Frank Sleegers Receives CELA National Service Learning Award

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Frank Sleegers, landscape architecture and regional planning, has received the Senior Level Faculty Award for Excellence in Service Learning from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). This national award is based on the work Sleegers has produced in collaboration with students, alumni, and community members since 2008 in the neighborhoods of Springfield, MA.

Sleegers was presented with the award on March 17 at the 2023 CELA Conference in San Antonio, Texas by CELA board member Simon Bussiere, ASLA (BSLA '05). A number of LARP faculty and affiliates were also present at the CELA conference to give lectures and to participate in panels. 

The review board praised Sleegers's work, saying: 

Since joining the faculty in 2006, he has been committed to teaching urban design studios that partner with communities in the diverse, low-income cities of Massachusetts. He has developed long-term collaborations with the City of Springfield which is the third largest city in the Commonwealth. With a population of over 150,000, Springfield has been designated by the state as a Gateway City for new immigrants and is a majority-minority city with many environmental justice neighborhoods.

The scope and breadth of Frank’s service-learning work is truly impressive with 28 urban design studios in the period from 2008-2022 that have engaged 450 graduate and undergraduate landscape architecture students and over 600 community members in co-design projects. Moreover, these projects have resulted in peer-recognition winning 14 regional and national design awards. Frank also includes a rigorous writing component in which the studio creates a project publication for the community clients that is also available digitally in the University of Massachusetts Scholarworks repository with over 10,000 downloads.

Congratulations, Frank!