"Standing your ground" with UN-L Landscape Students

Greysen McKenna is a second year landscape architecture student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She serves as the second year representative at UNL’s ASLA student chapter.

Danielle Braunsroth is a fourth year landscape architecture student. She served as the student chapter’s second year representative, secretary and now communications director.

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, six programs were outlined for elimination within the proposed budget reductions. The proposal included two programs within the College of Architecture: Landscape Architecture and Community Regional Planning. These departments are the only accredited programs within the state of Nebraska and are estimated to save the university a combined $700,000 out of its total $27.5 million budget cut if eliminated. On October 1st, the Fall 2025 Budget Reduction Landscape Architecture APC Hearing took place. →Watch here

One:Twelve, Knowlton’s student publication, and the LABash team talked with UN-L landscape architecture students Danielle Braunsroth and Graysen Mckenna. Read our conversation below.

Sam Clemente So, what’s the status of the “elimination process” of the landscape program right now? 

Danielle Braunsroth So, currently it is in the first stages. On October 1^st, we just had the Academic Planning Committee, APC, hearing with donors, alumni, the program head, our ASLA president, as well as an out-of-state student, just to speak about why landscape is important to them. And now we wait until October 24th to even hear a decision. And until then, we don't even know if we're going to be eliminated yet. If we're moving on to the next round of hearing, it's kind of just up in the air until October 24^th, unfortunately. 

Zach Curry Is that the final decision, or are there any more rounds? 

Danielle Braunsroth So, I think there's 3 total rounds--in December we get the final call. 

Piper Kozlowski And would that be for the upcoming year? 

Danielle Braunsroth So that's also kind of up in the air. What we know for sure is that all of us already enrolled will graduate. We'll probably stop taking any new students, but it's kind of unsure what the initial D1 program is like. I don't know if you're familiar with this but here in Nebraska, we actually have almost like a 2-step program where you spend the first year learning architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture with students all in one group cohort. Then, apply for next year. In that next year, we don't know if those students will have the option for landscape architecture. I don't know exactly if they'll start kind of dismantling classes and trying to move us to other courses, but I know we're all going to graduate. 

Nadia Ndematebem With a landscape architecture degree? Or... 

Danielle Braunsroth Yes so, it'll still be from an accredited program. We just got our accreditation last semester, so it's crazy that we’re up for elimination now.  

Zach Curry Are other sustainable adjacent majors under big threats? Or is it just landscape? 

Danielle Braunsroth Let me pull up the individual e-mail...there are departments of entomology and plant pathology. Departments of agriculture, economics and agricultural leadership, education and communication. We’re not sure if there are budget cuts to those, whole elimination, or melding of programs. And then earth and atmospheric sciences as well. Almost overall--the “climate people.” 

Piper Kozlowski Did you guys both attend the hearing? 

Danielle Braunsroth I did. 

Piper Kozlowski Okay, how did it feel hearing the stories from everyone who spoke to the landscape program? And then also, I've seen things on social media about the program getting cut--has it been interesting having the sort of larger landscape community interested in what's going on? 

Danielle Braunsroth To the first question, yes, it was really wonderful to hear everyone's connections to the program. It was pulling on everyone's heartstrings because we weren't actually allowed to attend it at all, we were only allowed to watch a live stream. Our program director and several others had to just pause and it just showed how meaningful it is to these people. 

It was wonderful to hear the impact vocalized when we couldn't. For them to be the voice when we couldn't. And then Grayson, do you want to talk about the impact of the media? 

Graysen Mckenna I think the media has been just incredible because we just started to put things on social media. In my head, I was worried about getting petition signatures because I was wondering how many people really care about our program? How many people really think about landscape architecture since we’re such a small program? But we make such a huge impact. 

It was just insane to see that we had people from National ASLA or LABash, and then a bunch of other programs across the country that are in support.  

We also ended up going out and getting some signatures on game days, and we were kind of talking to people and interviewing them.  

The people we ran into didn't know what was going on. Then, when you bring it up to them, they're like, “well, that kind of does affect me. I love all these parks that I go to and I love all of these places that I find important." Spreading the word brings everyone together. And I think it's just incredible that we have gotten so much support for it. 

The people we ran into didn't know what was going on. Then, when you bring it up to them, they're like, “well, that kind of does affect me. I love all these parks that I go to and I love all of these places that I find important."

Danielle Braunsroth It's interesting to see and hear people's reactions flood in too as people get the news because it's not released everywhere all at once. When alumni come to us and hear of the news, they’re just absolutely distraught and wonder what they can do. I wish there was a way to get the word out more, but I'm so happy and it's just completely gobsmacked of how much we've already like gotten signatures and spread. It was really wonderful to actually just see our message and QR code being reposted in different places and spaces. 

Sam Clemente And what does that support do? With the petition that went around, does the support have any tangible impact on the elimination process? 

Danielle Braunsroth So, it was signing your name and writing letters of support. And that gives you an actual voice and words in which the APC reads and deliberates. It shows, “Wow, these people really support this program.”  

