BSLA Fieldbook Archive | Page 99

Jot D . Carpenter Teaching Medal

ASLA HONORS

/ BSLA

For significant and sustained excellence in landscape architecture education .

Jot D . Carpenter Teaching Medal

CARL STEINITZ , Honorary ASLA
“ It is an honor and a pleasure to get this recognition from ASLA . I thank those who had the idea to nominate me , and especially also Chuck Harris , who from the start had and sustained confidence in my somewhat iconoclastic perspective .”
For more than 50 years , Carl Steinitz has been an exquisite example of someone who has made a sustained and significant contribution to landscape architecture education . He was a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has dedicated himself to the field of landscape architecture education . Carl holds the firm belief that landscape architects should be leaders and assume a central role in solving some of the most complex and pressing issues facing our world today , working on how to improve , not just use , the tools and techniques of the profession . He pushes his students and others in the profession to challenge themselves with new approaches to questions of scale , urbanism , and ecology . Carl believes interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts are critical to solve complex problems and he embodied this with his students by involving them in his own work , challenging the traditional academic distinction between research and teaching . His students went on to help develop techniques and systems , including advancement in Geographical Information Systems .
Since retiring from Harvard , Carl is still actively involved in design education
and has made considerable contributions with his teaching and his methods . Carl has been most active in the area of teaching other teachers . He currently holds workshops for university faculty members and advanced graduate students in which he leads them through a real , complex design project that concludes in a public presentation . He pushes them to be better collaborators , with better ways in which to classify information , better ways to structure this information and better ways to employ knowledge and methods of design to reach a solution that betters the landscapes which are all around us .
Very deservingly , in addition to this prestigious medal , Steinitz has also been recognized by several other allied organizations . In 1996 , he received the Distinguished Practitioner Award from the International Association for Landscape Ecology ; he also received several honorary professorships and degrees . He was awarded the Outstanding Educator Award of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture , and is a two-time recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award at Harvard . In 2003 , ASLA rightfully made him an Honorary Member .
“ Quite simply , Carl Steinitz has been and remains one of our most deeply committed and influential teachers .” Gary R . Hilderbrand , FASLA , FAAR , Professor in Practice of Landscape Architecture , Harvard Graduate School of Design .
Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook
97