The corrections proposed in this letter have been made to the story.
Thank you for covering the national Landscape Architecture Award won by Dane Carlson, BLA 2011 in your Monday, September 19, 2001 issue. This national award is quite an honor for him and for the Department of Landscape Architecture at Ball State. I am writing to you about an error in your headline for the story and a few more errors in the article itself.
The errors all stem from the reporter?s confusion about the difference between landscape architecture and architecture. These are not the same professions or degree programs (more on that later).
The headline reads: "Student earns national architecture prize." This is not correct. Dane wan a national LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE prize. The reporter states that I, Dane's thesis advisor am an Associate Professor in "architecture." This is not true. I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. Lastly, in one of my quoted statements, I spoke about the quality of education that Dane received from the Department of Landscape Architecture at Ball State. The word "Landscape" was omitted in my quoted statement.
This confusion about the profession and degree programs in Landscape Architecture is quite common both on campus and in greater society. I would like to clarify the differences in a few brief sentences.
"Architecture" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones."
"Landscape Architecture is defined as: "Development of land for human use and enjoyment through effective placement of structures, vehicular and pedestrian ways, and plantings."
There is a lot more to these two fields, but it is important to note that each field has it's own professional degree, licensure and practice code. In short, landscape architects design the built and natural environment OUTSIDE of buildings and this is often done in collaboration with architects, civil engineers, ecologists, planners and many more professions.
I hope you will print this clarification so that your readers can better understand the differences between the fields of Landscape Architecture and Architecture.
Meg Calkins is an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. Her views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper. Write to Meg at calkins@bsu.edu.
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