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  The award-winning Olver Design Building is as innovative as the departments it houses.
streetscapes, large-scale open-space planning, that sort of thing,” Ryan explained. “Regional planning is for students who may want to work as municipal planners in the Commonwealth or with a regional planning agency or as a planning consultant; it’s similar to an urban planning degree.”
The Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department provides professionally accredited degrees (MRP, MLA, BSLA); a sustainable community development degree that UMass touts as one of the most innovative sustainability-focused undergraduate
degrees in the country; a skills-based, two-year associate of landscape con- tracting degree; and a PhD in regional planning. The department’s website claims that “we research, design, teach, and do community outreach to cre-
ate sustainable solutions to complex problems.”
To that end, students have worked on greenway rail-trail projects in the region, new park and plaza design
and redevelopment, residential design, office-plaza design, and public work for cities and towns, Ryan said, through entities like the UMass Design Cen- ter in Springfield, which engages in research and projects to create health- ier, more sustainable, more walkable cities.
“That’s the landscape-architecture side,” he went on. “On the planning side, they might work on transporta- tion planning, economic development, or land-use planning for a municipality. Certainly in this region, you often find
you’re working in places that are built, so it might be a redevelop- ment project within a larger town or city.”
Students work on climate-change adaptation planning as well, Ryan said. “With the impact climate change is having everywhere, how can we adapt to that changing climate? And how do we sort of mitigate climate impacts by the development we’re doing?”
He said a combined Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department may be uncommon in secondary education, but the projects and issues students and graduates tackle lend credence to the model. And those issues are only becoming more prominent.
“The way that municipalities approach this sort of thing has cre- ated an evolution of the program as well,” he told BusinessWest.
“There are
so many sustainability officers
doing hazard- vulnerability plans for municipalities, doing climate- change vulnerability plans. I think cities are more attuned to that impact and how they should plan for it.”
  Civil Engineers: Advance Your Career at DPI!
www.designprofessionalsinc.com/careers Call or send your resume to:
   Peter DeMallie President & CEO
(860) 291-8227 [email protected]
Rebecca Shinkoff Director of Finance & HR
(959) 900-8606 [email protected]
Design Professionals, Inc. is an eighteen person leading land development consulting practice serving MA, CT, & RI from our office located at 21 Jeffrey Drive, South Windsor, CT (20 miles from the Springfield City Hall). We offer civil engineering, land surveying, urban planning and landscape architecture services, and have been engaged in over 5,000 projects over the last 37 years. Resumes for all DPI disciplines are welcome anytime.
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