■ Dean Maynard is a landscape designer at Maynard Landscape Inc. in Lanesboro, MA. ■ Peter Owens completed his PhD at Berkeley in Environmental Planning/Urban Design fall 2005. A link to his dissertation, Beyond Density: Measuring Neighborhood Form in the Upper Connecticut River Valley, is available at the CSLD website. He is now working on converting it to a few publishable papers in academic journals and has signed onto new research project through Dartmouth Medical School studying the relationship of childhood obesity and the built environment in northern New England. He is otherwise busy completing a long-promised addition to his house in Hanover, NH, (payback to his wife Carolyn for supporting the family through two years of his unfunded dissertation). He spent July with Carolyn and kids (James 9, Amanda 7) traveling and visiting old friends in London, France and Spain, where they enjoyed wonderful markets, landscapes, swimming holes, and food.

1984 Class Agent: Kathleen Kerivan (Kathleen_Kerivan@antiochne.edu) Terence Beltramini operates his own design /build firm, Green Belt Landscapes, Inc., in Ramsey, NJ. 1985 Mary Parker owns her own landscape and interior design firm in Northampton, MA. She works primarily with non-profit and residential clients and has lectured on the Japanese garden style at the Berkshire Botanical Garden and the Master Gardener’s Conference.

1986 Cynthia Boettner is coordinator of the New

England Invasive Plant Group and coordinator of the Connecticut River Watershed Invasive Plant Control Initiative for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Service in Turners Falls, MA. Her work includes sharing the oversight of a water chestnut project, distributing information about invasive plants, and running a list-

News from Alums

serv that updates subscribers about upcoming events, research results, and other items of interest. ■ Carrie Makover has not yet learned how to be retired, but is working on it. This year she steps down from the CSLD board after fifteen years. (See related article in School News.) She works part-time as website project manager for the Town of Westport, CT. ■ Noting frustration in dealing with the municipal council in Rawdon, PQ, Canada, Jean-Pierre Marcoux has stepped down as park planner and coordinator. He now works as building and environment inspector for a rural municipality and is planning a trip to Barcelona and the Catalan region and “meeting with the spirit of Ghandi.”

1987 Tim Brooks is a principal at Winterbrook

Planning in Portland, OR, where he notes that communities are starting to plan again after a two-year hiatus in conservation planning caused by the passage of a deceptive property rights ballot measure. His office is fortunate to be helping to shape these conservation plans. He also writes: “Recently, I had a great visit with friend, Jean-Pierre Marcoux '86, exploring Montreal and Quebec City again, twenty years after our Conway trips. We solved some ancient mysteries, like where that awesome ‘toast bar’ had been in Quebec. We also worked in an urban design critique here and there, of course, for good measure.” ■ Charles Cocca is a landscape architect with Cherenzia and Associates in Westerly, RI. ■ Karen Tiede continues to create decorative and functional sculpture, colorful paintings, textiles, jewelry, and more at her art studio in central North Carolina.

1988 Class Agent: Will Waldron (waldron88@csld.edu) Will Waldron is a senior realty specialist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Hadley, MA. He has been responsible for acquiring land for many National Wildlife Refuges (NWR): in New Jersey—Cape May and Great Swamp; in Rhode Island—John H. Chafee NWR, Ninigret NWR, Block Island NWR; Maine—Rachel Carson NWR; West Virginia— Ohio River Islands NWR. He is also a member for the regional office’s Green Team, which focuses on reducing energy consumption, recycling, and sustainable design at the Hadley office.

1989 Having graduated in 2002 from Southwest Acupunctural College in Santa Fe, NM, Elizabeth Fay now has her own practice as an acupuncturist and herbalist with offices in Newton and Cambridge, MA. She writes, “I still love to look at gardens and good design and always treasure my work as a designer for ten years and all that I learned at Conway.” ■ In 2005, Cynthia Knauf opened her own business in Montpelier, VT,which does site design, master planning, and project

management. She has worked with architects and civil engineers on larger scale commercial and residential projects on Nantucket and in Chicago, IL, and Jackson, WY. Her collaboration with architect Sarah Susanka was recently featured in the book, Outside the Not So Big House (Taunton Press) by Susanka and Julie Moir Messervy. Refer to the link at csld.edu for Cindy’s website and more information about the book. ■ Mary Crain Penniman is in her third year of running a thriving residential master planning business from her home in Acton, MA. Her son, Jake, is twelve, and her husband, Bill Brumback, battles invasive exotics and works on the Flora of New England Project from Garden in the Woods. ■ Sarah Drew Reeves has a landscape design firm in Norwich, VT and also works as a conservation and community planner as well as a volunteer teacher. She coordinated the Open Space Priorities, Informal Plan for Norwich. A link to the plan can be found on csld.edu. ■ Gordon Shaw continues to work for the Concord Land Trust in Massachusetts. ■ Jim P. Urban is a project manager for Land Design & Development, Inc. in La Grange, KY. 1990 Vance A. Barr has taken a job as Facilities

Planner at NYS Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. ■ Greg Drake became a registered landscape architect in Massachusetts this year and works at Ayoub Engineering in Pawtucket, RI. ■ Wendi Goldsmith’s firm, The Bioengineering group, is heavily involved in the restoration and redevelopment of the Gulf Coast, which she reports is leaning in a very green direction.

