Landscape Architecture - Morgan State University

, I ATTENDED theited[LandsGlpe Architecrure,oDepartment] chair'smeeting at the PhiladelphiaASLA conference," 'WHENrecalls Glenn Smith, ASLA, "I wasamazed but not surprised that I wasstill the only African American in:,I ~ I'll) rIAhistorically black universitythe room after 30 years in the busi­ gr h aness." As the chair of the Departmentof Landscape Architecture atMorgan State University (MSU), Smirhfound a self-fulfilling prophecy. If minoriryundergraduate students don't have minorityprofessionals as role models and reachers,they are less likely to seek advanced degreesin landscape archirecture and become facultythemselves one day.Since rheir founding in rhe 19th century,America's historically black colleges anduniversities (HBCUs) have proved to be oneofthe greatest engines for bringing minoritystudents into a range ofprofessions andbreaking this cycle of exclusion. Indeed,Morgan State's small MLA program offersits 35 to 40 students minority role modelswith two tenure-track and four adjunctdegrees (see Resources). Morgan, "State enrolls more than 6,000 studentson its hilltop campus in Balti­COllilects urban ecologymore, ofwhich roughly a third comeand social justice.from outside Maryland. Yet the surprising£1.ct is that the majority ofBy Frank dge on a n Morgan's graduate MLA studentsare white. Why is this the case atan HBCU located in the heart of amajority-black city? Equally puzzlingis the fact that Morgan State'sAfrican American faculty. Yet the professionsister graduate programs in architecrure andstill has a long way to go, not only in planning both have student bodies that in­reaching out to African Americans bur to clude many African-born foreign srudentsthe entire range of people of color who and African Americans.make up the American mosaic. There are The white, middle-class characrer of therelatively few African American landscape next generation of landscape architects isarchitects working today even though evident in the MLA programs even at "diverse"rhree HBCUs-Morgan State University,universities such as Cal Poly PomonaFlorida A&M University, and North Carolinaand City College in New York-both cov­A&T State University-Dffer accred- ered in past Landscape Anhitectttre campusprofiles (see Resources). What does this discrepancyHoused in a large historically blackin graduate-level srudents even atuniversity in the middle of Baltimore, an HBCU like Morgan State say about landscapeMorgan State's MLA program offersarchitecture, its image for minoritystudents a remarkably 'high level of students, and the profession's perceivedpersonal contact with faculty and adjuncts. relevance for urban communities? These40 ILtadsupa Arc Ited r. DECEMBER Z009