GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPE PLANNING + DESIGN

THE CONWAY SCHOOL

Ten-Month Master of Science in Ecological Design

CATALOG

2015-2016

csld.edu

2 | CON WAYYou can download this catalog and the application form from: www.csld.edu© 2014 Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc. • Printed December 2014

CON WAY | 1

If you’re ready to make a difference in the world, Conway is ready for you.

The Conway School is fully committed to exploring, developing, practicing, and teaching planning and design of the land that is ecologically and socially sustainable. Each year, through its accredited, ten-month graduate program a small number of graduate students from diverse backgrounds are immersed

in a range of applied landscape studies, ranging in scale from residences to regions.

Our curriculum is based on:

ECOLOGICAL DESIGN — we work together to discover what sustainability can mean to a project and to the planet.

REAL-WORLD PROJECTS — from the start of each term students manage their own real projects with real clients.

CAREFULLY INTEGRATED LEARNING — classes, studio time, field trips, and guest speakers are organized around the projects for that term, rather than around separate courses on separate topics.

WHOLE AND COMPLEX UNDERSTANDING OF NATURAL AND CULTURAL SYSTEMS — inter-relationships across scales are examined, no matter the project scope.

DIVERSE, INNOVATIVE TEACHING FORMATS — teaching reflects appreciate of individual learning styles.

GREAT TEACHER-TO-STUDENT RATIO —much instruction is one-on-one or through small group interaction, made possible because there are only eighteen or nineteen students at a time.

COLLABORATION, NOT COMPETITION — each student or team of students has their own project, and everyone shares the goal of learning about design that is ecologically and socially sensitive through all of the projects being undertaken that term.

A HUMANITIES PERSPECTIVE — we consider values, ethics and meaning and offer practical training in oral and written communication skills, which are integrated throughout the year.

FULL INTEGRATION INTO THE LANDSCAPE IN WESTERN NEW ENGLAND — activities take advantage of our setting, using it as a springboard to consider landscapes elsewhere.

2 | CON WAY

Dear prospective student:

Thanks for looking into the Conway School’s graduate program in sustainable landscape planning and design. This catalog and its companion website (www.csld.edu) were designed to give you a feel for the school and its unique approach.

Some schools talk about design, do practice designs, or prepare for design sometime in the future. We design from day one, on real projects with real clients. You graduate with professional-level projects under your belt and with the prospect of strong references from your clients.

The best way to understand our school and how it works is to visit in person. Call Director of Admissions Adrian Dahlin at (413) 369-4044 x5 to set up a visit. We’d be glad to show you around and have you meet members of the current class. You can sit in on a class or go on a field trip. You may also want to attend one of the day-long information sessions we hold twice or more per year. You can register for a session online.

Conway is for motivated learners who think for themselves, who are committed to working for positive change in the world, and who learn best in a dynamic, real-world, collaborative setting. There are no grades (you re-do work until it measures up), few hypothetical exercises (you work on real projects with real clients), and there is a pervading sense of cooperation and common mission.

We seek students who are open to design, landscape, ecology, and “doing right by the planet,” and to looking across scales, ranging from backyards to regions. We are not a garden design school. You don’t have to know how to draw already, you just have to be willing to learn that and many other interesting things. We will help you develop the skills you need to be an effective agent of change.

Sound interesting? Want to make a difference through sustainable design? We hope you will apply. In the meanwhile, please come see for yourself.

Paul Cawood HellmundPresident + Director

Paul Cawood Hellmund is the Director of Conway’s Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design. A landscape architect and conservation planner, he has more than twenty years design experience and co-authored Ecology of Greenways (1993) and Designing Greenways (2006).

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws

“ “

We design from day one,on real projects with real clients.

CON WAY | 3

Real world. Real results.

A Conway education is for life—your life—not for a single profession that someone else or history has defined. Unlike many professional degree

programs, a Conway masters degree is not narrowly focused. Instead of educating students to fit into narrow professional categories, we help each student define an individual path that is meaningful and promising for that student and for the planet. Four decades of Conway graduates who have gone on to meaningful and diverse work bear out the success of this unconventional but effective approach.

LEARNING BY DOINGFor most designers, learning by doing is the most efficient and effective way to learn. By applying classroom concepts to real projects of varying scales, Conway students rapidly develop the skills and knowledge to be responsible and independent designers and planners. This process of discovery is more effective than memorizing facts or formulas and is better suited to discovering the essentials of sustainable design.

At Conway, students learn how to be self-educators by helping direct their own educations. To this end, students identify individual educational goals at the beginning of the year and monitor the achievement of those goals as the year progresses. This skill encourages graduates to be life-long learners.

Instruction at Conway goes beyond techniques, stressing the processes that organize techniques and strategies and reveal underlying concepts. The ability to use an organized process enables the student to address a wide range of environmental problems and take advantage of diverse opportunities.

Clear, concise communication—oral, written, and visual—is essential to success as a landscape visionary. The ecological designer must not only be able to develop reasonable designs but also must be able to explain why these designs work.

The program offered at Conway represents an integrated curriculum where classes complement design practice. Instruction occurs in a small, intimate, and supportive environment. There is an unambiguous emphasis on sustainability, including ecological and social responsibility, as well as on oral and written communication skills, and project management. We define the terms ecology and design very broadly to cover diverse topics in sustainable design and planning.

ACCREDITED MASTERS DEGREEConway grants a Master of Science in Ecological Design (MSED) by the authority of the Massachusetts Council of Higher Education. The school is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc.

Work at Conway is intensive and collaborative and focuses on real projects for real clients. Students present project progress each week to get feedback on their work and to share with others what they are learning.

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws

4 | CON WAY

Conway Alums Making a World of Difference

Conway’s nearly six hundred graduates work in a wide range of fields related to ecological design and planning, often building on their

prior education and experiences. What sets them apart from others in their fields is a profound appreciation for sustainability and an ability to see and design parts within a larger landscape context. Their fields include:• Sustainable landscape design• Conservation planning • Land acquisition and management for land trusts• Bioengineering and phytoremediation• Regenerative Design• Urban and regional planning • Stormwater management

• Permaculture and forest garden design• Wetland construction and remediation • Landscape architecture• Food systems design/development• Habitat restoration • Non-profit management• Entrepreneurship• Ecological design

Our masters degree program provides an exposure to these and other topics, with which graduates have gone on to pursue a wide variety of careers.

On these pages you will find out about a few Conway graduates and what they are doing.

INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTING: GOVE DEPUY ’02 “I loved my Conway experience and have found that the ‘use what you have to get where you want to go’ mentality at Conway has led me through more than a few tough design challenges

in Indonesia.” Gove co-founded a small environmental consulting firm based in Bali, which links international accreditation efforts to local knowledge and services. “The interest has been incredible,” he says, “and Conway was a key step in getting me here. I chose Conway over larger universities where I was accepted because it seemed to offer the opportunity to explore ‘out of the box’ solutions. The Conway approach to understanding and designing with natural landscapes can serve as a positive model for anyone working in design and planning as well as related fields.”

BIOENGINEERING: WENDI GOLDSMITH ‘90Like so many Conway grads, Wendi Goldsmith’s career spans many fields and competencies. Her company, Bioengineering Group, consults on some of the largest public infrastructure

projects in history. She oversees teams of ecologists, earth scientists, engineers, landscape architects, and construction managers. Their projects have included renewable energy planning, flood control and hurricane protection, transportation, environmental remediation, and parks, open space and greenways, to name a few. “Conway is tiny,” she says, “but I am in awe of its powerful program.”

CON WAY | 5

RESTORATION ECOLOGY: SETH WILKINSON ‘99 Seth has restored globally-rare sandplain grasslands, implemented innovative bioengineering projects for coastal stabilization, and created critical nesting habitat for the state’s

most imperiled population of threatened Diamondback Terrapin turtles. In collaboration with land trusts, conservation commissions, Massachusetts Audubon, and private landowners, his company (Wilkinson Ecological Design) has completed hundreds of ecological restoration projects on Cape Cod and the Islands, proving that restored habitats can also become elegantly beautiful landscapes.

SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS: MARY PRAUS ‘10Mary is Land Use Planner for the Franklin Regional Council of Governments. She recently won a substantial grant to look at gaps in the regional food system – specifically, the

infrastructure, processing and transportation needs of the region’s farmers, and the challenges residents may have in accessing fresh, locally grown food. This project builds on prior work conducted around food security issues in the region. Praus was one of several authors of the 2013 regional plan for sustainable development called “Sustainable Franklin County,” which called for efforts to expand food and farming services and infrastructure and to increase food security in the region.

ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE DESIGN: CHRISTINA GIBSON ‘12 “The distant prospect of working on the [Atlanta] BeltLine inspired me to enroll at the Conway School in 2011; the sudden reality of a job offer on the BeltLine in early 2013 enabled me to

work in my hometown on the project of my dreams,” says Christina, who is Prairie Restoration Coordinator for Trees Atlanta, a non-profit citizens’ group that protects Atlanta’s urban forest through planting, conservation, and education. “The BeltLine represents Atlanta’s acknowledgment that the largest metropolitan area in the southeast needs to act quickly to remain a relevant and viable metropolis in the post-peak-oil era.”

