Interview Series: Bridging Academia and Practice

by Sara Hadavi, PhD, ASLA

Living in a world where socio-economic and environmental systems are constantly changing necessitates continuous updates in both the education and practice of landscape architecture to better address the monumental issues people are facing. Facilitating practitioners' contributions to student education is one effective way to strengthen connections between the profession and academic programs. Many practitioners may be interested in teaching and sharing their experience and expertise with students, but the options available for doing so are not always clear.

The Education & Practice Professional Practice Working Group is committed to supporting landscape architecture education that better aligns with the needs of the profession. To this end, this interview series is intended to provide firsthand insights for practitioners interested in teaching. Collectively, these interviews aim to offer a clearer picture of the nuts and bolts of academia-practice integration and to help guide practitioners who are considering a role in landscape architecture education.

We are thrilled to have Jessica Henson, ASLA, RLA, AICP, as the first interviewee on this series.

Jessica M. Henson, ASLA, RLA, AICP

Thanks for accepting our invitation. Let's talk a bit about your background and career path. Can you briefly describe your professional journey in landscape architecture and what led you to transition into teaching?

I always wanted to teach from a very young age. When I discovered architecture in my 7th grade math class, I fell in love with the discipline and decided to pursue an architecture degree with the intention of teaching architecture someday. Along the way, in undergrad, I took a class in Landscape Architecture history and realized it combined my long-standing love of nature and architecture. I thought someday I would want to teach landscape architecture.

Upon finishing Master of Landscape Architecture from University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, I started to work at a firm and planned to stay a few years until I could say I had enough experience to teach. At that time, I was fortunate to land the inaugural Designer in Residence position at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This was an incredible opportunity that allowed me to teach four classes during the academic year while doing a research project. I loved it; however, I also missed practice. From then on I decided I wanted to come up with a way to balance academia and practice. Today I'm a partner at OLIN and teach part-time at USC.

Looking back, how has your own education in landscape architecture shaped your approach to teaching?

I attended an amazing school with wonderful faculty. My particular class also had some of the most impressive people in the field today. Today, two of my partners at OLIN were in my class at Penn and two of my fellow faculty at USC were at Penn with me as well. This has shown me that there are these moments in time at universities and in certain programs where everything comes together brilliantly, leading to some of the most impressive cohorts that really build up each other's success. Rising tides really do raise all boats. This has taught me that as a faculty member I should not be generating competition in my students, but rather collaboration. This is a field of collaboration. I don't mean that we do a ton of group projects. I mean we build each other up, give honest critiques, and really focus on joint success. Students that are focused on making each other better really can create a cohort that far exceeds what each student working one-on-one with a faculty member can achieve alone. I teach studio in this collaborative way. Even on individual projects students are encouraged to talk to each other, explain their work, and help make everyone a better landscape architect.

You mentioned that you wanted to teach from young age. What motivated you to take on a teaching role?

I love learning and school. The entire environment of school is wonderful to me. I was that kid that couldn't wait to get to school -never wanted to miss a day. The academic environment allows freedoms you don't always have when working for a client. Sometimes only these environments allow us to test ideas that aren't yet penciled out, and that testing is necessary to reach future plausible strategies. Practice is awesome too, but I think it's the balance of both that keeps me going.

Let's talk about your transition from practice to teaching. What have been the most surprising or challenging aspects of transitioning from practice to education? What were your initial expectations about teaching? How did the reality compare?

Getting used to the pace of the academic world compared to practice takes some adjustment. In practice people are working every day, all day. In the academy things move more slowly, because things get caught in a semester-to-semester schedule and slow in the summer. That said, of course it takes many years in practice to build things, so one could consider that slow, too! But the day-to-day is much faster paced in practice. Syncing to the rhythms just takes practice and awareness. I think the reality of teaching was close to my expectations. The biggest surprise in this regard was probably how much less rigorous student work is than professional work. Academia usually gets to a level comparable to concept design in a firm.

