Department Overview
Welcome!
The Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning (LAUP) is one
of the four departments located within the College of Architecture at Texas
A & M University. The other departments are the Department of Architecture,
Department of Construction Science and Department of Visualization Sciences.
LAUP is one of the oldest and well established departments of its kind in the
southern
United
States.
LAUP
offers
five undergraduate, professional, and research degree programs. These are the
Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA), Bachelor of Science in Urban and
Regional Sciences (BSURS), Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA), Master of
Urban Planning (MUP), Master of
Science
in Land
Development
(MSLD), and the Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Science(URSC). Over 150 undergraduate
students, 100 master’s students, and 50 doctoral students are enrolled
full-time in the department.
With over 300 students and 38 stellar faculty, the department has unmatched
resources to address all areas related to landscape architecture, urban planning,
and land and real estate development. As a unit of the College of Architecture,
the department is part of a vibrant teaching and research community that can
comprehensively address issues of the built and virtual environment, in conjunction
with architecture and construction science. The wider academic family of Texas
A & M University is world-renowned for its leadership in teaching, research,
and service.
Our Mission and Core Values
LAUP builds upon the foundations of the visions of leadership set by the College
to articulate its distinctive mission and vision. LAUP’s mission is to
create, apply, and disseminate knowledge to enhance functional, healthy, and
sustainable human environments through instruction, research, and service in
landscape architecture, urban planning, land development, and allied disciplines.
This mission embodies the tri-partite mission of the Texas A & M University---teaching,
research, and service. Its vision is to position LAUP as a destination center
in region, the United States and beyond for the active creation of, application,
and dissemination of knowledge about functional, healthy, and sustainable human
environments.
LAUP’s mission and vision are embedded in a specific set of core values
and defining characteristics that distinguish the department from others in
Texas, the region, and beyond. These values and characteristics are lodged
in excellence, social commitment, sustainability of environmental and human
systems, life-long learning, collaboration, heightened quest for knowledge,
innovation, diversity, and community engagement.
Our Students and Faculty
LAUP is committed to offering the best possible learning experiences for all
our undergraduate and graduate students. A significant majority of our undergraduate
students in LAUP’s BLA program come from Texas, with a small minority
from other parts of the United States and beyond. In fact, over 30 percent
of registered landscape architects in Texas are former students of the program.
Our graduate students come from all over the United States as well as countries
such as Algeria, Australia, China, Colombia, India, Iran, Iraq, Korea, and
Thailand. LAUP has over 1500 former students, many of whom are leaders in the
design, planning, and development fields
LAUP has a group of over 38 stellar faculty and lecturers with a wide varying
range of expertise and we continue to grow. In the past two years, we added
10 new faculty members through the University’s Faculty Reinvestment
Program. Our faculty comes from a variety of backgrounds. Faculty expertise
are varied and include landscape architecture, sustainable urbanism, hazard
mitigation, coastal area planning, sustainable design, planning and development,
land development, health policy, and transportation. The editor-in-chief of
three top-rated journals in landscape architecture, planning, and emergency
management are faculty members in LAUP. Many of our faculty members are affiliated
with the college-wide research centers especially the Hazard Reduction and
Recovery Center (HRRC), the Center for Health System Design, the Center for
Housing and Urban Development (CHUD), the Center for Heritage Conservation
(CHC), and other university-based units such as the nationally-renowned Texas
Transportation Institute (TTI).
Our Location
LAUP is located in the Langford Architecture Center at Texas A & M University.
Located in College Station, Texas, we benefit from a small community atmosphere
while having easy access to three of the 10 largest cities in the United States---Houston,
Dallas-Ft. Worth, and St. Antonio-Austin.
In conclusion, I invite you to look at our website and learn more about the
department, academic programs, faculty, students, staff, and resources.
|