6 | CON WAY

“What consistently strikes me about Conway’s program is the energy, enthusiasm, and commitment that it fosters within its students. When thinking about ecologically sound landscape design, Conway is the program

that comes first to my mind.”

TOM K. WESSELSProfessor, Antioch University New England, Keene, New Hampshire

What Others are Saying About Conway

“In the field Conway students respond to a landscape with a scientist’s curiosity, an artist’s appreciation and an ecologist’s concern. The program nurtures those skills, hones them, and turns out graduates that are capable

of taking on complex challenges—just the skills needed for increasingly complex, and global, environmental issues.”

JUDY PRESTONExecutive Director, Tidewater Institute, Old Saybrook, Connecticut

“...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.”

DR. JILL KER CONWAYFormer President, Smith College, Massachusetts

“Conway really is the first institution to have the foresight and the courage to understand the integrative power of ecological design and its ability to help solve the energy, food, environmental and infrastructural crises that

the world faces. I think that this is a very important moment because of that. This is really the first degree in this field of healing and ecological support. Other institutions are preparing to embrace ecological design as a field of inquiry and interaction and instruction. But the real courage to define the task took place here.”

DR. JOHN TODDProfessor, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont; inventor of living machines; Conway Commencement Speaker 2014

“Conway is one very remarkable school, where extraordinary learning takes place amidst a highly congenial and collegial atmosphere. If one judges an institution by the commitment,

enthusiasm, and competence of its graduates, Conway must rank among the very best to be found anywhere, in the field of landscape design.”

RANDALL ARENDT

Landscape Planner + Author, Narragansett, Rhode Island

“Your teaching/learning environment embraces those things most precious to creative learning: a warm, salutary, informal and intimate atmosphere; close personal student/faculty interaction; the sharing of pure, distilled knowledge; reverence for the earth and a responsibility for the stewardship of it.”

STEVEN STRONGPrincipal, Solar Design Associates, Inc., Harvard, Massachusetts

“Conway offers the kind of education you need not just to make a living but to make a difference.”

BILL MCKIBBENAuthor, Educator, Environmentalist, and Co-founder of 350.org

CON WAY | 7

Walter Cudnohufsky wasn’t satisfied with the status quo. He had received a Master’s degree in landscape

architecture from Harvard in 1965, spent eighteen months traveling, and was teaching design at a large university. He was frustrated with traditional design education, which he considered too compartmentalized, inflexible, and theoretical.

He had explored design education in his graduate thesis and had been reading progressive education theory. He wanted to try a new way of doing things, with hands-on learning, more like a working design office. He thought it should be student-based, not institutionally organized, and he wanted it to be a shared experience that emphasized teamwork. He wanted to start a new school that would turn design education on its head. And so he did.

A PERSONAL LOAN LAUNCHES THE SCHOOLAlthough he hadn’t envisioned a design school in a

rural setting, for reasons of economy, Walt began the school in his Conway home and peripheral buildings —a sugar-house and a converted barn. He secured an $8,000 personal loan to pay for renovations and float the school in its first year. Construction took place over the summer of 1972, in anticipation of the first class—seven men and two women, mostly from Massachusetts.

Classes were held every day, at times with studio also every day. There might be an impromptu stone wall building demonstration or other invitations to “learn by doing.” Chores were always part of the sharing, potlucks and games part of the fun. Communication has always been an important focus of the school. Walt’s belief was that if you can’t explain your ideas in writing and speaking, then you’re not in charge of yourself or what you’re doing.

SECOND DIRECTOR ARRIVES AS STUDENTDon Walker, who would prove to be a major force in

the evolution of the school, came as a student in 1978. He already had two degrees in landscape architecture and much experience in teaching and practice. He, too, was disillusioned with his teaching experience and the persistent pressure to do research. With Don’s addition to the staff came a gradual shift in focus from teaching

traditional landscape architecture to encouraging design that is environmentally sound. Increasingly, applicants were seeking this new way of looking at design.

ACCREDITATION ACHIEVED The New England Association

of Schools and Colleges granted full accreditation effective 1989. In 1992, Walt left the school to put into practice the things that he had been teaching. Today he regards the Conway School of Landscape Design as his greatest lifetime contribution, while giving credit to the people who are carrying the school forward. Don Walker became director in 1992, a position he held until his retirement in

2005. In 2004 Don and staff oversaw the move from the school’s thirty-year home to a nearby 34.5-acre wooded hilltop campus.

INTO THE 21ST CENTURYConway’s third director, Panama-born landscape

architect and conservation planner Paul Cawood Hellmund, is committed to the school’s unique teaching approach and to sustainable design. He has a strong interest in expanding the school’s perspective to more urban and global planning and design opportunities.

In 2014, Conway announced a change in the name of its degree from Master of Arts in Landscape Design to Master of Science in Ecological Design. The new degree reflects Conway’s applied curriculum and fundamental commitment to sustainability.

In some ways the school has evolved during its 42-year history. However, central features–such as its focus on individualized, experience-based learning–remain constant.

Our Story

Our building features passive and active so-lar design and a deck with vistas to distant mountains. We view our main campus as an opportunity to create an outdoor learning laboratory focused on sustainable design and forest management.

Bill

Reg

an

Over its forty-plus year history there have been three directors of the school (l/r): Walter Cud-nohufsky (Founder, 1972–1992), Donald Walker (1992–2005), Paul Cawood Hellmund (2005–present). Each has played a role in shaping the school while maintaining its core values.

8 | CON WAY

The Town of Conway is a scenic hilltown of nearly 2,000 residents just west

of the Connecticut River Valley in western Massachusetts. This former mill town still has the appearance of self-sufficiency, with farm fields and sap buckets illustrating a life lived close to the land. Because of its proximity to the Five College area, Conway provides a nearly ideal balance of rural tranquility and cultural resources. Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith Colleges, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as the city of Northampton and the town of Amherst, are all within a half-hour drive.

The school is located a half mile east of the Conway town center on 34.5 acres of wooded hilltop. The passive solar building, purchased and renovated

by the school in 2002–2003, is heated by wood and a supplemental oil burner. Students share the responsibility of keeping the four wood stoves going during the winter months and helping with other chores.

The school consists of two large sunny studio spaces, a classroom, library, reception area, meeting space, lounge area with a woodstove, and faculty and administrative offices. The school’s library is a focused collection of over 3,500 volumes, and the school subscribes to more than a dozen professional journals. There is also a full kitchen for preparing and heating meals, snacks, coffee, and tea.

The facilities are comfortable, and the rural surroundings—rich woodlands, rolling farm fields—are a welcome counter balance to the intensive, fast pace of student life at the school.

Our school is a homey place, where students feel free to kick up their heels and participate in chores.

The School’s Setting

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws

Western Massachusetts provides a balance between solitude that supports focused study and access to the cultural richness of the Five College area and metropolitan areas beyond.

Jam

ieso

n S

cott

‘10

URBAN COLLABORATIVEConway announces a new campus coming in fall 2015! The same masters program is now offered in both rural and urban settings. See more information on page 26 or go to csld.edu/urban-collaborative.

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws

CON WAY | 9

Ten Months at a Glance

Rhythm of the WeekA typical week at Conway follows approximately the following arc, with a mix of class time, field work, project presentations, guest lectures, client meetings, and studio work.

MONDAY 9-12 Ecological Design Workshop 1-4 Digital Design 4-7 Guest Lecture + Community Meal

THURSDAY 9-12 Site Engineering 1-5 Studio

WEDNESDAY 9-12 Studio 1-5 Presentations

FRIDAY 9-12 Humanities 1-5 Field Work

TUESDAY 9-5 Studio + Client Meetings

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

WINTER TERMBROAD-SCALE TEAM PROJECTS

SPRING TERMINTERMEDIATE-SCALE TEAM PROJECTS

* GRADUATION *

* SPRING BREAK *

* WINTER BREAK *

FALL ORIENTATION TRIP

FALL TERMSMALL-SITE INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

10 | CON WAY

Zooming is our term for looking at things across scales. Some designers focus on one scale or another – for example, specializing in residential

landscape design or in regional planning. Conway designers look across scales. It makes for better design because the broader perspective helps explain context, while a closer examination reveals how things function. These are key in ecological design.

Our ten-month program is structured around changes in scale. In the fall term, each student has his or her own site-scale project and client. Zooming up in scale for the winter term, teams of two or three students work on plans for entire towns, regions or other large tracts of land. In the spring the scope shifts back a bit, as new teams of students create master plans for parks, schools, Main Streets or other intermediate-scale projects. No matter what the scale of the project, we zoom across scales to understand the ecological and social conditions of the project at hand.

In completing these projects, each student acquires project management experience and builds a professional quality portfolio of graphics and writing.

Designing Across Scales

Term 2: Regional Scale

Term 3: Community Scale

Term 1: Site Scale

Zooming across landscape scales is a way of understanding the context and significance of a particular place and is an important basis of ecological design and a Conway education. Sample projects below.

Term 2: Regional Scale

Term 3: Intermediate Scale

Term 1: Site Scale

You can review sample student projects at http://tinyurl.com/ConwayStudentProjects

Bullitt Reservation Use Feasibility StudyMichael Blacketer and Suzanne Rhodes | Conway School of Landscape Design | June 2009

CON WAY | 11

In the fall term following the orientation field trip, each student is assigned an individual project selected from property owners in nearby communities who have contacted the school requesting site design and planning services.

Although the focus is on a small area, the residential or other site-scale project is never simple. Students learn design principles through application of a systematic problem-solving process. This involves eliciting and interpreting client needs, developing a proposal for design services, analyzing and assessing site conditions, researching legal constraints, and conceptualizing alternative design solutions. Students also learn to survey and create base maps.

Each week beginning with the fall term—and continuing throughout the year—students present their project progress before faculty and classmates. These presentations provide an opportunity to integrate their growing understanding of site conditions with new skills in graphic representations and oral presentation. Faculty and students respond to each presentation with critiques and recommendations.

Near the end of the term, clients and a panel of guest critics attend a formal presentation of project work. The classes and workshops held during the fall term—at the school and in the field—introduce and reinforce the skills and concepts necessary to complete the site-scale design projects.

At the end of the fall term students deliver the completed plan sets to their clients and have a several week break before coming back for winter term.

Term 1 | Fall term projects: starting by focusing on small sites

In thinking outside the box on his fall term project, Trevor Buckley ‘14 (above) realized that a phased plan (final design at right) would help a town with budget and staff constraints accomplish their objectives for the site. Surveying (above, right) is part of every fall project.

EXAMPLES OF PAST FALL PROJECTS• A feasibility study for reclamation of a contaminated and

historic mill site on the Millers River provided the town of Erving with alternatives for riparian restoration, arts facilities and public access.

• Two projects for Chesterfield, MA provided designs and recommendations for rural cemeteries interested in incorporating green burial practices.

• Nuestras Raices, a community group in Holyoke, MA, obtained a master plan for their urban community garden.

• A design plan for the adaptive reuse of an historic church in Turners Falls, MA incorporated on-site stormwater management and native plant palettes appropriate for each of the site’s various microclimates.

• A site design for a residential daycare center next to train tracks in Northampton, MA incorporated food production and stormwater infiltration basins to create a safe playspace.

12 | CON WAY

In the winter term, the projects increase in scope and complexity and are undertaken by teams of students for public and nonprofit clients. Typically:• The projects are for a public agency or non-profit

organization;• Students work in teams of two or three; • The project scope necessitates study of natural

systems within which the clients’ requests must be accommodated or revised;

• The information for the study may be derived from geographic information systems (GIS) and presented as computer graphics; and

• Students produce a written report that summarizes the design and planning process and recommendations, and accompanying maps, charts, and other illustrations.Students are assigned to teams based on their

individual goals, and the specific needs of the project. Team members learn to exercise ethical leadership,

collaboration, and management skills. Weekly presentations at the school are often rehearsals for team presentations to boards of directors, planning

boards, conservation commissions, or public meetings. Following a formal presentation to critics at the school, the entire project–from site assessment to recommendations–is summarized in a comprehensive report. A CD-ROM of the material is also prepared for the client.

Community projects stretch the capabilities of students, who must work with their clients even as they learn the basics of municipal, regional and conservation planning. Often projects are complicated by multiple stakeholders, conflicting client interests, and diverse opinions on land management options.

Courses and guest speakers in the winter term expand training in diverse fields and introduce students to a broad range of career options.

Term 2 | Winter term projects: broadening to towns and regions

Typically with winter term projects students learn to use geographic infor-mation systems to analyze data for broad areas, as a student team did for Panama’s southern Azuero Peninsula (left). The team is shown with their local host (above left). The six-million acre Adirondack State Park has been the focus of two winter projects. “People in the Park” (above) was the report from one of these projects.

�

Archeological and historical research suggests that humans have been practicing slash and burn agriculture since pre-Columbian times. over the centuries, the practice of pasture burning combined with heavy rainfall during the wet season has increased erosion and decreased the already poor land productivity.

recent alternatives to cattle ranching include teak plantations. unfortunately, teak trees deplete nutrients from the soil and allow very little to grow in the understory. in addition, little or no training was provided to ranchers on how to grow teak, so many of the plantations will not produce harvestable timber.

Teak plantation, Azuero peninsula

regionAl context

So

uth

ern

Azu

ero

Pe

nin

sula

RECENT WINTER TERM PROJECTS• Food security plans for Springfield, Concord, Lowell, and

Northampton, MA

• A green infrastructure plan for Holyoke, MA detailing opportunities for “green streets” development

• A farmland and foodshed study for Franklin County, MA; a farmland preservation plan for Bloomfield, CT

• Open Space and Recreation Plans for Leominster, Concord, and Lenox, MA; and North Stonington, CT

• A conceptual plan for a biological corridor in Southern Azuero, Panama

• Connecting an urban historic park to the surrounding community and the Connecticut River Greenway in Holyoke, MA

CON WAY | 13

Typically, the spring term projects are narrower in scale and more detailed in design than the winter projects. They often present opportunities to learn about technical issues such as stormwater management, erosion control, road alignment, long-term management techniques, ecological restoration, barrier-free access, planting plans based on native plant communities, and design detailing. Many projects include cost estimates and most include a phased plan for implementation.

By the spring term, students have become increasingly familiar with design process and the dynamics of working as teams. Projects often require a rapid site assessment and development of design alternatives, with the expectation that teams will achieve a greater level of detail. In weekly presentations, students are increasingly effective in their critique of each other’s project work, regularly adding to suggestions that faculty make. Classes continue to supplement the project work, increasing in complexity and detail to match that required of the projects.

In addition to providing students with living laboratories and hands-on experience, the community projects provide valuable design and planning services to municipalities and regional agencies, under contract and at cost. Since the school’s inception in 1972, more than 450 community clients have benefited from these projects. Every year, students are exposed to 30 or 35 different projects, each with its unique clients and site challenges – a great introduction to the broad fields of conservation planning, ecological restoration, and regenerative design.

Term 3 | Spring term projects: shifting to intermediate-scale projects

A spring 2011 team had the challenging job of providing a planting and management plan for an air base sited in a sand plain ecosystem. They were tasked with creating a design that avoids plants that attract birds (for air safety), and also conforms to Homeland Security requirements for good visibility from all buildings. Design templates provided recommendations for distinct planting zones and management techniques for implementation and maintenance over the long term.

EXAMPLES OF SPRING PROJECTS• Design and management plan to replace extensive

lawn with native sand plain species at Westover Air Reserve Base, while adhering to strict homeland security measures

• Master plan for the New England Small Farm Institute in Belchertown, MA

• Redesign of an inner-city schoolyard in Holyoke, MA, provided for more shade, greenspace, and learning ground for the children, while still accommodating safe bus drop-off and parking for a neighboring church

• Reuse alternatives for land surrounding the former Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant in Rowe, MA

• Environmental standards development for post-typhoon rebuilding in Tacloban, Philippines

• Design of the campus core at Marlboro College in Marlboro, VT

• Options for a “green” burial section at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA

• Plan to turn a parking lot into greenspace adjacent to the Ashuelot River Park in Keene, NH

HEATHLAND GRASSLAND SHRUBLAND OPEN WOODLAND FOREST

Shrub

Grass

Perennial Groundcover

14 | CON WAY

The Conway masters degree is multidisciplinary. Courses are not separate offerings that can be selected independently; the program is fully

integrated throughout the year through instruction by core faculty, as well as through guest instructors and a wide variety of field trips.

The progression of subjects addressed during the year is shaped by the design and planning projects that are a major component of each term. Class assignments—graphic, technical and written—are dovetailed with project requirements.

Classes—including field trips and guest speakers—are customarily held three days a week, with two days reserved for studio time and individual project work. Faculty are available during studio days for individual and team consultation.

SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPE DESIGN THEORYThroughout the year, seminars and discussions raise and explore fundamental questions, such as: What is the nature of ecologically based landscape design? Why is it practiced? How does one successfully integrate both natural and human systems? What are examples of designs that are sustainable? Is sustainability even achievable? What is the relationship of humans and nature? What are the patterns of successful design?

NATURAL SYSTEMS Understanding the land—the natural history and ecological processes that constitute a site and its context—is fundamental to the practice of landscape design. Students spend many hours outdoors so they may better read the land and recognize possibilities for use by people as well as the desirability for protection or restricted use. Natural systems topics include landforms, soil characteristics, plant associations, ecological theories, the effect of climate and microclimate, wetland function, forest ecology, wildlife habitat and corridors. The emphasis is on patterns and interactions of phenomena as they inform design.

HUMANITIESThrough readings and discussions, students reflect on the practice of landscape design and engage in exercises to improve oral and written expression. Readings are drawn from diverse disciplines, including geography, cultural studies, history, literature, psychology, philosophy, aesthetics, and economics. Oral presentation skills are addressed through technical exercises (in voice, posture, control of breath) and in lessons on

organization (openings, conclusions, transitions, and narrative techniques). Writing skills are honed through exercises in style, drafting, and revision; through practice in different forms of creative non-fiction and professional writing (proposals, resumes, reports); and through reviews of grammar, punctuation, and relevant design vocabulary.

DESIGN COMMUNICATIONS GRAPHICSGraphic skills are developed to enhance students’ design thinking, to communicate information accurately, and to express ideas effectively. A balance of hand-drawing (perspectives, sections, plan view) and digital techniques (basic photo manipulation, Power-Point, CAD, geographic information systems, 3-D modeling, desktop publishing) is presented.