What is your teaching load and how do you balance your time and energy between professional work and your academic responsibilities?

I teach one studio class in the Fall which meets Monday and Friday 1-6 with me and Wednesday with a Class Assistant from 4-6pm.

Sometimes I teach a course in the spring at my university or guest teach at another university.

Balancing time can be challenging, particularly when students don't fully appreciate how much time you are devoting to their class and they don't take certain tasks or requests seriously. If I'm going to leave the office to teach, I want the students to be equally committed.

Let's move on to the topic of bridging the gap between education and practice. From your perspective, what are the most significant gaps between landscape architecture education and professional practice?

Having a client in practice means coming up with creative strategies for various needs and obstacles. Typically, academia has more freedom, and students are encouraged to explore and push boundaries. I think this is good, and I encourage my students to do the same, but I find that reminding them during their education about what they are likely to face after graduation is important.

What skills, knowledge areas or habits do students often lack when they enter the profession?

• Precision drawing in Rhino, CAD, or similar software.
• The ability to iterate.
• Due diligence when checking facts, citations, and research.
• Technical skills, such as the ability to complete complex grading plans.

How have you tried to address these gaps in your own teaching?

I have created specific assignments and exercises with outcomes that require precision in these items or have asked students to do iterative plan or 3d studies.

Thinking about pedagogy and studio culture, what courses do you teach and how do you bring real-world experiences and constraints into your classroom or studio? Can you share a specific teaching strategy or project that helped connect students to professional realities?

I teach the Urban Design Studio at USC. This course is a required studio the first semester of 2nd year. In my studios, each semester I link the project tangentially to a project we are working on at the office. For example, in Fall 2025, my studio focused on Downtown Glendale, California. At the same time, I'm leading a project for the City of Glendale to update their Open Space, Conservation, and Recreation elements of their General Plan. This overlap allowed students to meet municipal staff from Glendale and understand their priorities for the specific downtown area.

This is a great real-world experience. How receptive are students to learning from someone whose primary background is practice rather than academia?

I find students to be very receptive and excited. They are all looking for information about what practice is like and how to get jobs after graduation.

In your view, what unique value do adjunct or professional instructors bring to landscape architecture programs?

These faculty bring practical skillsets and understanding of what students are likely to face after graduation. This helps bridge the gap of them finding jobs. As much as students want to change the world after graduation, many also need to deal with the realities of cost of living and do not have family wealth to tide them over. Understanding the key components of getting a job is important to many students. There is also an ability for these faculty members to help students understand how difficult it is to convince a client to trust you with millions of dollars to take on their project!

What institutional support (or lack thereof) have you encountered as a practicing instructor? What are the limitations or frustrations of being in an adjunct/practicing instructor role?

I think it's particularly difficult to meet service goals and academic training requirements. In addition to teaching time, there are hours of training courses that most universities require. There are also often service hour requirements. These requirements are on top of teaching a good course. They are often necessary, but it is challenging for a professional to make time.

Do you think the adjunct model is sustainable?

Not for most people, unfortunately. It often works in seasons of life, depending on family, kids, and other life stressors. It takes an enormous amount of time for the amount of pay, generally speaking. Passion for teaching and learning goes a long way to balancing out the challenges, and syncing up your teaching topics with your professional work helps balance needs.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of teaching for you?

Co-learning between faculty and students is exciting for me. I appreciate it when everyone is making everyone sharper. Teaching has sharpened my ability to present, to give feedback, and to mediate situations.

Has your experience as an educator changed the way you approach professional practice?

Definitely! Teaching studio feels like managing 10-15 little projects where you are helping each student meet their goals and the learning objectives. Teaching taught me to balance more projects and complexities at one given time when I was a young professional. Teaching also broadens your perspective about there being many ways of designing something, all of which may be good and valid. I often encourage students in my class to have unique resolutions to the same design problem rather than following a specific formal resolution or design method.

