Just as I was getting over the budget cuts at the University of Arizona, now it appears that my program may be eliminated altogether. The proposal sent out yesterday by the university will eliminate the School of Landscape Architecture. While it has now become personal, I wonder how many other worthwhile programs are being cast in a light that will make their elimination seem less the educational castration that it is. I see numerous problems with the proposal's logic.

The image portrayed in the proposal is that of a floundering program that "does not compare in excellence" to the School of Architecture. There are some who would debate otherwise.

Architects and landscape architects have long opposed the other's pedagogical approaches. I will be the first to admit that I often find the student works of contemporary architecture schools to be mundane and self-absorbed to the point of being irrelevant and ignored in the world. But I know it is important to have differing viewpoints when approaching a project, and it is important that architects, planners, and landscape architects work together.

The proposal states, "The graduate and research activities of the School of Landscape Architecture are viewed, in part, as enriching the undergraduate experiences of students in the School of Architecture." I know of no graduate program that exists for the purpose of benefiting an undergraduate program, and the statement evokes the sense that one school is subservient to the other within College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA). For the past three years, I have been told by the dean and architecture professors, whom I greatly respect, how important it is for architects and landscape architects to work together and learn from one another. I can recall long discussions with them on the importance of integrating all three fields. Now I feel betrayed by the college. Not only does it devalue our profession, but it prospers the beliefs that the architectural community is elitist and obsolete.

The only mention of financial matters is that the library collection needs to be expanded to include journals and publications related to the profession of landscape architecture. If this is a selling point, then I could surely come up with some concerned donors who would foot that bill. Perhaps if the university had hired local landscape architects to redesign the lawns on campus, the reduction in the water bill would have more than made up for any expenditures incurred by the school. If the school doesn't make the university enough money, so be it. But there is no need to berate a creative, productive and worthy program to make the cuts appear more just.

It is true that the school does not meet two of the six guidelines set up by the advisory committee, those being "student demand" and "revenue generation," but it excels in the other four, especially "vital public impact," which was not even discussed in the proposal. There are very few schools that specialize in arid climate design, and as we live in a desert, I would surmise that it could be quite relevant.

Most of the graduates stay in Tucson, working for design firms, governmental planning, parks and recreation or private practice. Many of Tucson's leading landscape architects are graduates of this program. If this source of well-trained employees runs dry, from where will they come?

These are not high paying jobs that will encourage graduates from other locales to relocate here. Either we will suffer with less-trained people, or at best, we will have planners and designers from other reaches who do not fully understand and value the sensitivity of our desert and climate or the people who call it home.

Projects designed by firms from out of state create a generic sensation that leaves us all feeling that we have been moved to a dumbed-down version of southern California, if that is possible.

With our exponential growth and hotly debated development issues, I don't see how Tucson can afford to let this school go. Landscape architects often cover the boundaries of science and sociology, design and nature, which places them in a position to be useful mediators in the often heated clashes between development and conservation. Eliminating this program can only heighten the struggle to manage Tucson's growth.