Her firm has been asked to open an office in Baton Rouge to support the array of environmentally sensitive transportation corridor repair, land development for housing displaced people, green infrastructure in urban areas (wetlands and stormwater management greenways in New Orleans and elsewhere), coastal habitat restoration, and even some project work tied to the liberation of the Mississippi from its leveed state to feed the delta ecosystem according to natural trends. Those seeking positions should refer to the link at csld.edu to review opportunities at her firm.

1991 Class Agent: Annette Schultz (schultz91@csld.edu) Susan Space is a self-employed landscape designer in Rhode Island.

1992 Carla Manene Cooke recently took a trip to Costa Rica led by naturalists Laurie Sanders and Fred Morrison whose work as been feature on public radio. ■ After taking a break from his career to serve as the stay-at-home parent for his two young children, and building a new house as part of a co-housing community in Northampton, MA, John Saveson has reentered the design world as a freelance landscape designer.

1993 Class Agent: Amy Craig (amy.craig@verizon.net) Mark Benkley has opened a firm, Garden

by Design Inc. in Allston, MA. ■ Abbie Duchon is project manager in the Land Acquisition Program at the NYCDEP. The purpose of the program is to protect the environmental quality of the watersheds that supply the city of New York with drinking water. ■ Ann Sinclair continues to practice landscape design and master planning at Ann Sinclair Landscape Design in Jamaica Plain, MA. 1994 Jonathon Ellison was a guest critic at

CSLD for residential projects in fall 2005 and worked with students in the studio this fall.

This past year, he has been a consultant and educator for tsunami relief programs in Sri Lanka. He has also been a lecturer at the Chambly Academy High School in Montreal, PQ and Stanstead College, Stanstead, PQ. ■ Lynn Harper sits on the Athol planning board and the board of the Mt. Grace Land Conservation Trust. ■ Melissa Mourkas was recently licensed as landscape architect in California, where she is working as preservation planner for the City of Sacramento with occasional teaching, consulting, and designing.

1995 Class Agent: Art Collings D. Alex Damman is an analyst with Vectren Environmental Service in Evansville, IN. ■ Amy Klippenstein owns Sidehill Farm in Ashfield, MA, where she continues to grow produce for the CSA and also sells at the Ashfield Farmers Market. ■ Jonathan Schwartz is married to his business partner Emily Ross. They live in a little house with a big garden in southwest Seattle, WA, where they design and build mostly residential gardens as ecosystems and connect residents to their land. Their favorite thing to do is grow gardeners.

Jonathan Schwartz ‘95 and Emily Ross

1996 Amy Spencer Ackroyd has moved to Olympia, WA. ■ Jean (White) Tufts presented case studies on low impact site development at the Chesapeake Conservancy Landscaping Council’s Conference in November, 2006: Turning a New Leaf, organized

by Lauren Wheeler ’03.

1997 Class Agent: Susan Crimmins (sbcrimm@crocker.com)

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News from Alums

1998

2000

Robin Simmen pro-

Brian Higgins is a restoration project man-

Joan Casey really likes her new job with

ager with Jones & Stokes at their Bellevue, WA office. He and his wife, Jill, visited CSLD in late June and enjoyed the trip down memory lane. ■ Wendy Ingram has taken a job as GIS specialist/planner with the Daylor Consulting Group in Braintree, MA. Her handmade paper piece, “Misty Forest” was shown in a juried exhibit entitled TREES—Unfolding Visions at the Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon, MA, the first Audubon Sanctuary in the US. ■ Sally H. Naser is boundary program manager for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, based at their office in Boiling Springs, PA. Providing assistance and training to twenty volunteer trail clubs, she is in charge of maintaining National Park Service Exterior Corridor Boundaries from Virginia to Maine, and she spends several weeks working in New England each fall.

O’Doherty Group Landscape Architecture in downtown Annapolis, MD, where she is participating in a wide range of interesting projects. ■ Janet Curtis graduated from Tufts University with a masters degree in public policy. She now works at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, where her work is focused on environmental justice policy and urban planning/sustainable development. She recently had the opportunity to review the Winslow Park design done by a student team last spring. She says it looks great! ■ Carl Heide is now product manager for Teradyne, Inc. in North Reading, MA. ■ Leslie Dutton Jakobs and her family recently moved from Germany to Franklin, MI, outside Detroit. Before leaving Germany, she assisted a team led by Marcel Kalberer in the construction of a sixty-foot event center, including a stage and auditorium built from willow shoots, which later root and grow. She also planned and began constructing a natural and experiential landscape with native plants, willow tunnel, and a Leslie Jakobs ‘00 helped to create this living willow wet/dry sandpit auditorium in Germany. for preschoolers.

motes a greener Brooklyn, sustainable horticulture, and conservation through special events, workshops, and technical assistance to a large variety of community groups.

