From Blueprint to Beautiful: GW’s Landscape Design Program

By Julia Parmley

In the admission essays Adele Ashkar reads for GW’s Landscape Design Program, prospective students explain why they want to become landscape designers. Some are lawyers and engineers who have tired of their profession and want something “fun.” A few are artists who want to use their skills in a new way. Others want to recapture childhood memories of planting flowers and playing in gardens.

“After 9/11, we had a 20 percent increase in enrollment, because people were reevaluating their lives and wanted to pursue what made them happy,” says Ashkar, who directs GW’s Landscape Design Program. “We have writers, scientists—all kinds of people who decide they want to switch careers to something more fulfilling.”

Housed in GW’s College of Professional Studies, the Landscape Design Program offers a 28-credit graduate certificate in landscape design and a 15-credit graduate certificate in sustainable landscapes, with classes at GW’s Foggy Bottom, Virginia, and Alexandria campuses, and online. The two certificates can be combined for a 48-credit master’s degree in landscape design.

The program began in 1973 as part of the University’s continuing education efforts. Ashkar joined the program as a part-time professor in 1987 and became program director in 1997. That year, she helped facilitate an agreement with Virginia Tech that allowed GW students to take master’s classes in landscape architecture at Virginia Tech’s Alexandria campus, an agreement that still exists. In 2003, the program became the first degree program in GW’s newly created College of Professional Studies. “The move was a big milestone for us,” says Ashkar. “We were always a big and rigorous program, but students were now able to receive graduate credit for their work.”

More than 100 students are now enrolled in the program and at GW’s 2008 Commencement, Ashkar watched 14 of her students graduate with the University’s first Master of Professional Studies in Landscape Design degree. “I was very proud that day,” she says.

The Landscape Design Program includes classes in landscape graphics; design theory; site analysis; site engineering and construction methods; history of garden design; a full year of plant courses with field trips to local public gardens, such as the U.S. National Arboretum; site and planting design classes; and a capstone project in which students design a landscape from start to finish.

In 2007, Ashkar launched the graduate certificate in sustainable landscapes, a program that many students enroll in after completing the certificate in landscape design. Ashkar says the program alternates between intensive weekend and distance learning courses. In the program, students learn about native plants that are essential for sustainable gardening, such as milkweed and black-eyed Susan, the design of rain gardens, energy and stormwater conservation, green roofs, ecological restoration, green buildings and communities, and edible landscaping.

Ashkar calls the decision to add the sustainable landscapes certificate “timely.” “Many employers are interested in sustainability, and I felt it was really important to train our students in the field so they are ready to take on challenges,” she says.

Students in the program last semester put their classroom skills into practice on campus, helping faculty, staff, and volunteers install a green roof on the City View Room Terrace at 1957 E Street in October. “It was such a great day and a really exciting hands-on opportunity for us,” says Ashkar, who hopes both to find other projects on campus for her students and to conduct outreach about sustainability and conservation with local schools and the community.

The program’s faculty consists of one full-time professor and 30 part-time lecturers, who are practicing professionals. “The instructors bring challenges from their practices into the classroom,” says Ashkar. “This keeps our curriculum up to date and, in turn, the instructors find a renewed energy from teaching that feeds them professionally.”

Earlier this year, Ashkar and her colleagues launched the Marion Clark Memorial Scholarship in Sustainable Landscapes in memory of Clark, who was adjunct professor in sustainable landscapes and co-author of the program’s sustainable landscapes curriculum.

Trained in landscape architecture, Ashkar practiced in New York before moving to Washington, D.C., with her family in the 1980s. She soon became interested in teaching and when she joined GW’s faculty in 1987 she realized how much she enjoyed it.

“I went into the landscape field originally because I was interested in biology and botany and I was artistic, so it seemed to be the field that combined my interests,” she says. “When I came to GW, I found the adult students a real pleasure to teach. They are very eager to learn, and they bring their life experi­ences to the classroom.”

After graduation, she says students find employment in landscape design, freelancing, at garden centers, or even garden writing. But whatever field they pursue, Ashkar says they leave the program engaged and motivated. “Every student comes in with a different kind of passion,” she says. “But they all leave ready to make a real change in their communities.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu