Spring 2025 Lecture Recordings

Presented by Parker Sutton and Katie Jenkins, Professors of Landscape Architecture at the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State University

Through this lecture, Sutton and Jenkins share approaches to care that enhance landscape function and adaptability, promote vegetative abundance, and model new aesthetic norms.

Presented by Dina Newman, Director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s (UMKC) Center for Neighborhoods

Many institutions and organizations struggle to engage authentically with neighborhood leaders and residents. Often, these organizations lack transparency, accountability, and thoughtful intentionality. What does it look like when the neighborhood voices are amplified and recognized as experts of their own experiences? How do you center the community's skills, gifts, and talents to help shift the power dynamic, create solutions, and build strong connections that will contribute to transformational outcomes and better policies? Dina Newman explores these questions in her Zube Lecture. This lecture qualified for 1 AICP-CM credit.

Presented by Marley Randazzo, PhD Candidate in Urban Planning & Development at the USC Price School of Public Policy

Will cities survive in the age of remote work? As the need to live near the workplace diminishes, recent research has found an exodus from dense, central city neighborhoods in the largest American cities, towards peripheral neighborhoods beyond traditional commuting distances. Analysis of this so-called “donut effect” reveals these patterns to reflect peak-pandemic conditions rather than remote work effects. To understand the spatial implications of WFH, this lecture frames recent telework expansion against the ongoing digitalization of human life and use demographic population dynamics to emphasize the cyclical nature of urban development. Applied to recent survey data connecting remote-workability and location choice, this approach suggests the age of remote work is one of continuity—not change—in metropolitan development and spatial organization. This lecture qualified for 1 AICP-CM credit.

Presented by James Royce, Registered Landscape Architect, LEED AP, Accredited Green Roof Professional

The design for the proposed Sustainable Engineering Lab(SEL) at UMass had to consider many critical factors and balance several project goals: site design, campus planning, accessibility, on-site stormwater management, budget, projections of climate change, durability and next-generation sustainability. Programming was developed for both the College of Engineering as well as the overall student and faculty population. This presentation discusses the design considerations, review process and many challenges in the development of the University’s future world-class laboratory.

Panel discussion with UMass Master of Regional Planning Alumni, moderated by members of the Planning Student Organization at UMass Amherst.

Panelists:

Stephanie Camp, Director of Regional Planning, SCRCOG

Ben Breger, Transportation Planner, Bowman Consulting

Maureen Pollock, Planning Director, Town of Montague

Panel discussion with UMass Landscape Architecture Alumni, moderated by MLA candidates, Nina Fritsch and Bridget Healy.

Panelists:

Camilla Nova, Landscape Designer, Fuss & O'Neill

James Mealey, Historical Landscape Architect, Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation

Emily Menard, Landscape Designer

MaryKate Farnham, Designer, LeBlanc Jones Landscape Architects

Suzanne Warner, Landscape Designer, CDM Smith

Presented by James Williams, Project Forester with The Center For Heirs Property Preservation

Urban tree planting initiatives are often seen as silver bullet solutions for low-income neighborhoods. Trees are great for urban environments, but they can also attract investment from developers and lead to gentrification. Trees and their natural environment can be an economic base for communities. Residents can learn to manage and monitor tree and forest health and use natural resources to create jobs. These jobs include timber and non-timber forest products. Ultimately, helping communities maintain their natural landscape for generations while maintaining biodiversity and climate resilient systems.

This lecture qualified for 1 AICP-CM credit.

Presented by Robert Olshansky, FAICP, Professor Emeritus of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Disasters displace millions of people every year. After the disaster, they must decide whether to return to their homes or move elsewhere. Planners and government officials often propose permanent relocation as a response. But relocations disrupt lives and livelihoods of households and communities and are therefore rarely the preferred option of those affected. Nevertheless, relocations happen, and planners often develop relocation policies and plan the move. In this talk, Robert Olshansky summarizes the principles for planning for proposed relocations, based on dozens of cases. He then illustrates the principles with three examples from Puerto Rico: the federally-funded rebuild/repair/relocate program, a case of self-managed relocation by a community land trust in El Caño Martîn Peña, and an impending $300M HUD-funded community relocation program. An important purpose of this research is to inform climate adaptation planning.

This lecture qualified for 1 AICP-CM credit.

Presented by UMass PhD in Regional Planning Students and Candidates

Presentations:

1.) "Beyond Vandalism: Graffiti/Art as Grassroots Storytelling in the Bronx," by Tosin Bamidele

2.) "Eyeing Planning's Blindside: A Conformance-Based Plan Evaluation of Pre-Maria Puerto Rico to Understand the Way Forward," by Ruben Flores-Marzan

3.) "How Emerging Challenges in Higher Education are Revolutionizing the Campus Planning Paradigm," by Mohammed M. Abdelaal