1999 Class Agent: Cindy Tavernise (tavernise99@csld.edu) Ben Hren is enjoying living in London, where the extended growing season and mild winters allow him to grow meter-high fuchsias that have “the most fascinating defoliating bark on the old stems.” He also reports of an autumn walk at a National Trust site: “The house, Polesdon Lacey, is a fantastic mix of naturalistic ‘Capability Brown-style’ landscape and Italian-style formal gardens. This property has masses of Cotinus that are more brilliant than any burning bush or sumac. The distant views to idyllic pastures with their contented cattle—and the play of sunlight through dense clouds—made for an afternoon with a strange kind of dream quality.” ■ Anna James is a site planner and licensed consulting forester at Home–Land Design in Great Barrington, MA. ■ Cindy Tavernise has recently installed landscapes for residences in Granville and West Granville, MA. In her town of Granville, she has helped form an open space committee. Refer to the link at csld.edu for her recent artwork that can be seen on her website. Cindy’s daughter, Sabrina, reports for the New York Times from southern Lebanon and Baghdad and becomes Bureau Chief in Istanbul in January, 2007.

2001 Class Agents: Chuck Schnell (schnell01@csld.edu), Robin Simmen (simmen01@csld.edu) Elizabeth (Rousek) Ayers is living in Dillsburg, PA, since her return from working with the Royal Horticultural Society in Devon, England. In September she and Matt Ayers were married in her mother's garden, and they are now building a house. She works as a gardener for others while she plans her own gardens. As head gardener for the Open Hearth Estate in Reading, PA, she recently designed and installed a 50' x 120' kitchen garden. ■ As part of her work for the Brooklyn GreenBridge Horticultural Program of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York,

Class of 1999 Meet for a Reunion on Cape Cod On a rainy fall weekend in 2005, several members of the class of ’99 met for a reunion at the home of Seth Wilkinson ’99 and Alison Flynn in Orleans on Cape Cod. Together with partners and children, they hiked the trails of the National Seashore between Orleans and Provincetown, tried to make a pilgrimage to one of Seth’s restoration projects, and walked at Baker’s Pond. Visitors admired Seth and Alison’s hand-built, ecologically sound house and enjoyed the produce from their lush gardens and hen house. Moreover, they enjoyed catching up with old friends in the context of shared interests. Congratulations to the organizers of this joyous event.

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Robin Simmen

’01 2002 Class Agent: Michael Cavanagh (info@cavanaghdesign.com) Alexander Ganiaris’ business, Solidago Landscaping, is growing, and he is enjoying life in San Francisco, CA. ■ The exhibit garden that Alma Hecht designed for SFGRO at the 2006 San Francisco Garden Show won a Gold Medal for Garden Creator and the American Horticultural Society–Environmental Award 2006 for “Best Demonstration of Skillful Design that Includes Environmental Stewardship in the Garden.” ■ Sonja Kenny’s and Selina Rossiter’s firm, Twinleaf Associates, teamed up with an organic farm to do installations for the farm’s homeowner division, where the principles of organic agriculture are applied to the home landscape.

2003 Class Agent: Lauren Wheeler Madeleine Charney works as a librarian at UMass Amherst. She was recently named library liaison for the landscape architecture, regional planning department and Stockbridge school of agriculture. She also belongs to the editorial teams of Small Farm Quarterly and Pomona, the quarterly journal of the North American Fruit Explorers. Her bi-weekly radio show, Farm to Fork: The Pioneer Valley’s Local Food and Agriculture Show can be heard on WXOJ-LP/103.3 FM, Valley Free Radio. ■ Terra (Freeman) DeMedici has spent the past year cultivating Grounds for Nature, a landscape design/build business and native plant nursery in Berkeley Springs, WV. ■ Olivia Imoberdorf continues doing landscape design at Living Earth Landscape Design, a home-based business in Suffern, NY, that she runs with her husband Jon. They also enjoy their roles as new parents to daughter Savannah Joy, born in June. ■ William Joyce, project manager and designer at Isabelle Greene & Assoc. in Santa Barbara, CA, is working towards his LA license and improving the looks of AutoCAD graphics to make them look hand drawn. In fall 2006, he got married in Thompson, CT to his college sweetheart, Nichole, and was planning a honeymoon in New Zealand or Greece. Building the landscape on his own property, he still finds time to enjoy sunny California and go hiking in Big Sur. ■ Jono Neiger has renamed his company “Regenerative Design.” He is the owner/operator of the business and an educator. In this role, he hosted this year’s students on The Great River Trip and will be a CSLD adjunct in the spring.

■ Andrew Robertson, a landscape architect

News from Alums

2004 Class Agent: Bethany Atkins (bethany_atkins@yahoo.com) Josh Clague continues to work as land conservation planner for Scenic Hudson, where he helps to establish land preservation priorities and further develop the organization’s GIS. He and his wife Tracey have bought their first home together in Kingston, NY, and are expecting a baby boy in December. ■ Lupin Hill is working in Oregon for Teufel Design/ Build as a design assistant, doing site measuring, creating CAD base maps, and rendering.

She writes, “I’m having great fun and learning a ton.” She also has her own business, Lupin Hill Design. ■ Crystal Hitchings is assistant planner and landscaper for the City of Augusta, ME and Landcrafters. She works outdoors as well as in the office and is seeing many different landscape installations all over the southern coast of Maine. ■ An advertising push brought in a variety of work for Lizabeth Moniz, owner of Flying Mammoths Landscape Design in Worcester, VT:

everything from consultations to designs for entire properties. She also teaches at Yestermorrow Design/Build School.

