309 Eng. Unit D • University Park, PA • 16802
ph: 814.863.4584 • Email: cjr9@psu.edu

Education
B.S.L.A. Penn State University
M.A. Design and Housing, University of Iowas
Background
Scholarship

Interests
Historic Preservation, Design, Graphics

One of the significant threads that ties my academic activities together is an abiding concern with the experience of real places, the avenues we can explore to achieve an understanding of how people relate to places, and by extension, how to be conscientious placemakers through landscape architecture.

My approach to teaching students of landscape architecture is guided by a belief that the practice of designing is both a personal and political matter. Acts of creativity and learning, in order to be effective and fulfilling, require introspection and knowledge of self. On the other hand, the act of designing, by definition, requires that the designer go beyond the self-creative process to acknowledge the politic. Since coming to Penn State, I've been fortunate to facilitate both aspects of learning, with more emphasis on the political, through students' involvement with community projects ranging from the historical examination of a site to the development of a national register district nomination.

Beginning with my studies at the University of Iowa in 1989, my scholarly and professional work has been directed to American history, the historic landscape and historic preservation. Generally speaking, a social-cultural approach characterizes my research and scholarly work. At a more theoretical level, this socio-cultural work explores the attachments people make and meanings people invest in places and the placemaking process. The challenge here is to tease out what may be tacit or latent connections that people establish. Papers that I've written about company town landscapes and the acculturation of immigrants examine this process.

On the other hand, much of my historical research is intended to be applied. For example, the socio-cultural history of a landscape informs our understanding of a site or region just as the ecological context does, and landscape architects, planners and policy-makers act on such understanding. The applied historical studies that I undertake bear on policy or mitigation activities. These studies range from examinations of historic designed landscapes, to regional studies of historic resources. My hope is that this work ultimately will help illuminate the significance of a landscape's material past for present and future occupants of the landscape.