TECHNICAL DESIGN ISSUESThe techniques and principles for modifying land and implementing designs are introduced during term projects and through separate exercises. Students learn the basics of topographic surveying, data plotting and interpolating, and producing maps. They also learn how to analyze site features and how to solve site engineering problems, such as drainage and grading.

They study municipal planning and zoning, standards for parking lots, retaining walls, structures, road alignment, and planting plans. Construction documents and details, including the physical characteristics of materials and cost estimating, are also presented in the design curriculum.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PRACTICEWhat are the ethical issues in design practice? What kinds of design offices and practices exist? Through visits to professional offices, as well as through guest speakers at the school, students meet with design, conservation, and planning practitioners and learn about forms of practice.

Fully Integrated Courses

We value—and teach—both hand-drawing techniques and computer graphics.

CON WAY | 15

(c)

(b)

(d)

Laur

a R

isso

lo ‘1

1

We start the year with a bang: a week-long orientation trip, which offers a concentrated introduction to the

program and the class. Working intensively on field activities helps us get to know each other and learn about how natural and social systems work. Not only do working relationships get forged, but we also start to develop a shared vocabulary and common places of reference.

Then, throughout the year, one afternoon a week is typically devoted to field work, providing opportunities to leave campus to see new places and meet new people. Trips range from a snowshoe trek through a boreal forest with an ecologist to a sketching exercise amidst industrial ruins, guided by an urban planner.(a) Natural systems in cities, such as this green roof in

Hartford, provide important learning opportunities.

(b) The High Line: a disused railway in lower Manhattan re-purposed as a public park.

(c) We use maps and aerial photographs to shift perspectives and to help understand context.

(d) Learning on the go means any stop can become a classroom. Wherever we go, teams of students discuss, analyze, and present what they are seeing.

(a) Ahr

on L

erm

an ‘1

1Ja

mie

son

Sco

tt ‘1

0

Field Work & Outdoor Learning

16 | CON WAY

Community Partnerships

For years, the Conway School has developed partnerships with communities and organizations that share the school’s mission. These

partnerships give birth to student projects, they may lead to employment or service projects for alumni, and they ground the school through exposure to timely planning and design challenges around the world.

Sometimes these partnerships allow Conway to complete multiple projects with a single client and/or on a single site. This can improve the work students are able to do and increase the depth of insight in the designs they produce.

One such partner has been the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, for whom we have completed four major projects since 2011. These sequential projects build on each other and have given Conway a more profound understanding of the client’s and site’s needs.

Working with partners in New England and around the world (Madame Bintou Sissoko, Founder, Chair of the Board, and Executive Director of Mali Nyeta, top, and students in Ajo, AZ, bottom) enriches the learning at Con-way and helps the school better serve its mission of providing important, timely design and planning services.

Partnering with the International Sonoran Desert Alliance allowed three teams of students to work in Ajo, Arizona, and a small team of Conway alums and friends also visited the small desert town.

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPSOver several years, three Conway teams have collaborated with one family on various projects on several sites in Chile featuring dramatic Andean Mountain backdrops and fascinating ecology.

With support from a Conway alum, two new partnerships are being developed for student work on community development in Mali, West Africa, and on educational/recreational landscape planning in Costa Rica.

International partnerships also may lead to projects taken on by alums as part of the David Bird International Service Fellowship, described on the next page.

OPPORTUNITIES IN CITIESIn a relationship that spans more than ten years, Conway has worked with Nuestras Raices, a nonprofit dedicated to local food production and environmental justice. The school has provided planning and design services for the urban farm Nuestras Raices runs along the bank of the Connecticut River in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

In Keene, New Hampshire, a group of civic-minded residents arranged for back-to-back student projects in 2014. Three students worked across two terms to prepare a plan to convert a parking lot into a riverside park. After graduation, the clients hired one of these students to help complete the design and launch a fundraising campaign to build the park, with the intention of giving the park to the city upon its completion.

Also in 2014, Conway signed agreements with the cities of Holyoke and Easthampton, Massachusetts, intended to give rise to more community projects, a new urban campus, and other forms of collaboration. Several projects have already resulted from these partnerships, including a “Green Streets Guidebook”, which looks at green infrastructure, street design, and placemaking in Holyoke.

Learn more about Conway’s new urban campus on page 26.

CON WAY | 17

In addition to successfully completing three major, term-length design projects, each student must demonstrate communication abilities through

illustrative and technical graphics, design presentations, written essays, project correspondence, and reports.

To receive a Master of Science in Ecological Design degree, the student must demonstrate understanding of design theory, natural and built environments, design communication, and professional development and practice.

GAINING KNOWLEDGEStudents must regularly attend and actively participate in classes, workshops, educational field trips, and special events offered at the school, and must satisfactorily fulfill all academic exercises, assignments, and readings.

APPLYING UNDERSTANDINGStudents must complete three major design projects from the initial contact with an outside client to successful completion of all necessary drawings, reports, public presentations, technical data, research, and recommendations.

DEMONSTRATING UNDERSTANDING AND ABILITIESStudents earn 30 graduate credits in design communication abilities through:• field trip reports• essays integrating learning with individual goals for

education and professional work• project correspondence, proposals, and reports

for clients• drawings and other graphics illustrating design

information, ideas, and plans• design presentations to class members, faculty,

clients, public audiences, and visiting professionalsCore faculty continually guide and evaluate student

work in the studio, classroom, and individual meetings. While students do not receive grades, they are expected to revise and improve their written, graphic, and project work until it meets the approval of faculty, client, and the student her/himself.

DAVID BIRD INTERNATIONAL SERVICE FELLOWSHIPConway’s annual David Bird International Service Fellowship carries a stipend of $5,000 for an alum to undertake a 5-6 week international public service project. Upon their return, Bird Fellows give a presentation to the Conway community.

APPRENTICESHIPSEach year Conway offers a small number of apprenticeships for recent graduates. Apprenticeships are approximately six-month long expenses-paid positions, usually at small design/planning firms. The employers we select embrace Conway’s whole systems ecological design approach and offer work that will utilize the apprentice’s real-world design skills. Past opportunities have been offered at companies including Sustainable Design Group in Alaska and Hana Ranch in Hawai’i.

DUAL DEGREE PROGRAMS: MSED + MLAA small number of Conway students choose to continue their education and pursue a Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA). This a more traditional three-year program that prepares students to become board-certified landscape architects. We’ve made it easy to take this step at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Georgia, where Conway graduates who are accepted to these schools may enter the second year of their MLA programs. Graduates have also made similar

Graduation Requirements

BIRD FELLOWAbrah Dresdale ‘10 was Conway’s 2013-2014 David Bird International Service Fellow. She spent six weeks working on food security in the Sadhana Forest in Auroville, India.

Post-Grad Opportunities

18 | CON WAY

We hire teachers whose integrity allows them to speak from their hearts and out of their lives, rather than simply from a textbook or

solely on a theoretical basis. We value—and debate—theory, but value it most as it has relevance in practice.

Faculty positions have various functions. Core faculty are the glue and continuity of the program. At least one of them is with the students every day and for some sessions, such as Wednesday afternoon presentations, there are two to four faculty members present. These faculty carefully monitor the progress of individual students and coach them. As each term proceeds they are also constantly gauging where the class is as a whole, making adjustments to the timing of the subjects being presented.

Adjunct faculty and master teachers add to the experience base of the faculty by offering a depth of experience in a particular area, such as ecology. Some work with students in the studio, others interact more frequently with students in the field.

WEEKLY GUEST SPEAKERSWeekly visitors are also key contributors to the education at Conway. They conduct workshops, give talks, advise on projects, and interact in other ways. They typically have very targeted knowledge (such as how septic systems work or how forests may change over time) or a depth of design experience (such as in permaculture or conservation planning).

Our teachers are more likely to ask questions than to give answers. This doesn’t mean you can’t get a straight answer out of them, just that they think it is better to encourage thoughtfulness than to impose a solution from another place and time.

STUDENTS ARE TEACHERSIn a very real sense our students are teachers, too. Much exchange of ideas occurs among students, most of whom have considerable life experience and all of whom have significant things to share. In recognition that students are important educators at Conway, they help award diplomas at graduation, with each student presenting another student with a diploma and offering words of appreciation for that fellow student.

Who teaches at Conway?

(top) Learning at Conway often involves one student and one teacher.(middle) Even in class sessions there are never more than eighteen or nineteen students with from one to three faculty.(bottom) Weekly visitors add greatly to the discussions and debates.

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws

Kat

ja P

atch

owsk

y ‘0

8

Jam

ieso

n S

cott

‘10

CON WAY | 19

“ “I am tremendously impressed with the students who come to Conway. Their commitment, hard work, and enthusiasm are unsurpassed. Not to mention their senses of humor! With these qualities it’s no wonder this learning community is so productive and the teaching so rewarding.

PAUL CAWOOD HELLMUNDPRESIDENT/DIRECTOR PROFESSOR, DESIGN & PLANNING

Paul Cawood Hellmund became director and core faculty member at Conway in 2005. Paul is a Panama-born educator and practitioner, a full member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a member of the United States International Association of Landscape Ecology, and a member of the Society for Ecological Restoration.