2005 Class Agents: Linda Leduc (plantlady0@charter.net), Sandy Ross (rosslandscapedesign@gmail.com) In August, Shawn Callaghan and Jaime Smith got engaged at the Trustees of Reservations Coolidge Reservation in Manchesterby-the-Sea, MA. His firm, Earth View Design has been growing and has recently completed several urban wildlife habitat projects in the Boston area. The properties range from backyards to wetland restoration projects in rural Massachusetts. Shawn was voted onto the board of directors for the Society for Ecological Restoration International as the director for Massachusetts. ■ Erin Flather worked this past year as a GIS analyst at TeleAtlas and completed the Vermont Master Gardener course. Following the birth of her son, Zachary Evan Pearson, in August, she decided to pursue part-time landscape design work, beginning next year. ■ Eric Korn has changed the name of his design build company in Richboro, PA to Natural Land Designs, Inc. ■ Nicholas Lasoff opened his firm, Lasoff Landscape Design, this year and has worked on residential designs ranging from a bocce court to the restoration of a calcareous red maple-tamarack swamp. This fall, he joined the board of trustees of CSLD and was busy editing the 2006 edition of Con’text.

Since January, Nick’s wife, Barbara, has been telecommunicating from their home in Bennington to her job in Waltham, MA, making for a much saner existence. ■ Kristin Nelson interned for six months at New England Wildflower Society’s Nasami Farm in Whately, MA. ■ Del Orloske’s business, New Environments, was featured this past year in the Greenwich Time (Connecticut). (Refer to the link to the article at csld.edu.) ■ Aleksandr (Sasha) Pilyavskiy has worked for a year as designer and project manager at Creative Environments Landscape Co., Inc. in Concord, MA. As their only designer he has creative license to do what he loves: design environments for people which are healthy, beautiful, and environmentally responsible.

His goal is to steer clients to choose the eco-friendly way with native plants. ■ Lincoln Smith works at Graham Landscape Architecture in historic Annapolis, MD on the Chesapeake Bay, where he works on stewardship plans for large Lincoln Smith ’05 estates. The firm with daughter encourages resiSohaila

dential clients to plant meadows, reforest, start CSAs, and generally manage the land for sustainability and production. His wife, Becca, has a ten-week internship at the American Embassy in Paris. Their daughter, Sohaila, born on graduation day 2005, is growing, learning to walk and to use sign language, and will accompany her mother to France. ■ Johanna Stacy started work as a landscape designer and salesperson at a garden center and nursery in Surry, ME. She has learned a lot about the horticultural aspect of landscape design and Zone 4 plants. She is encouraged by how many clients are interested in native plants. ■ Chris Stevenson worked as a consultant for a conservation organization in California's Santa Monica Mountains to do some “native-scaping” for grant projects on city school yards. He has done a desert wash landscape for a prominent store in downtown Joshua Tree. Chris has taken classes at UCLA in plant materials, design for small spaces, and AutoCAD and is helping his mentor edit a new book on the flora of the Santa Ana River.

Sandy Ross ‘05

with Winston Associates in Boulder, CO designed a green roof in Salt Lake City, UT. He and Jennifer were recently married in Amherst, MA. ■ Angela (Kearney) Seaborg married Jimmy Seaborg in March with some fellow alums in attendance. They are hoping to settle in the Boston West area in the near future. She is working part time for the Town of Lincoln Conservation Department and owns a planning and design firm, Minglewood Designs in Wayland, MA. She recently wrote an article, “Natural Playgrounds,” which will be published in a book on stone walls, fences, and gates this year. ■ Jenny Reed and Lauren Wheeler are partners in the firm, Natural Resources Design, Inc. in Takoma Park, MD. Their rain garden municipal park project was featured in an article on ecology in the March issue of Landscape Architecture magazine. Current projects include working with residents on lakeshore stabilization, a 22-acre woodland restoration on a 37-acre property, and riverside 1000-unit development. They have also filmed three shows on sustainable, edible, and wildlife habitat for the HGTV program Curb Appeal, to air in 2007. Lauren helped to organize the Chesapeake Conservancy Landscaping Council’s Conference for November, 2006: Turning a New Leaf. A featured speaker on the program was Jean (White) Tufts '96. ■ Amanda Wischmeyer has started a landscaping business, Down to Earth Landscaping Services, in Lima, OH. She hopes to attract clients with large acreage, interested in natural landscaping in rural Ohio. She recently joined the West Central Ohio Land Trust and is now a board member and Secretary.

She and her husband, Jon, had their first child, Emma Mackay Tuttle in July. Amanda and Olivia Imoberdorf visited CSLD in March, 2006.

Johanna Stacy ‘05, Kristin Nelson ‘05, and Linda Leduc ‘05 at Homecoming.

2006 Class Agents: Ian Hodgdon (ian.hodgdon@yahoo.com), Brian Trippe (bttrippe2000@yahoo.com) Danielle Allen is working part time at the Intervale Conservation Nursery in Burlington, VT, where she collects the seeds of native riparian trees and shrubs for propagation. ■ Clare Bootle is an assistant planner with the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, where she is working on housing incentives to promote the appropriate development of a range of housing choices throughout the region and managing the brownfields program by identifying sites, coordinating environmental assessments, and administering EPA grant funds, writing predisaster mitigation plans for towns that identify hazards and areas of concern, and drafting strategies to deal with disasters. ■ Adam Bossi has had several job offers and misses the class of 2006, faculty and staff, and the bears, bugs, tiny kitchen, and even the driveway. ■ Jennifer McElligott is an associate planner for Callam County in Port Angeles, WA, where she is the “critical areas” specialist. She recently finished a certification course in wetland delineation with the Wetland Training Institute. She and Joshua have bought five acres, comprised largely of degraded wetland, which they plan to restore.

They intend to build a strawbale house and invite anyone interested to help them stack Continued on page 38

con'text 37

Annual Report Fiscal Year 2006 Summary of Operations FY 2006 During FY 2006, the third year at CSLD’s new campus and the first year under its new director and president, the school’s overall financial picture remained stable with net assets approaching the million-dollar mark. Income from unrestricted contributions was the second highest in the school’s history, reflecting a strong annual fund campaign marked by an excellent response to the trustee’s matching campaign at the end of the year. In addition, project reimbursement fees, including a grant received for a community design project, were nearly 25% higher than the previous year. The small, overall diminution in net assets is attributable to a higher depreciation factor from the increased value of the school’s fixed assets. We are very grateful to all who made contributions to the Conway School of Landscape Design in FY 2006.

STATEMENT OF ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30, 2006 (with comparative figures for 2005) FY 2006

FY 2005

UNRESTRICTED PUBLIC SUPPORT AND REVENUE Contributions In-kind contributions Tuition and fees Project fees Grant Income Workshop fees Investment income Net realized and unrealized gains/loss on investments Net realized gain on sale of property Miscellaneous income

65,742 1,200 414,800 62,913 4,600 8,190 12,831 (8,104) 500 2,222

62,951 2,971 405,505 54,403 – 5,300 13,579 (9,413) – 3,304

Total Unrestricted Support and Revenue Net Assets Released from Restrictions

564,894 3,509

538,600 12,334

568,403

550,934

444,645 92,703 36,856 6,250

390,557 81,522 29,867 44,947

TOTAL EXPENSES

580,454

546,893

INCREASE (DECREASE) IN UNRESTRICTED NET ASSETS

(12,051)

4,041

1,579 541 529 (3,509)

14,044 544 556 (12,334)

(860)

2,810

NET ASSETS AT BEGINNING OF YEAR

963,416

956,565

NET ASSETS AT END OF YEAR

950,505

963,416

INCREASE (DECREASE) IN NET ASSETS

(12,911)

6,851

TOTAL UNRESTRICTED SUPPORT AND REVENUE AND NET ASSETS RELEASED EXPENSES School activities Administration Fund-raising Other expenses

TEMPORARILY RESTRICTED NET ASSETS Contributions Interest earned-scholarship/loan fund Investment income-scholarship/loan fund Net assets released from restrictions INCREASE (DECREASE) IN TEMPORARILY RESTRTICTED NET ASSETS

School Equipment Wish List That computer and other equipment you may have outgrown could help us in our teaching, administration, and service. Please contact Ilze Meijers (ilze@csld.edu, 413-369-4044 x3) if you have any of the following and would like to make a donation to the school. Such donations may be taxdeductible for you. Please don’t mail or deliver anything to the school before finding out if it is still needed.

Thanks! Your gift could make a big difference.

Furniture and Miscellaneous Equipment

Studio chairs (with 5-wheels) and stools (with backs) ■ Digital or nondigital-transit (theodolite) with stadia hairs and survey rod ■ Barcode reader (for use in the library) ■ Global positioning systems (GPS-for project use) ■ Binoculars (for field trips) ■ Soil auger (e.g., 4" regular, with extension and cross handle) ■ Power drill (for general building maintenance) ■

Computers and Printers ■

■ ■ ■

■

Laptop computer running Windows 2000 or XP, with DVD/CD-ROM writer, (docking station would be helpful, but not required) Apple laptop computer (G4 or newer) Apple tower computer (running Mac OS 10) Laser printer for higher volumes, (Hewlett-Packard or Brother preferred) Large-format, color plotter (Epson 2400, 2200 or R1800 or Hewlett-Packard, other than HP 10, 20, or 30ps)

News from Alums

bales in the summer and perhaps attend their wedding in August. ■ Brian Trippe is a planning intern with the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission and is hoping that it will soon become a permanent position. He is also looking for a diesel vehicle to convert to veggie oil. ■ Daniel Stratten is a restoration designer with Jones & Stokes in Bellevue WA.

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Former Faculty & Staff Marylin (Maruskin) Anderson, former

administrative assistant, is now a working artist. She lived in Michigan for many years, but recently moved to N. Myrtle Beach, SC. ■ Dennis Gemme, former accounting manager, is spending most of his time at the FCCDC in Greenfield and doing volunteer work for The Center for New Americans. He and his

dogs are enjoying life in Millers Falls and hikes on Northfield Mountain whenever they can.

