ASLA UTAH NOVEMBER 2019 NEWSLETTER

UPCOMING EVENTS

SAVE THE DATE!

ASLA Utah Conference on Landscape Architecture
Friday, May 15th, 2020
Gateway Mall, Salt Lake City

Be on the lookout for more information to come!

2020 Winter Social
Thursday, January 23rd , 2020 7:00 pm
ASLA Offices

Leadership Express

Lauren Smith, Chapter President

Greetings!

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope all of you are able to take a break and spend sometime with your family and friends during this holiday season. I was lucky enough to visit my family and am writing this message from my home town in Indiana.

Colin Olson, Tina Gillman, Jenny Sonntag and I all traveled to San Diego a few weeks ago for the Fall Chapter Presidency Council Meetings. This fall we we covered a lot of topics; including membership, succession planning, ASLA’s frameworks project, climate change, environmental justice, and the state of the organization. ASLA is launching a Membership Campaign, to focus on growing our membership. Part of that campaign is to reach out to our current members, and landscape architects who are not members, to see what we could be doing as an organization for you. This will be a popular topic this year and you’ll continue to hear about it.

Also, we will be launching our new website December 1st! We are hoping the transition is as smooth as possible. If you come upon an issue please let me know and we will get them addressed as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience!

Thank you to all of you for allowing me to serve as Chapter President, I’m looking forward to leading our chapter this year. The past year I’ve learned a lot and gotten up to speed on how I can best serve our chapter. If there’s something ASLA can do to better serve you, please let someone on the Executive Committee know. Looking forward to getting to know all of you better this year, please feel to reach out for any reason.

Cheers!
Lauren

Advocacy Grants Awarded to ASLA Utah

Ali Lewis, VP of Advocacy

We are pleased announce:
ASLA National awarded our Utah chapter a 2020 Licensure and State Advocacy Grant in the sum of $700 to host a breakfast with state lawmakers and walking tour!

The breakfast is to be held in conjunction with the 2020 Utah General Session that begins January 27th. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet our lawmakers to discuss bills and general legislation that has a bearing on the field of landscape architecture. Additionally, this breakfast is a means to culminate relationships with our state and federal representatives and articulate the importance of landscape architecture for the health, safety and welfare of their citizens. The walking tour is at a yet-to-be-determined place and time so, we will keep you updated as that develops.

Because both events take a considerable amount of time and effort to coordinate, we are creating an Advocacy Committee to support VP of Advocacy Ali Lewis and the rest of the Expectative Committee. If this is something you would like to be involved in, please reach out to ali.lewis@ibigroup.com. If you choose to join the Advocacy Committee, you will be asked to meet on Tuesday, December 3rd, at the ASLA office in Salt Lake at which time we’ll create a plan for the Advocacy Breakfast and brainstorm ideas for where and when to host the walking tour. This is a great opportunity for anyone who’s been interested in getting involved with ASLA and/or would like to learn more about the realm of advocacy and how it relates to our profession.

Trustee Report

Tina Gillman, Trustee

The ASLA Board of Trustees met in San Diego for two days this past month. Here are the highlights I have to share with you:

Nancy Somerville and ASLA have parted ways and a search committee has been formed to find a new Executive Vice President (EVP). A quick update on ASLA governance: Chapter members elect trustees and the national president. The trustees elect national Vice Presidents. The national president and vice presidents form the Executive Committee and are in charge of overseeing one employee: The Executive Vice President. The Executive Committee decided it was time to find a new EVP. They can not legally discuss the reasons for this and emphasized this point to the trustees. As a trustee, I have worked with many of the Executive Committee members over the past few years and trust their choices. Many exciting projects are underway and ASLA staff members are enthusiastic about the future.
Licensure defense continues to be a concern. Licensure is a state level issue and while national has fantastic staff, they need our help. Please see an email about licensure this past week from ASLA for more specific information. Our chapter was fortunate to host the ASLA Advocacy Summit this past September where Ali Lewis and I learned fantastic strategies for building relationships with legislators. Please see Ali’s recent email requesting Advocacy committee members as we prepare for the upcoming legislative season.
A thank you to ASLA Utah Chapter member Josh Sundloff for presenting at the Advocacy Summit. In 2017, Josh used his knowledge as a landscape architect and attorney to revise the Landscape Architecture Handbook. A PDF of the handbook can be found here: https://www.asla.org/uploadedFiles/CMS/Government_Affairs/LA_Licensure_Handbook.pdf
Due to the continuing rising licensure threat concerns, the Board of Trustees approved a budget that suspends the Advocacy and Public Relations Summits in 2020 and instead uses that money to join the Association for Responsible Licensure. Their website has a wealth of information: http://www.responsiblelicensing.org/

The board of trustee meetings also included updates on the Frameworks Communication project, the beginnings of a new ASLA website, and lively discussions about a range of topics from budgets to communication. It is an honor to represent the chapter as a trustee.