The focus of his design, research, practice, and teaching is improving the relationship between people and nature, especially in urban, suburban, and degraded landscapes.

Paul is co-author of Designing Greenways (2006) and he co-edited the 1993 book, Ecology of Greenways, which was recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects with a national award. He also was principal author of Colorado State Parks’ widely circulated “Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind.”

He sees finding a balance between nature and people as a key factor in creating sustainable communities and he seeks collaborative design as essential to progress in sustainability.

Paul has taught undergraduate and graduate students of landscape architecture in courses in sustainable design, landscape ecology, environmental analysis, and landscape planning, and organized interdisciplinary projects exploring various aspects of protected areas planning in the U.S. and abroad. He formerly taught at Colorado State University, Virginia Tech, and Harvard University.

Most recently Paul had his own private practice, Hellmund Associates, prior to which he worked for Design Workshop, HOH Associates, and the U.S. National Park Service. His major projects, extending over several years, were the management plan for the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge and various aspects of the Chatfield Basin Conservation Network.• MLA, Harvard Graduate School of Design• BS, Landscape Horticulture/Design, Colorado State

University

PAUL CAWOOD HELLMUNDhellmund@csld.edu

Core Faculty

20 | CON WAY

“ “I was attracted to Conway’s ecological mission, its rigorous yet humane applied learning approach, its progressive educational methods and philosophy, and its cross-disciplinary integrated curriculum. I enjoy working in an environment in which students feel both properly supported and challenged to explore and grow on their own terms.

KEN BYRNEPROFESSOR, HUMANITIES

Ken joined the faculty in 2003, with primary responsibility for the humanities and as curriculum coordinator. An educator for eighteen years, Ken brings a wide range of experience, from teaching secondary school in Macau, to educational design consulting for an environmental nongovernmental organization in the Philippines, to teaching college writing and creative non-fiction at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Ken has been active in projects linking environmental and social health to community development efforts, both in the Connecticut River Valley region and abroad.

Interdisciplinary by inclination, Ken’s academic work draws on geography, philosophy, economics, anthropology, education, psychology, and literary theory to examine the relationship between people and the environment. He is interested in alternative concepts of economy and community, and believes that one of the functions of education should be to unsettle fixed or conventional notions of the individual, nature, society, and development. • EdD, University of Massachusetts• MEd, University of Massachusetts• BA (honors), English, Brown University

KEN BYRNE byrne@csld.edu

Luzon, Philippines

CON WAY | 21

B. KIM ERSLEVPROFESSOR, LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND GRAPHICS

Kim is both a practicing architect and a landscape architect with her own firm, Salmon Falls Ecological Design, based in Shelburne Falls. She has been a frequent visiting critic at the school and joined the faculty in 2006. She has more than fifteen years of experience with sustainable landscape and architectural design.

Kim’s professional work is dedicated to creating designs that connect humans with the inherent power and beauty of natural systems. She has worked with several design firms on a diversity of projects including: the design of the Micmac Heritage Center in Northern Canada, the Jerusalem Science Museum, the Greenfield/NESEA Energy Park, the Eric Carle Museum, and the design of a new town destroyed by a volcanic mudslide in Colombia, South America. Her current design practice focuses on the design of super-insulated passive solar homes, ecological landscapes, and co-housing communities.

Kim is a talented designer with strong skills in conceptualization, drawing, and design communication. She is an enthusiastic teacher who encourages students to work and learn cooperatively. She has taught at Temple University and throughout graduate school at the University of Massachusetts.• MLA, University of Massachusetts• MArch, University of Pennsylvania• BA, Wesleyan University

B. KIM ERSLEVerslev@csld.edu

I admire the Conway School’s unique hands-on approach to learning. Students are taught to carefully observe regions, watersheds, and local ecosystems. From that foundation, students gain ecologically based skills to design sustainable landscapes and become advocates for the health and beauty of their local communities and the global environment.

“ “

22 | CON WAY

“ “Since arriving as a student at the Conway School in the fall of 2002, I have felt the school represents a strong mix of hands-on learning in a supportive, mentored educational environment. The focus on regenerative solutions, site repair, land stewardship, and sustainability sends students into the world ready to make a difference.

JONO NEIGERPROFESSOR, REGENERATIVE DESIGN

Jono is a conservation biologist with nearly two decades of experience in land stewardship, ecological studies, restoration, and conservation commission staffing. He served as Lost Valley Educational Center’s Land Steward and Permaculture Apprenticeship Program Director in Oregon for five years, founded and served as Coordinator of the Lost Creek Watershed Council in Oregon for four years, was Restoration Ecologist with the Nature Conservancy of California for two years, and served as Conservation Commission Agent for the Town of Palmer (Massachusetts) for four years.

A permaculture teacher and designer since 1996, Jono works to help organizations and individuals further their goals for stewarding their land and for creating productive, regenerative human ecosystems. Currently the principal of Regenerative Design Group, a permaculture design and consultation firm in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Jono teaches landscape design at the Conway School, including primary responsibility for the surveying part of the curriculum in the fall term.• MALD, The Conway School (2003)• BS, Forest Biology, SUNY College of

Environmental Science and Forestry

JONO NEIGER neiger@csld.edu

CON WAY | 23

GLENN MOTZKIN | motzkin@csld.eduEcology Adjunct

Glenn Motzkin is a plant ecologist interested in patterns of species distribution, vegetation dynamics, disturbance history, and the application of historical ecology to conservation in New England. Glenn has studied a wide range of natural communities, with

particular interests in the history and dynamics of uncommon communities that support rare species and are priorities for conservation. Glenn is currently an independent ecological consultant, having previously worked as Plant Ecologist at Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA. Glenn serves as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.• MS, Forest Ecology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst• BA, American Civilization, Brown University

KEITH ZALTZBERG | zaltzberg@csld.eduDigital Design Instructor

Keith Zaltzberg works with students during the winter term helping them understand how a Geographic Information System (GIS) can support land use planning and design. He has extensive experience using GIS in his past work as Associate Designer and

Technical Specialist at Dodson Associates Landscape Architects and Planners in Ashfield, MA. He is a certified permaculture designer and founding partner of the Regenerative Design Group, where he works with individuals, communities and organizations in landscape design. He is a studio instructor at Smith College, and has volunteered with the Wise Wetlands Restoration Project, an educational organization that explores land reclamation alternatives in the Appalachian region.• BS, Environmental Design, University of Massachusetts

BILL LATTRELL | lattrell@csld.eduEcology Adjunct

As a certified wetlands scientist and professional restoration ecologist, Bill Lattrell has managed projects involving wildlife habitat, wetland restoration, wetlands mapping, and public education. He joined Conway as adjunct faculty in 1993, teaching classes in wetlands protection and

mitigation, wildlife habitat, and leading field trips to a variety of ecosystems, including bogs, beaver ponds, old growth forests, vernal pools, and successional meadows. Bill’s broad applied knowledge of natural resource issues helps students evaluate environmental assets and anticipate potential repercussions on residential and community sites. He is principal of Lattrell Ecological Consulting in Heath, MA.• MS, Environmental Resource Management,

Antioch/New England Graduate School• BS, Environmental Sociology,

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

ANNE MADOCKS | madocks@csld.eduDistinguished Planning Teaching Fellow

Conway alum Anne Capra Madocks ‘00 works with students during the winter term, focusing on studio projects. Anne was a land use and environmental planner with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission for thirteen years,

where she was responsible for project management, research, education and outreach, report writing, and grant writing in the areas of land use management and environmental protection with an emphasis on water quality restoration and protection. In addition to her work at Conway, Anne is a conservation planner with Conservation Works LLC, a wide-ranging conservation consulting firm with extensive in-house expertise in land management, land protection, biological services, land use and open space planning, resource protection zoning, trail system development, and mapping and photo-documentation.• MALD, The Conway School (2000)

• BA, Environmental Studies, Ithaca College

Part-Time Instructors

24 | CON WAY

Master TeachersDAVID JACKEMaster Teacher in PermacultureDave Jacke has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s. The primary author of Edible Forest Gardens (2005), he has run his own ecological design firm—Dynamics Ecological Design—

since 1984. Dave is an engaging and passionate teacher of ecological design and permaculture, and a meticulous designer. He has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in many parts of the United States, as well as overseas. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years. He also cofounded the newly-formed Apios Institute, which researches and propagates “regenerative perennial agriculture” in temperate climates.• MALD, The Conway School (1984)• BA, Magna Cum Laude, Environmental Studies, Simon’s

Rock College

DARREL MORRISONMaster Teacher in DesignDarrel Morrison is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Professor and Dean Emeritus at the University of Georgia, and has taught at Conway since 1992.