■ Former writing instructor, Richard Williams and Ellen live in Conway, where he still studies and remembers and misses the CSLD family. Janice Wood, accounting manager 1992–2002, is now working at Free Press, a non-profit that works on media reform issues.

Donors FY 2006 The board of trustees, faculty, and staff of the Conway School of Landscape Design extend deep appreciation to the following individuals and organizations for their contributions credited to the school’s 2006 fiscal year. This list includes unrestricted annual fund/phonathon gifts, gifts-in-kind, and restricted donations (except capital campaign gifts, reported on page 40). The generosity of all our donors was crucial to offering our unique graduate program in sustainable landscape planning and design during this fiscal year. These contributions made up 12% of the school’s operating income, which covered 32% of operating costs (excluding salaries). We extend our warm and whole-hearted thanks to all of you.

Ken Byrne

John F. Ahern Jennifer Allcock James Allison Katherine Anderson George & Barbara Anzuoni Matthew Arnsberger Henry Warren Art Bethany Atkins Jeanne Azarovitz Mollie Babize Gary Bachman Jack Barclay Suzanne Barclay Vance Barr Hatha Gable Bartlett Shari Bashin-Sullivan Terence Beltramini Karen Bess Mark Bethel David Bird Leigh Bloom Cynthia Boettner Michele LoGrande Bongiorno Charles Bosson Kenneth Botnick & Karen Werner Nancy E. Braxton Cindy Bright Tim Brooks Larissa Brown Richard K. Brown & Anita Loose-Brown David Buchanan

Karen Burnier Kianpour Elisabeth Reese Cadigan Ralph Caputo Dennis Carboni Joan Allen Casey Michael Cavanagh Donald Chamberlain Seth Charde Joshua Clague Bruce Coldham David Coleman Arthur Collins Arthur Collings Jill Ker Conway Carla Manene Cooke Clémence Corriveau James Cowen David Cox Sue Cozzo Mary Crain Penniman Susan Crimmins Phyllis Croce Jill Crosbie Walter Cudnohufsky Candace Currie Ruth Cutler D. Alex Damman Esther Danielson Mimi Darrow Harry Dodson Deborah Doran Gregory Drake Abbie Duchon Marlene Eldridge Donna Eldridge

Christopher Elkow Jon & Barbara Elkow Carolyn Ellis Jonathon Ellison Paul Esswein Don Eunson Matthew Farrington Lila Fendrick Patricia Finley Sheila Finn Page Donald & Betty Fitzgerald Andrew Franch Thomas J. Fredrick CPA Elizabeth French Fribush Jeannine Keith Furrer Jeanne Furstoss Esta Gallant Kornfield Mary Garrett Wilson Michael Gibbons Elisabeth Gick Wendi Goldsmith Nat Goodhue Sharyl Green Bradford M. Greene Randy Griffith & Marcia Curtis Judith Griggs James & Alice Hardigg Carl Heide Jane Sexton Hemmingsen Brian Higgins Lupin Hill David & Marcia Holden Judith & Brooke Hollis

Donations of material goods have all kinds of uses. Here, current student Priscilla Miner ‘07 enjoys the hammock given by Matthew Arnsberger ’98. If you have something that the school might use, please contact Ilze Meijers (ilze@csld.edu, 413-369-4044 x3). Such donations may be tax deductible.

Jeff Horton Michael Hylton IBM Olivia Imoberdorf Wendy Ingram Faith Ingulsrud David Jacke Judy & Bob Janowiak James Jensen William Joyce Barbara Keene Briggs Steve Kellermann Annice Kenan Sonja Kenny Kathleen Kerivan John Klauder Amy Klippenstein & Paul Lacinski Cynthia Knauf Kathleen Hogan Knisely Nancy Knox Gioia Kuss Selina Lamb Edward & Sandra Landau Nicholas Lasoff Lauren Snyder Lautner Linda Leduc Charles W. Leopold Susan Leopold Mark Leuchten Jay Levine C. Todd Lynch & Janet Bertucci Lynch Robin MacEwan Barbara Mackey Carrie Makover Margaret Maley Christina Marts Terry Marvel Ann Georgia McCaffray Heather McCargo Tim McClaran Janet McLaughlin Robert & Mary Merriam Renny Merritt Richard Montena William & Melody Montgomery Terry Moore Andrea Morgante Andrea Morris James Mourkas Mary Mourkas Melissa Mourkas Gwendolyn Nagy-Benson Marilyn Nordby John Nuzzi Gary & Mary Oggiani Del Orloske Peter Marshall Owens Wendy Page Martha Petersen Roger Plourde Nata Post Janet Powers Linda Prokopy Ginny Raub Alison Reddy Sarah Drew Reeves

