Landscape Architecture Student Learning Outcomes

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES AND OBJECTIVES

At Washington State University, student learning outcomes (SLOs) represent core skills and knowledge students should develop through a curriculum or program of study. SLOs provide students and faculty with a framework for understanding goals and expectations for a degree. WSU faculty provide students with SLOs at multiple levels, including university-wide, program-level, and course-level.

The faculty has identified five themes that include 15 critical student learning outcomes (SLO) essential for students to achieve the LA program goals. The outcomes are multifaceted and interrelated.

Theme One: Define and refine design problems and questions in the context of 21st century realities

Upon successful completion of the BLA at WSU, students will be able to:

  1. Identify and characterize the complex nature of problems, questions, and ethics associated with human/landscape interactions across a broad range of scales
  2. Articulate an understanding of identified problems and questions within the theoretical and historical context of the profession of landscape architecture

Theme Two: Discover and determine appropriate design processes

Upon successful completion of the BLA at WSU, students will be able to:

  1. Identify appropriate methods of design inquiry and problem solving processes to produce creative solutions to identified problems and questions
  2. Identify, collect, and analyze necessary information using appropriate technologies and analytical techniques as they relate to the identified problem or question
  3. Explore and critically analyze alternative design or planning solutions to the identified problem or question
  4. Engage in assessment and evaluation practices throughout the entire design process

Theme Three: Explore and develop communication skills

Upon successful completion of the BLA at WSU, students will be able to:

  1. Justify and defend the proposed design/planning solution within the context of aesthetics; social, political, economic, and environmental systems; and resilience
  2. Communicate the entire problem solving process or method of inquiry in written, oral, and graphic ways using appropriate media

Theme Four: Develop ecological understandings

Upon successful completion of the BLA at WSU, students will be able to:

  1. Understand and apply ecology, botany, and horticulture principles to landscape design
  2. Cultivate knowledge of soils and geology and how they affect and are affected by landscape design
  3. Develop awareness of the interrelationships between design, ecosystems, and climate

Theme Five: Cultivate awareness of professional practices 

Upon successful completion of the BLA at WSU, students will be able to:

  1. Understand multiple aspects of practice
  2. Become leaders in collaboration and community engagement
  3. Integrate and apply diverse perspectives to design solutions
  4. Possess knowledge and understanding about allied fields and the value of interdisciplinary design

VISION, MISSION, AND VALUES

Vision: Washington State University Landscape Architecture advances design education, research and practices that foster ecological consciousness, inspire ingenuity, and respond to the promise and limits of the 21st century.

Mission: The Landscape Architecture Program at Washington State University is committed to the land grant tradition of connecting to and serving society. The program’s mission is grounded by three multifaceted and interrelated components: 1) Generate landscape architectural knowledge through place-based, community-driven, and action-based design and research; 2) Extend landscape architectural knowledge in diverse settings to deepen awareness of the relationships among design, complex systems, and substantive environmental issues; and 3) Apply landscape architectural knowledge to address local and global challenges and advocate for planetary wellbeing.

Values: Design Thinking: We establish the design process as a holistic method for creatively addressing complex issues; Resilience: We foster design that responds and adapts to the dynamics of physical, biological, and social systems; Systems Thinking: We embrace understanding the interconnectedness and balance among multiple systems; Empathy: We cultivate compassion and affection for living systems; Collaboration: We are committed to team and interdisciplinary approaches to learning and research; Imagination: We encourage wonder, awe, and fun to engage and discover possibilities; Place-based and Globally Aware: We engage our unique bioregion in teaching and research as a way to consider the complex web of relationships among diverse systems, locally and globally; Beauty: We embrace beauty as necessity and as a reflection of healthy systems; Diversity: We value multiple perspectives and experiences; Stewardship, Responsibility, Action: We are dedicated to service learning, action research, and sustainable and restorative practices; Community: We cherish and respect the wisdom, values and needs of those we serve and work to facilitate reciprocity between people and places.