Darrel has been a pioneer in landscape restoration and ecological design and has received awards for his work at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas, and elsewhere. He is a gifted teacher who has received national teaching awards from the council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and the American Horticultural Society. Since 1997 Darrel has been a design and ecological consultant to the Storm King Art Center, a 500-acre sculpture park in New York State.• MSLA, University of Wisconsin

• BSLA, Iowa State University

KEITH ROSSMaster Teacher in Conservation InnovationKeith has parlayed degrees in forestry and environmental law into a career in innovative land conservation. As senior adviser within the Real Estate

Consulting Group of Boston-based LandVest, he focuses predominantly on conservation transactions of land and

conservation easements, donations and bargain sales, fund raising, and family estate planning. A founder and former executive director of the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, he held similar positions with Massachusetts Audubon and the New England Forestry Foundation. • Masters, Environmental Law, Vermont Law School• BS, Forestry, Univeristy of Massachusetts, Amherst

JOEL RUSSELLMaster Teacher in Conservation LawJoel Russell has been at the forefront of smart growth, land conservation, and new urbanism for 30 years as a planning consultant and land use

attorney. He currently is Executive Director of the Form-Based Codes Institute, a national think tank and educational organization. A national authority on how to contain suburban sprawl, Joel drafts land use ordinances that emphasize quality design, the creation of a sense of place, traditional neighborhood development, and the preservation of open space and environmental resources.He is a principal co-author of Codifying New Urbanism (American Planning Association, 2004). He co-founded and served as Executive Director of the Dutchess Land Conservancy in New York, and is currently a Fellow of the Glynwood Center in Cold Spring, NY, developing an advanced training program in land use regulation to address climate change and sustainable development. • JD, Boston University Law School• MUA, (Master of Urban Affairs), Boston University

• BA, Harvard University

ERIK VAN LENNEPMaster Teacher in SustainabilityErik van Lennep is a sustainability consultant, green design practitioner, entrepreneur and trainer in Dublin, Ireland. He has worked to set up innovative community projects and

NGOs in Ireland and the USA for more than 30 years. Erik is the founder of international design collaborative TEPUI, created to research, promote, and apply living technologies as concrete response to climate change. He is a co-founder of Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre in Dublin, and co-developer of a post-graduate Irish national course on Sustainable Design Innovation. • MALD, The Conway School (1983)• BS, Plant Breeding + New Crops, University of

Massachusetts, Amherst

CON WAY | 25

DAVID NORDSTROM | nordstrom@csld.eduAdministrative Director

Dave joined Conway as a full-time staff member in 2007. Originally from the Boston area he has made western Massachusetts his home for the last 25 years. Before studying at Conway, Dave worked in the accounting field for over 20 years in the manufacturing

and distribution industry. After graduating in 2004, he split his time working with a local landscape design and installation company, preparing community development block grant applications for a consulting firm, and handling the accounting and facilities duties at Conway. Dave’s current responsibilities include financial aid, student project development, accounting, and facilities. • MALD, The Conway School (2004)• BS, Business Management, Westfield State College

PRISCILLA NOVITT | novitt@csld.eduCommunications Manager

Priscilla graduated from the Conway School in 2007 and joined the staff part-time later that year. Before studying at Conway, she worked for several years in program development and grants management at a nonprofit organization in New York City focused on empowering artists at critical

stages in their creative lives. In 2008, Priscilla started a small apiary in Northampton with her husband, and transformed her property from a shady lawn to a sunny productive garden. At Conway, she is responsible for the production of the school magazine and printed materials, and she supports the academic program.• MALD, The Conway School (2007)• BA, Psychology, Oberlin College

Administrative StaffNINA ANTONETTI | antonetti@csld.edu Director of Advancement + Strategic Initiatives

An architectural and landscape historian, Nina is a founding member of the Landscape Studies Program and the Sustainable Food Studies concentration at Smith College, where she taught courses exploring the histories and theories of sustainable

design, environmental justice, food security, sprawl, and urban public space. She is also a fellow at the Center for Creative Solutions at Marlboro College, and a founding member of a design collective in Northampton, MA, comprised of seven designers and community developers who share space, exchange ideas, and collaborate on local projects. In addition, Nina is an international lecturer and scholar. Her work at Conway focuses on building broad support for the school’s programs.• Ph.D., Landscape, Architecture, Art, University of London• B.A., Art and Architecture, Richmond, The American

International University in London

ADRIAN DAHLIN | adrian@csld.edu Director of Admissions + Marketing

Adrian has a background in entrepreneurship, sustainability, marketing, local government, community organizing, and leadership development. Before coming to Conway he founded Rising Green, a business designed to help students and young

professionals establish careers in sustainability. While working on Rising Green, he also ran a digital marketing consultancy. During and before his entrepreneurial endeavors, he spent many seasons working at a summer camp in Maine and an outdoor education center in Colorado. Adrian studied at Tufts, Principia, and the Center for Ecological Living and Learning. He spent a college semester in northern India and was living in Bethlehem in the Palestinian Territories when the Arab spring erupted in 2011. Adrian now serves as a Conservation Commissioner in Holyoke, MA, he’s chair of a community advisory group working to redevelop that city’s retiring coal plant, and he’s a founding steering committee member of the Holyoke Community Market, a food cooperative in the early stages of development.• BS, Environmental Studies and Political Science, Tufts

University

26 | CON WAY

Urban Collaborative

Conway attracts highly motivated, self-directed learners who want to pursue ecological planning and design careers and who learn best in an

intensive and applied program. Conway students have a strong commitment to social and environmental issues.

Students come from diverse backgrounds and encompass a wide age range. Each class’s diversity of experience and perspective makes for a rich learning community.

Some students already have considerable life experience and/or previous graduate degrees in various fields. Others are more recently out of college and have already demonstrated a deep commitment to ecological design. Undergraduate fields commonly represented among our students include:• Environmental Studies• Political Science• Human Ecology• Anthropology

• Earth Sciences• Philosophy• Architecture• Environmental Science

Our graduate degree is very attractive to practicing architects, planners, and engineers who want to design more sensitively with the land. These individuals will be well-suited to return to their fields of practice after Conway able to offer a whole-systems and ecological approach to design.

There are no part-time students at Conway and those who attend must be able to immerse themselves fully for ten months. There are occasional professional development opportunities, such as workshops in digital design.

WHO IS THE URBAN CAMPUS FOR?The Urban Collaborative is for individuals who would like to live, work, and learn all in the same urban environment. It’s for residents of the Springfield-Hartford metropolitan region who will more readily be able to commute to the new location. It also allows students to live car-free if they wish.

Ultimately, the Urban Collaborative is for anyone who is inspired by the work of Conway students, alums, and faculty, as well as other ecological designers around the world. The core approach of the program is the same at both locations.

Who Attends Conway?

In October 2014, Conway officially announced its plan to open a second campus—an urban satellite—as a complement to the main campus.

The new campus, called the Urban Collaborative, will be located in the greater Springfield, Massachusetts area, and will open in fall 2015. Very generous gifts from Conway alums and friends are making possible the initial phases of this launch, at a time when making cities more ecologically healthy and livable has never been more important. Eighty percent of Americans—and 50 percent of the world’s population—now live in cities.

The curriculum at the urban campus will follow the tried-and-true Conway teaching model; graduates will receive the same degree—Master of Science in Ecological Design—as those graduating from the main campus.

To learn more about the Urban Collaborative and sign up to receive updates about its launch, visit csld.edu/urban-collaborative.

METROPOLITAN AREA AS LEARNING LABAlthough the school has existed for 42 years in the

small town of Conway, Massachusetts and will soon occupy a second location, we like to think of our entire metropolitan area as the place of work and learning.

Conway sits in a diverse and fascinating region that presents a rich learning environment for Conway students. Here are found success stories—as well as challenges—in conservation and urbanization.

Most weeks, students find themselves undertaking observations and fieldwork in the far-flung reaches of the metropolitan region. They may walk with an experienced ecologist through bottomland forests along the Connecticut River. They might explore stormwater practices in heavily urbanized landscapes and brainstorm alternative options. From the top of Mount Holyoke, they scan the distant view for patterns of land use and hypothesize the ecological functions of those patterns.

Conway students have also completed hundreds of major projects for real clients around the region, from green streets plans for downtown Greenfield and Holyoke to open space and recreation plans for Bernardston and Conway. Other projects include a Botanic Garden plan for Greenfield Community College, a community farm plan for the nonprofit Nuestras Raices, and park plans for Turners Falls, Ashfield, and Northampton.

This region includes rich farmland, post-industrial cities, quintessential New England towns, diverse ecosystems and much more. Taken together they form a quiltwork of opportunities for learning and practicing ecological design.

CON WAY | 27

Although there is no prerequisite field of study, entering students must have a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent, and must show capability

to work in an accelerated program by documenting maturity and success in both academic and work situations. The school seeks well-rounded students who will be able to perform at graduate levels of ability in applying theoretical principles of design and analyzing concrete information.

Applicants should also show ability to perform basic mathematical calculations and to achieve, after instruction, competent design expression through drawings and presentations. Good writing skills are required for admission. Since the program involves a great deal of public speaking, applicants must be fluent in English. In addition, we look for strongly motivated students who are willing to engage in team work, have a profound respect for the natural world and the human beings who inhabit it, and are eager to put their personal values into positive action during the school year and afterward.

APPLICATION PROCEDURESConway accepts applications on a rolling basis. We do, however, prefer to receive applications at or before the following dates: the early application deadline of January 1 and the regular application deadline of April 15. Applications received after April 15 will be considered as long as space remains.

We recommend that applicants visit the Conway School as they make their decision to apply to graduate school. Formal student presentations and admissions information sessions provide great opportunities to see the school in action, talk with students, observe real project work, and learn Conway’s unique philosophy and teaching approach.