Seth Reynells Walter Reynolds Design Associates Christopher Rice Judy Rice Donald Richard Jeff Richards William & Sally Richter Catherine Rioux Ann R. Roberts Melissa Robin & Michael Caplan Tom Robinson Teresa Rogerson Susan Rosenberg David Rosenmiller Al & Selina Rossiter Selina Rossiter & Alexander H. P. Colhoun Joel Russell Sallie Mae John Saveson Aaron Schlechter Charles Schnell Katherine Schreiber Barbara Scott Gordon H. & Joy Shaw Lora Migliore Shelly Angela Sisson Robert Small Deborah Smith Peter Smith Lincoln Smith Richard Snyder Susan Space Johanna Stacy Bruce Stedman John Steele Maryellen Sullivan Robert Swain Jonathan Tauer Cindy Tavernise Betsy Taylor Floyd Thompson Judith Thompson Robert & Lydia Thomson Michael Thornton Karen Tiede Kate Troast Alison Trowbridge Pamela Underhill Mrs. M. E. Van Buren Peter & Susan Van Buren Liz Vizza Will Waldron Donald L. Walker Jr. & Ruth Parnall Wesley Ward Peg Read Weiss & Frederick Weiss Hap Wertheimer Miles Weston Seth Wilkinson Mary Garrett Wilson Larry & Vicki Winters Wynne Wirth Laurence W. Zuelke

con'text 39

Trustees’ Challenge At the May 2006 meeting of the Conway Board of Trustees, Annual Fund Committee Chair, Trustee Candace Currie ’97, noted that unrestricted donations fell far short of the FY ’06 Annual Fund goal that the board had set to ensure a balanced budget. She called on trustees to make an additional pledge as a matching challenge to other donors. Five trustees came forward and issued the challenge to Conway alums and friends in an end-of-year letter. The results were gratifying: about forty people—many of whom had already given to the FY ’06 annual fund—came forward with donations that yielded, in combination with the trustees’ pledges, an additional $11,675 for the school. This wonderful response more than matched the trustees’ pledges, and the total support generated by this initiative yielded Michele LoGrande Robert & Mary Merriam about 17% of FY Bongiorno Mary Mourkas ’06 unrestricted Kenneth Botnick & Wendy Page Karen Werner Martha Petersen giving! We at the Nancy E. Braxton Janet Powers Conway School of Joshua Clague Walter Reynolds Arthur Collins Design Associates Landscape Design David Cox Christopher Rice offer our enthusiasCandace Currie Donald Richard Catherine Rioux tic thanks to the fol- Lila Fendrick Patricia Finley David Rosenmiller lowing people for Nat Goodhue Lora Migliore Shelly James & Alice Hardigg Deborah Smith their generous reCarl Heide Richard Snyder sponse to the call David Jacke Johanna Stacy Judy & Bob Janowiak Cindy Tavernise of need, which Annice Kenan Karen Tiede greatly helped to Kathleen Hogan Knisely Mrs. M.E. Van Buren Edward & Sandra Donald L. Walker Jr. produce a robust Landau & Ruth Parnall final Annual Fund Susan Leopold Peg Read Weiss & C. Todd Lynch & Janet Frederick Weiss figure and a balBertucci Lynch Miles Weston anced operating Carrie Makover Seth Wilkinson Heather McCargo Mary Garrett Wilson budget for FY ’06.

CSLD Scholarships In 2001, the CSLD Board of Trustees established two $500 scholarships: the Walter Cudnohufsky Scholarship, awarded to a student continuing in the field of landscape design, and the Donald L. Walker, Jr. Scholarship, awarded to a student newly entering the field. Each scholarship is based on need and merit, including the promise of a high level of success in the Conway Master of Arts program as well as an expectation of making a positive contribution to the field of sustainable landscape planning and design in line with the school’s mission.

We extend our gratitude to Randy Griffith, Marcia Curtis, and Nancy Knox, whose contributions to the Scholarship Fund during FY ’06 were of great value in supporting this ongoing scholarship program. Thank you!

As we enter the seventh year of the school’s scholarship initiative, please consider making a restricted donation to the Conway Scholarship Fund.

40 con'text

Capital Campaign Donors FY 2006 The board of trustees, faculty and staff of the Conway School of Landscape Design are deeply grateful to the following individuals for their generous donations to the school’s capital campaign during the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006. Some of these donations fulfilled multiple-year pledges made in an earlier year and others were unsolicited, new contributions earmarked for the school’s capital needs. This support enabled us to undertake over $20,000 of work vital to maintaining CSLD’s beautiful facility and campus, Elisabeth Reese Cadigan including installing a Michael Cavanaugh Arthur Collins new, standing-seam Clémence Corriveau metal roof over the Candace Currie Wendi Goldsmith studios and making Brian Higgins necessary improveBetsy Hopkins Donald Richard ments to the driveKatherine Schreiber way. Thank you so Jonathan Tauer Jackson J. Walter very much.

Inaugural Donors A number of Conway alums and friends unable to attend the August 12, 2006 inaugural ceremonies for Director/President Paul Cawood Hellmund expressed their support for Paul’s leadership and the bright future of the school by making unrestricted donations in honor of his inauguration. Although these gifts are credited to FY ’07, the CSLD board of trustees and staff wish to take this early opportunity to Jennifer Allcock extend our gratitude Richard K. Brown & Anita Loose-Brown to the following Clémence Corriveau Walter Cudnohufsky individuals for their Kent Freed contributions to the Elsie Landstrom Robert Marquand school on the occaJack & Tip McIntosh sion of this major James Mourkas Sandra Relyea transition in Tom Sargent Conway’s history.