USU ASLA Student Chapter Highlighted at National Conference

David Anderson, USU Liaison

It was a great experience to attend the national ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Diego. At the Chapter President’s Council meeting, Professor David Evans, who serves as USU’s Student Chapter Advisor, gave a presentation about the success of USU student chapter, and their collaboration with the Utah Chapter.

There was a great response to the presentation, which was followed by a number of questions and positive comments. Highlights include:

The USU student chapter developed a handbook that serves as a working document, to remind future chapter officers of established policies and best practices, and to record fun and successful events. This handbook was presented at the national Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture conference in March 2019, and has been made available to serve as a model to LA departments around the country. ASLA will also be making it available on their website.

Dave noted that 100% of LAEP students who wish to participate in ASLA are provided state and national membership through the department’s unique differential tuition program. By providing student membership, the LAEP Department is fostering an association with ASLA that starts at the student level, and will likely continue as they transition to practice upon graduation.
The USU student chapter is well funded, which provides great opportunity for strong chapter activities – both for socialization and learning. The student chapter collaborates with the state chapter through mentoring events, portfolio reviews, invited speakers, etc.
The USU student chapter acquires funding through the Community Design Team initiative, led by Professor Evans. Interested ‘clients’ (usually a small rural community or a non-profit organization) solicit help from LAEP through the department website portal. From there, Professor Evans aligns the projects (based on study topics, skill levels, and scale) with department studio courses, graduate students, and volunteer teams. The client is provided a scope of services and an explanation of a cost-recovery fee. This fee covers cost of travel, document production, and food and lodging (if required). Clients are also made aware that a portion of the fee will assist in supporting the student ASLA chapter.
The early conceptual work created by LAEP students often provides the client with enough information and quality imagery to allow them to pursue funding opportunities and professional services. ASLA past president Colin Olson gave an example of this ‘catalytic effect’, noting that recent work by LAEP students in Pocatello, led city leaders to pursue an RFP for a city park.

The student chapter is well organized with enthusiastic officers. They each have distinct responsibilities and hold weekly meetings with Professor Evans. They establish continuity by following the leadership model of the state chapter Executive Committee. In addition to a president and various officers, a president-elect also serves.

It was obvious, after Professor Evans’ presentation, that the student chapter at USU is one of the most active and engaged student chapters in the country. Questions and comments were very complimentary, and many in attendance wanted to know more about the successful model of advising Professor Evans has established.

PS – and for the third year in a row, at least 15 LAEP students attended the national conference, AND placed in the top three schools in the tailgate school spirit competition.

GO AGGIES!

USU LAEP Students Attend the ASLA National Conference

Anthony Manzione - ASLA Student Chapter President

Attending the ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture is a unique experience for the students at Utah State to;

Get exposure to interesting real world projects and research outside of our own studios
Connect with professionals and other students
Attend a variety of education sessions
Explore a new city drastically different from Logan is always fun and enlightening - we all found ourselves observing things we learned from an education session to our surroundings
Be introduced to products and materials. The Expo was a definite highlight!
Use in built landscapes - something we don’t get nearly enough of at school
Bring the Aggie Spirit to the alumni tailgate and WON 10 TICKETS to next year's conference in Miami!!

Chandler Christensen: “The conference was eye opening to me. I never understood the vast range of projects and scopes we as landscape architects can work on. It made me excited for my future career.”

Josh Quigley: “It was incredible to get the chance to be surrounded by such a high concentration of experts in the field. Being able to have those important conversations and discuss meaningful topics with others at a deeper level of understanding was something that I had hardly experienced before.”

The Conference on Landscape Architecture is a great opportunity for the Students at Utah State. It broadens our perspectives in ways we never would imagine. For the 13 of us that attended the conference we now have the responsibility to teach our fellow classmates about what we learned.

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