If you’re unable to visit the school in person, we’re happy to speak on the phone, and we may be able to connect you with alums in your area.

Once completed applications are received, we will schedule interviews on campus or via online video if necessary. The applicant is notified of the admissions decision by email, usually within three weeks of the interview.

Once an applicant is accepted to the program, we will send an enrollment agreement to be signed by the prospective student. This agreement, accompanied by a deposit, admits the applicant to full participation in the activities of the school for the following academic year. The academic term begins the day after Labor Day, and

classes are held through late June (with the exception of a two-week break in late December and a two-week spring break). Students must complete all academic and project work before graduation.

TUITION AND LIVING EXPENSESTuition and fees are set annually in February by the school’s Board of Trustees (and are posted at www.csld.edu); the school agrees not to raise tuition during the academic year.

The tuition and fees include costs incurred for operation of the school, adjunct faculty, visiting lecturers, some reading materials, use of school computer stations, some computer software, major printing and drafting supplies, graphic reproduction costs, printed materials, and additional supplies and transportation costs for scheduled field trips as well as housing for the major fall orientation field trip.

Fees do not include costs of housing and food for students when at Conway or on field trips (with the exception of lodging during the orientation trip). Students also need to budget for personal transportation, personal computers, some drafting equipment, supplies, and books; and health insurance.

How to Apply

YOUR APPLICATION MUST INCLUDE1. Application form and written responses to seven

essay questions;

2. Official academic transcripts from all previous institutions of higher learning;

3. Three letters of reference;

4. Current resume; and

5. $50 application fee.

6. Optional: Design portfolio, GRE scores.

Upon receipt, we will schedule a personal interview with Conway faculty at the school.

TUITION FOR THE 2014-2015 ACADEMIC YEAR*• $27,375 plus a participation fee (covering

orientation trip, information technology, and field trips) of $4,075

• $750 non-refundable deposit upon signing enrollment agreement

• $15,973 on or before September 2, 2014

• $14,727 on or before February 1, 2015*Check the website at www.csld.edu for updated tuition information.

28 | CON WAY

Reading and equipment lists are sent to students after they are accepted by the school. Most items listed may be purchased in the area at the beginning of the year. The school has two computers available for shared student use in the studio; however, each student is required to have their own laptop computer and basic computer skills. (Details on computer requirements are updated on the equipment list each year.) A digital camera is also recommended. Other listed equipment costs average $500.

Living expenses for food, housing, moderate travel, and other routine expenditures (including health insurance; coverage is required in Massachusetts) vary from student to student. Expenses beyond tuition for the 10 months average between $20,000 and $25,000.

HOUSING Most students rent rooms, apartments or houses in the Conway area for their year of study. The school maintains a list of available rentals. Individuals make their own arrangements, usually during the summer before school starts. Some students bring their partners and/or children to the area for the year. Others, having home bases within a few hours’ drive from school, elect to become weekend commuters.

Since public transportation is not available to the town of Conway, students attending this campus will need the use of a car during their year. Within a half-hour drive of Conway, students can find supplies and services, professional consultants, recreational facilities, bookstores, natural food stores, pharmacies, hospitals and clinics, theatres, and excellent restaurants. Students also have access to town and college libraries, including that of the University of Massachusetts which, as a land grant college, also provides many non-academic resources which relate to landscape design, including the Cooperative Extension Service, a soil testing center, the Massachusetts Data Bank, and the Earth Science Information Office, which has extensive land use maps of the region. Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden

Counties are home to regional resources such as the Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and regional planning agencies.

HEALTH INSURANCEMassachusetts law requires that all full-time students enrolled in a college, university or other institute of higher learning in the state must participate in a health insurance plan with reasonable coverage.

Students must sign up for a health plan through the Massachusetts Health Connector or show proof of comparable coverage in an alternate health plan. Proof of health insurance coverage must be provided to the school before the first day of classes.

FOREIGN STUDENTS ARE WELCOMEWe encourage foreign students to apply. There is no special application for such applicants; the standard admission procedure is followed, except that TOEFL scores may be required. Our program emphasizes communication as well as technical studies, and requires frequent public speaking and extensive writing in fluent, idiomatic English. In general, we consider the writing and public speaking demands too rigorous for students who are not fluent in English.

NON-DISCRIMINATORY POLICYThe Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit corporation organized under Chapter 180 of the General Laws, is a training school of landscape design and land use planning. As an equal opportunity institution, we do 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 educational, admissions, employment, or loan policies, or in any other school-administered program.

Dav

id B

rook

s A

ndre

ws ““ My undergraduate degree was

in architecture. I came to Conway because I wanted to be better at integrating the built environment into the natural world.

- Hannah Whipple ’06

CON WAY | 29

Loans and other financial aid can be obtained for up to the full cost of attendance, including tuition and living expenses.

LOANS The Conway School participates in the U. S. Department of Education’s Direct Loan Program. Stafford and Direct PLUS loans are available through this program.• Stafford unsubsidized loans can fund up to $20,500

toward the cost of graduate education. These government loans are offered at fixed interest rates and repayment may be deferred while in school; loan payments need not begin until six months after graduation. Interest accrues on Stafford unsubsidized loan while a student is enrolled in school. The interest can be capitalized and deferred until repayment begins.

• Direct PLUS loans are available up to the total cost of attendance less any other financial assistance, including Stafford loans. These loans have an interest rate slightly higher than the Stafford loans and are subject to a credit check. Repayment of these loans begins as soon as the loan is fully disbursed; however, you may automatically apply an in-school deferment of your loan as long as you remain enrolled. There is no grace period on these loans when you stop attending school; however, you can request a six-month deferment from your graduation date.

Both Stafford and Direct PLUS loans have a standard 10-15 year repayment term.

Alternative or private student loans may also be available. It is important to keep in mind these factors:• Alternative loans are usually credit-based and many

loans require a co-signer.• The interest rate is often based on your credit rating.• Fees vary among programs.• Not all alternative loan programs have a grace

period.All students who are considering applying for

financial aid must complete the Department of Education’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The Student Aid Report (SAR) generated from the FAFSA application will be used by the school to help determine loan eligibility. FAFSA can be done online any time after January 1.

Loans can be originated by the school only after a student has been accepted, confirmed attendance by countersigning and returning the enrollment agreement, returned the signed financial aid award letter received from the school, completed the on-line financial aid entrance interview, and completed a Master Promissory Note(s).

To ensure that loan funds will be available when school begins in September, applicants can and are strongly advised to start financial aid applications at the same time they apply for admission (though not before January 1).

SCHOLARSHIPS AND GRANTSThe Board of Trustees has approved a limited amount of need-based aid for the 2015-2016 academic year. Please contact the school for details. Conway gladly assists students who are applying for other sources of funding. A list of potential scholarship resources is available on our website.

More information on financial aid is available at the Conway website (www.csld.edu), from Conway’s Financial Aid Advisor (nordstrom@csld.edu), or from the Department of Education (studentaid.ed.gov).

Financial Aid

Students examine hair cap moss (Polytrichum commune) in Lyme, Connecticut, during the orientation field trip.

FINANCIAL AID DEADLINESApplications for financial aid are accepted starting January 1, and the priority date for financial aid applications is January 31. Some need-based aid will remain available at least until the April 15 regular deadline.

30 | CON WAY

The Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation organized under Chapter 180 of the General Laws as a school

of landscape design and land-use planning.

BOARD OF TRUSTEESVirginia Sullivan ’86, Chair Learning by the Yard Conway, MA

Keith Ross, Vice-Chair LandVest Warwick, MA

Richard AndrioleRetired Business Manager Deerfield, MA

Mitch Anthony Clarity Northampton, MA

Rachel Bird Anderson Public Health Professional Minneapolis, MN

Michael Cavanagh ‘02Cavanagh Landscape Design Saunderstown, RI

Kerri Culhane ‘10 Two Bridges Neighborhood Council New York, NY

Janet Curtis ‘00 Union of Concerned Scientists Cambridge, MA

Carol Franklin Andropogon Associates Philadelphia, PA

Stephen Thor Johnson Sage Advisors Lincoln, MA

Carla Oleska Elms College Chicopee, MA

Bob Pura Greenfield Community College Greenfield, MA

Dolores Root Root + Associates Shelburne Falls, MA

Tim Umbach Retired Chief Financial + Administrative Officer Northampton, MA

Seth Wilkinson ’99 Wilkinson Ecological Design Orleans, MA

EMERITUS TRUSTEESDavid Bird (d. 2007)

Gordon H. Shaw ’89

Bruce Stedman ’78

FORMER DIRECTORSWalter Cudnohufsky Founder, Director, 1972–1992

Donald L. Walker, Jr. Director 1992–2005

ADVISERSJohn Hanning ’82 Montpelier, VT Richard Hubbard Shelburne Falls, MA David Lynch ’85 Watertown, MA

Amy Klippenstein ’95 Ashfield, MA

Carrie Makover ’86 Fairfield, CT

Darrel Morrison New York, NY

Ruth Parnall Conway, MA

Joel Russell Northampton, MA

HONORARY DEGREE RECIPIENTS

Mr. Randall Arendt (2008)Conservation planner and designer, author of Growing Greener: Putting Conservation into Local Plans and Ordinances, Narragansett, RI