Richard Snyder John Steele Thank you very Marion Withe much.

Gwendolyn Wood We make every effort to acknowledge everyone’s generosity. If a mistake has been made, please accept our apology and contact us so that we may correct the error in our records.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Arthur Collins II ’79 (Chair)

Letter from the Chair

Collins Enterprises LLC Stamford, CT

Dear Conway Faithful:

William Richter ’77 (Vice Chair) Landscape Architect West Hartford, CT

John Ahern University of Massachusetts, LARP, Chair Amherst, MA

Henry Art Williams College Biology Dept.

Williamstown, MA

John S. Barclay University of Connecticut, Wildlife Conservation Center Storrs, CT

Richard K. Brown Darrow School, New Lebanon, NY

Clémence Corriveau ’02 Landscape Designer West Hartford, CT

Nat Goodhue ’91 Goodhue Land Design, Stowe, VT

Amy Klippenstein ’95 Farmer, Ashfield, MA

Nicholas T. Lasoff ‘05 Lasoff Landscape Design Bennington, VT

Donald Richard ’77 John G. Crowe Associates Belmont, MA

Allen Rossiter Buckingham, Browne and Nichols School Cambridge, MA

Aaron Schlechter ‘01 Ecological Consultant, Norwalk, CT

Virginia Sullivan ‘86 Learning by the Yard, Conway, MA

Susan Van Buren ‘82 Rawlings Conservatory & Botanical Gardens, Baltimore,MD

Seth Wilkinson ‘99 Wilkinson Ecological Design Orleans, MA EMERITUS TRUSTEES

David Bird Gordon H. Shaw ’89 Bruce Stedman ’78 PAST DIRECTORS

Walter Cudnohufsky (1972-1992) Donald L. Walker, Jr. (1992-2005)

ADVISORS Jean Akers Landscape Architect W. Springfield, MA

John Hanning ’82 GIS Database Specialist, Montpelier, VT

Richard Hubble Executive Director, Franklin Land Trust Shelburne Falls, MA

David Lynch ’85 MA Capital Asset Management Watertown, MA

Another year has begun with an energetic new class of students who are seeking an environmental consciousness of sustainability and land stewardship at Conway.

Like all those who have attended Conway, they too will leave with a unique view of the world and the tools to make a difference in it.

Our earth is under siege—global warming, the volatility of oil pricing and supply, and uncertain prospects for energy alternatives for our future. Professor David Orr of Oberlin College reminded us of these cold, hard facts at Paul Hellmund’s inauguration in August. He challenged all of us to seek a path for sustainable design solutions, to practice appropriate land stewardship in order to preserve our cherished resources, and to utilize the tenets of smart growth exemplified in traditional community design principles. Along with 6,000 other members, I was reminded again this fall at the Urban Land Institute conference in Denver that we must proceed with a keen environmental conscience in managing growth, housing, transportation, community, and other issues facing our planners today. The days of unlimited and low-cost energy supplies are over, and we are being forced to adjust and adapt.

The Conway School has already done just that. Recently, we adopted a new mission statement that emphasizes sustainability in land planning and design.

That statement could not be more timely. Director Paul Hellmund has already initiated new programs to take us on that path. The curriculum now includes a less distant trip to the Connecticut River valley in the beginning of the year. A master plan is being developed for the school to utilize its facilities effectively and minimize the consumption of energy. And the staff has been modified to include more adjunct professors to help us with our outreach initiatives and to bring new people to the school who are willing to share how they make significant contributions in the world.

The Board of Trustees is in full support of these initiatives and is taking action to continue the efforts to create the “Permanent Conway.” We are making strides in outreach, development, academic and strategic planning, while maintaining a sound fiscal conscience in managing the school. Action-oriented leadership is critical to advancing these initiatives, and we are going from “good to great” in this endeavor. My thanks to all who are serving and have served.

The Conway School will become stronger with the help of its alumni.

Please feel free to visit and witness the excitement that is Conway.

Keep the calls and letters coming.

Carrie Makover ’86 Fairfield, CT

Yours faithfully,

Darrel Morrison

Ruth Parnall

Art Collins ’79 Chair, Board of Trustees

Landscape Architect, Conway, MA

Joel Russell Land Use Attorney, Northampton, MA

Steven Stang Investment Advisor, Hartford, CT

Hayscented Fern Dennstaedtia Punctilobula

From a drawing by Danielle Allen ‘06

Professor Emeritus, University of Georgia Watkinsville, GA & NYC, NY

The Class of 2006

Jean Akers

Clockwise from the figure in the lower left outside the wheel: Greg Walzer, Danielle Allen, Jennifer McElligott, Christopher Graves, John Bisbing, Ian Warner, Daniel Stratten, Ben Groves, Clare Bootle, Hannah Whipple, Adam Bossi, Brian Trippe, Ian A. Hodgdon, Marcella Waggoner, Janna Thompson, Emma Cooke. Not pictured: Greg Salzman.

Conway School of Landscape Design 332 South Deerfield Road P.O. Box 179 Conway, MA 01341 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

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