Sam Clemente Because from the outside, it seems like such a closed process. I had doubts that the petition would actually do something, just not knowing the process. 

Danielle Braunsroth Which is totally valid because there's really nothing else we can do now. It doesn't feel like a lot. It doesn't feel like enough. I don't think it will be. And so, I think that's why we as a club are trying to come up with social media posts and stuff. We’re trying to do a few more days of posting to either influence the APC or have more shares. We’re trying to share the impact of landscape architecture in the community and how important it is to hold it here for Nebraska. We don't have anywhere else in Nebraska to go besides here. 

Nadia Ndematebem Are there any other landscape programs in Nebraska? 

Danielle Braunsroth No. We would join one of 6 states that don't have any accreditation program at all. One of 6 States. 

Sam Clemente For Greysen, does this give you any, what do you think of the industry you’re just learning about as you are seeing the landscape program possibly being eliminated? 

Graysen Mckenna It's a lot because I just got accepted into the program. I didn't know a lot about landscape architecture coming into it and then two weeks later, we found out that our program's getting cut. For a lot of my other classmates and I, it's heartbreaking because yes, we'll be able to finish our degrees, but we'll start seeing the program start to dwindle down. Nebraska is a very rural state and there's a lot of development. There's a lot of landscapes to develop. That's why it's so important for us here. There's about 16 in my class. And it's also a big thing when they're saying that they're going to cut our program. A lot of my other classmates are thinking, “should I move programs?” 

Piper Kozlowski And then like in professional wise in Nebraska, once you graduate and the number of like the pool continues to just get smaller, will there be a migration of landscape firms leaving Nebraska with work coming in from outsiders that don't really understand Nebraska's specific context? 

Danielle Braunsroth There are some cases where there was a firm owner who came in and said, we're actually trying to borrow firms--we need people. And there's actually cases where designers are coming from out of state and they're not designing with the native plant palette in mind, without the scope of what inhabits our ecosystem and native range. So it's, we've already had instances of that. I think it will just get worse. I don't know. It might scare people into leaving Nebraska because we don't have that many firms already. And the ones that are here are kind of small anyways. 

Zach Curry Is there a fear of losing faculty until the last class graduates? How is the faculty handling the situation? 

Danielle Braunsroth The faculty are really trying to fight tooth and nail with us. I don't think they're going to jump ship. I think they're afraid of being forced to walk the plank. They want to fight with it as much as they can.  

Graysen Mckenna I think it's just hard on their part just to see what's already so small, getting smaller. They love what they do and see that not be in the future, I think that is kind of what's bringing the sentiment, at least in our class. 

Nadia Ndematebem Have you guys seen support within your school from outside of your landscape program? Any other faculty or even higher ups? 

Graysen Mckenna Our class had a big group discussion with the dean of the College of Architecture. We're integrating all three design disciplines with each other. He said that it's important to have all three in this program. It's important to learn from your future co-workers, your future peers--to see what they're doing and have that collaborative process. In our third year, we all come together again and work on projects together. He said that, especially in the higher ups, they're fighting everything, doing anything they can do to kind of save the program. 

Sam Clemente Can you speak more on what missing one of those disciplines would mean for the others? What collaboration have you guys had with the other disciplines? 

Danielle Braunsroth So the collaboration with the other disciplines primarily comes from the collaborative studio in our fourth year when we actually have all three disciplines come together. Losing landscape architecture would be a serious detriment to the collaborative studio because you lose the space-making with the exterior. You're able to put in a courtyard and plaza, but you don't have the same understanding of space with the plant materials, seasonality, and the actual ecological considerations that you put into it. I fear that without landscape architecture in those projects, it would be more about tree placing than space making.

And with community and regional planning, if we didn't have the intro to planning classes or it's even offered as a minor for students, you wouldn't have the large-scale broad perspective. You might learn some of the ideas within urbanism, but the overall planning schemes and ideas and laws and things that you have to take into consideration would be missing. It's like an entire piece of the puzzle to landscape architecture. Part of the large scale of it all would be gone, and just another part of what we think about would just kind of crumble. 

Sam Clemente Is there anything that students or professionals across America can do? 

Danielle Braunsroth It’s mostly about keeping up to date with what our program is trying to do. Eventually this will go up to the Board of Regents, and we'll see what we can do there. If there's going to be another, you know, request for words or letters or if there's something more impactful we can do. They didn't even disclose the location of the APC meeting, so we couldn't even stake out and protest peacefully. So we'll see what information they disclose in the future and what we can do then. But until then, it's really just like reposting and staying up to date with what we send out really. 

Graysen Mckenna I think for me, cherish what you're doing. Make sure that your program can kind of like, get more media or try to make it put it more out there so it doesn't, Make everyone more aware of what landscape architecture is so there's a more popular consent of what's going on and why it’s important. Because I feel like a lot of people don't think about the impacts that landscape architects do. 

Danielle Braunsroth Make sure you’re staying strong and standing your ground. Make sure you stay united, stay positive, and be bigger than the bear. 

Make sure you’re staying strong and standing your ground. Make sure you stay united, stay positive, and be bigger than the bear.