Mr. David Bird (2009, posthumous)Economist, linguist, political consultant, and social activist

Mr. Keith Bowers (2008)Founder + President, Biohabitats, Inc., Baltimore, MD

Ms. Majora Carter (2011)President, Majora Carter Group, Bronx, NY

Dr. Darron Collins (2013)President, College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, ME

Dr. Jill Ker Conway (2010)President Emerita, Smith College; Visiting Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Mr. Rick Darke (2009)Author, photographer, horticulturalist, Landenberg, PA

Ms. Charlotte Elton (2007)Director of Sustainability, Panamanian Center for Research and Social Action, Panama City

Dr. Richard T.T. Forman (2009)PAES Professor of Advanced Environmental Studies in Landscape Ecology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Ms. Carol Franklin (2012)Founding Principal, Andropogon Associates, Philadelphia, PA

Ms. Wendi Goldsmith ‘90 (2007)President, The Bioengineering Group Inc., Salem, MA

Mr. Bill McKibben (2012)Author, Educator, Environmentalist; Founder, 350.org; Scholar in residence, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT

Dr. John Olver (2014)US Representative for Massachusetts’ 1st congressional district from 1991-2013

Dr. David W. Orr (2006)Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Chair, Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH

Sr. Enrique Peñalosa (2014)International urban design and planning consultant; former mayor, Bogota, Colombia

Mr. Will Raap (2009)Founder, Gardener's Supply and Intervale Foundation, Burlington, VT

Dr. Anne Whiston Spirn (2010)Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Departments of Architecture and Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Dr. John Todd (2008)Inventor of the “Living Machine”; Co-founder & President, Ocean Arks International; The Rubenstein School of Environmental & Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT

Ms. Nancy Jack Todd (2011)Co-founder & Vice President, Ocean Arks International; Co-founder, New Alchemy Institute; Editor, Annals of Earth, Falmouth, MA

Governance

CON WAY | 31

Application Form

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, and we prefer to receive them at the early deadline of January 1 or the regular deadline of April 15. A completed application includes this signed form, essays, official undergraduate and graduate academic transcripts, three letters of recommendation, a resume, and an application fee of $50.Please submit this form online at csld.edu/admissions, or by mail if you prefer.

SECTION l

Are you a permanent resident of the USA? (Please circle) YES | NO

Name / Address

Name: (First) (Middle) (Last)

Current Address: (Street Number or PO Box) (Street) (Apartment)

(City) (State) (Zip) (Country, if not USA)

Telephone Email

Permanent Address (if different)

Personal Data

Date of Birth (xx/xx/xxxx) Last four digits of your Social Security Number Previous names, if any

Country of Citizenship

Emergency Contact: (Name + Relationship: i.e., parent, spouse/partner, friend, etc.) (Telephone)

Profession

Title/Position Employer Dates

Education Please list all colleges or universities and other programs from which you have received credit since graduation from high school, including associates, bachelors, and certificate programs. List current programs in which you are enrolled with anticipated date of graduation. Use an additional sheet if needed. Please provide official transcripts from each school.

School Major Dates attended Degree received & Date

School Major Dates attended Degree received & Date

School Major Dates attended Degree received & Date

References List the three persons who will submit letters of recommendation on your behalf. Recommenders should send letters directly to Conway by direct mail or email. Identify one recommender whom we may also call.

Name Title & Employer Email Telephone

Name Title & Employer Email Telephone

Name Title & Employer Email Telephone

Resume Attach a current resume to this application form.

CUT

32 | CON WAY

SECTION ll

Application Essays Because of our small size, our commitment to a high degree of student-teacher contact, and the teamwork required by many projects, we need to assess an applicant’s personal qualities as well as motives, skills, and experience. We need to know a “fit” exists between an applicant’s intentions and abilities and what Conway offers and requires. We especially seek students with generalist, not merely vocational, interests. Your answers to the following questions will help us in discovering who you are and whether we can serve you. At the same time, this application will remind you that Conway’s program includes a considerable amount of writing. The essay pages you attach to the application form will be given careful consideration.

1. Educational Review Describe briefly the most beneficial and most harmful aspects of your education thus far. How do you learn best?

2. Work Experience Describe briefly your work and relevant life experience, including major responsibilities and learning.

3. Interests/Individual Study Describe hobbies, avocational interests, and programs of individual study you have pursued, including any self-development workshops, courses, or programs. Include a selected general reading list of the last two years.

4. Self-Assessment How do you see yourself as a person? Describe briefly your strengths, weaknesses, and the significant turning points or periods of reorientation in your life.

5. Where You Live Write about what you consider to be the one or two most important issues or challenges now facing your neighborhood or region. Now, take no more than fifteen minutes to roughly map your neighborhood or region, illustrating where or how these issues have the greatest impact. Include text on the map (labels and any other pertinent information).

6. Career Goals Describe in some depth your goals, plans, and present thinking about ecological design.

7. Reflection What was your experience in writing this application? Did it bring any new understanding or insight?

8. Utopia Wish (optional) What would you like your personal and professional life to be like in the years after you graduate?

SECTION III Please read carefully and sign the following statement:

I recognize that the program requires a high degree of responsibility and affirm that I do not currently abuse drugs or alcohol. I understand that a Drugs & Alcohol Abuse Prevention Policy in compliance with federal regulations is in effect at the Conway School, but the School cannot provide treatment for substance abuse and may consider unlawful acts grounds for dismissal. If special circumstances exist regarding my health, legal affairs, and other factors affecting my ability to perform, I agree to provide the School with pertinent information in a written attachment or interview discussion.

(Signature) (Date)

SECTION IV How did you find out about the Conway School?

Other or specifics of above:

SECTION V Optional Information: By law, you are not required to provide the following information. However, since the School is required to provide summary data to the government about gender and ethnic background, we would appreciate your completing this portion of the form. Your privacy is protected. Please check below: Gender: Male Ethnicity: African American Native American Female Asian American White Hispanic Other: ____________________________ SECTION VI Please check here if you intend to apply for financial aid. Priority date for financial aid applications for the 2015-2016 academic year is January 31, 2015.

At college or workplace Word of mouth From a Conway alum or friend of the school

(Who? List below.)

In a magazine or other print ad (Where? List below.)

Internet search (List search term below.) Graduate school guide

CON WAY | 33

The Conway School is committed to exploring, developing, practicing and teaching design of the land that is ecologically and socially sustainable.

Students work on real projects for real clients. We believe learning is accelerated when theory is applied, and that serving the community is a powerful educator.

CAMPUS AND FACILITIESThe school has two locations, one rural and the other urban. The school’s main campus fits in a single building atop a wooded 35-acre hilltop a half mile east of the village of Conway, Massachusetts. Trails traverse the native woodlands, around bedrock outcrops and vernal pools, which form an outdoor classroom. More about the second campus can be found on page 26 or at csld.edu/urban-collaborative.

CURRICULUMConway’s ten-month graduate program is structured around projects at three distinct scales: site-level, community and regional. Classes in design theory, graphics, site engineering, humanities and digital programs (such as InDesign and GIS) support and are applied to student projects. Students enjoy a rich mix of classroom instruction, studio work, field work, site visits, and guest lectures.

FACULTYTrained in landscape architecture, regional planning, regenerative design, ecology, and architecture, our teachers are more likely to ask questions than give answers. Individually tailored instruction is based on the premise that it is better to encourage thoughtfulness than to impose a solution from another time or place. Guest professionals and master teachers supplement the instruction.

STUDENT BODYConway students come from very diverse backgrounds, encompass a wide age range, and share a passionate commitment to ecological design. Each student brings a unique perspective and set of skills, and is equally challenged to expand their inquiry beyond the familiar.

Conway in Review

ADMISSIONConway will accept about 30 students for the 2015-2016 academic year, split between two campuses. We look for applicants with a well-rounded background, able to perform at a graduate level in a multi-disciplinary field. We do not require specific undergraduate training or Graduate Record Exam scores (though we accept GREs).EARLY APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 1REGULAR APPLICATION DEADLINE: April 15

CAMPUS VISITThe best way to understand our school and how it works is to visit in person. We regularly schedule information sessions and formal presentations, and we encourage you to one or both of these.

HOUSINGMost students rent rooms, apartments or houses in the area for their year of study. We keep a list of available rentals. Students at the Conway campus need the use of a car.

CONWAY’S DEGREEConway graduates earn a Master of Science in Ecological Design. Conway grants its degree by the authority of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education.

ACCREDITATIONThe Conway School is an independent, not-for-profit institution, accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc. (NEASC) and its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education.

CONTACTAdrian Dahlin, Director of Admissions + MarketingThe Conway School332 South Deerfield Road | PO Box 179Conway, MA 01341-0179413-369-4044 x5 | adrian@csld.eduwww.csld.edu/admissions

The Conway School is the only institution of its kind in North America. Its focus is sustainable landscape planning and design. Each year, through its accredited, ten-month graduate program just eighteen to nineteen students from diverse backgrounds are immersed in a range of real-world landscape projects, ranging in scale from residences to regions. Graduates go on to play significant professional roles in various aspects of landscape planning and design. Fix what’s broken. Save what works. Design the future!

332 South Deerfield Road

P.O. Box 179

Conway, MA 01341