More recently, over the past eight years as I have connected my studios to real projects in our office, it has broadened the conversation with students and design teams. Academic and practice have a symbiotic relationship in these scenarios and rising tides raise all boats.

Have you noticed any shifts in the profession that should be reflected more explicitly in design education?

I think departments generally are representing shifts toward equitable design, environmental justice and inclusion, community engagement, and climate issues well. The bigger difficulty is how departments can take on new topics while still delivering solid design skills for form making and visioning. How do we keep basic skills while also capturing research, big data, climate, and justice topics?

What advice do you have for practicing professionals who are curious about teaching but unsure where to begin?

Start by attending lectures at your local university or attend ASLA or CELA conferences and meet other professionals who are also teaching. Attend several midterm or final reviews. Have discussions with the Department Head or Dean at universities near you. These are good ways to make connections and gain experience on the academic side. It is also good to start as an assistant to someone who has been teaching for a long time. Being a studio teaching alongside someone who is a studio lead is a great entry point.

Definitely be cautious of whether you have the time to take on an entire class. While one semester may not seem like a big deal to you, for many students, especially those in graduate studies, that semester may comprise a quarter to a sixth of their MLA education and you want to be sure you can deliver the time and energy it takes.

I would not recommend that your first experience teaching be a remote or visiting teaching position. Flying to be a guest professor brings an additional level of challenge.

What kind of preparation, mindset, or support is necessary for practitioners to thrive in teaching roles?

Oftentimes we think about teachers as needing time during the semester, but perhaps the most time is needed in the month leading up to class. Finishing a syllabus, reviewing readings, and making sure all your university trainings are up to date can take a significant amount of time. If you are teaching a seminar course, get ahead on lectures. Don't assume you will do them weekly during the semester. Preparing a 2-hour lecture every week can take entire days. Each semester, I start the layout of my lectures before the semester starts. I may have things to add week to week, but I'm not starting from scratch. Anytime I have started from scratch on a lecture deep into the semester, it is nearly impossible to deliver it well.

How can universities better integrate practicing professionals into their programs-not just as lecturers, but as active participants in curriculum development?

Rather than standing committees that meet for an hour here or there, I would encourage thinking well in advance and planning a day-long session that people can turn off their tech devices and tune in. I think many professionals would be happy to give this type of input -perhaps a 4-hour session over lunch. I think it's challenging for professionals to give input in week-to-week, long standing committee roles because there isn't enough time or momentum to gather a complete thought. As soon as a project gets busy on the practice side, you won't see that person for a few weeks and then it's almost like you are starting from scratch again.

Considering the future of practice and education, what do you envision as the ideal relationship between academia and practice in landscape architecture?

The current relationship that exists around some notable universities such as Penn or USC are great examples of what I think ideal, or close to ideal, looks like. In these universities there is a close tie to several firms that are in the area. This is more difficult to achieve where leading practices aren't available. In ideal scenarios, there is a dialogue between the two where lectures, office visits, site visits, studio crits, and other chances for exchange occur multiple times a semester. It is good that Practice and Academia are separate because it allows freedom at the university level; however, I think having real world constraints can be good experience for students. This can be achieved by bringing practitioners into course work at appropriate intervals.

Are there emerging trends in the profession (e.g., climate adaptation, equity, digital tools) that academia should prioritize more effectively?

I think generally students need more experience doing precise and iterative work. Landscape Architecture requires great precision and accuracy and also the ability to repeat that precision iteratively on a project. Many students coming out of university studies aren't used to this level of rigor. Many of the topics in university studies are great, but the rigor isn't always at the depth students will need later.

How do you see the role of adjunct/practicing faculty in landscape architecture evolving in the coming years?

I think it is getting harder to do both roles as university policies tighten around contact hours and service hours. Universities have to make a choice to allow practitioners to teach and make it workable. I'd like to see us continue to focus on in-person learning for students. While it is easy to get practitioners to join classes via zoom, and some of that is good, I don't think it should be the only exposure.

Thank you for your time and your valuable insights.

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