Representatives from the community and regional planning program and the landscape architecture program stated their cases during the first round of budget hearings on Wednesday for why the University of Nebraska-Lincoln should retain their programs.
On Sept. 12, UNL officials announced that six departments could potentially be eliminated, four others could merge and several others could face budget cuts. The proposal is in response to a $21 million budget deficit and an additional $6.5 million in proactive cuts.
The Academic Planning Committee, which is made up of students, faculty and staff, will hear from impacted programs over the next week and a half about why their programs should not face cuts. The committee will then make its recommendation to the chancellor, who has to submit his recommendation to the Board of Regents by its December meeting. Cuts aren’t final until the Board of Regents approves them.
Hearings for programs facing elimination and consolidation go through Friday, Oct. 10. The music and theater programs also have hearings to discuss a proposed cut of one of the program directors.
Community and regional planning
Yunwoo Nam, professor and director of the community and regional planning program, said students have completed more than 40 community service projects across Nebraska over the years.
“Support from across Nebraska has been overwhelming — Nebraska state senators, commissioners, mayors, city administrators, planning directors, professional organizations, industry leaders and community members across the state,” Nam said. “Their message was very clear: Nebraska needs this program.”
Nam said the metrics used in the quantitative analysis didn’t take into account the community engagement aspect of a program, which is one of the critical components in community and regional planning.
Abigail Cochran, assistant professor in the program, said because of the work students did in cities like David City, Beatrice, Syracuse, Peru and Bennett, several of those towns received about $400,000 each in Community Development Block Grants.
“These projects bring real dollars, resilience and opportunity to Nebraska communities,” Cochran said. “They often serve as the foundation for millions of dollars in federal investment that would not otherwise reach these towns.”
Cochran said UNL’s planning program is the only program in four of the surrounding states: Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana.
“To eliminate Nebraska’s only accredited planning program at a time when our peers are expanding theirs would be to send the wrong message, not just to prospective students, but to national organizations, federal agencies and the professional community,” Cochran said. “It would place UNL in a position of stepping back while peer institutions are stepping forward.”
There are planning programs in Iowa and Kansas, but Stephanie Rouse, graduate of the program and transportation planner with the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Department, said it would be challenging to recruit students to Nebraska from these programs.
“If this program is cut, we will have to outsource this vital work to professionals from other states who lack the nuanced understanding of Nebraska’s unique systems and cultural identity,” Rouse said. “Both local governments and consulting firms will see the ripple effects, unable to find locally educated professionals to fill vacant roles, especially in smaller communities.”
Jeff Henson is president of JEO Consulting Group headquartered in Wahoo, and a graduate of the community and regional planning program at UNL. Henson said the planners on his team connect different aspects of a project, from engineering to architects.
“For UNL, the CRP program is profitable. For Nebraska, it’s essential, and for our communities, it’s irreplaceable,” Henson said. “Eliminating it would be like eating your seed corn. It might look like savings today, but it’s going to starve us tomorrow.”
Henson added that he relies on the program for hiring. Melissa Harrell, Wahoo city administrator, shared a similar sentiment.
“You take away this pipeline, and there’s a bigger void,” Harrell said. “It is not the firms that will be hit on the cost of this, it’s the Nebraska communities, the nonprofits, and ultimately, our very own citizens.”
Landscape architecture
Sarah Karle, interim program director and associate professor for landscape architecture, said if UNL’s program is eliminated, it will make Nebraska one of six states without a pathway into the field.
“Our graduates design the environments where Nebraskans live, learn, work and gather — school yards, parks, campuses, plazas, green infrastructure,” Karle said.
Students in the landscape architecture program have helped areas across Nebraska, including with the city of Valentine, several indigenous communities and the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission.
Hannah Jones, division administrator at the Nebraska Game & Parks Commission, said she has worked with many landscape architecture students who have spent more than 25,000 hours revitalizing over 2,500 acres in state parks.
“This program has provided our agency with innovative ideas and professional quality work,” she said.
Jones recalled a project during her time as a community and regional planning student where she helped with a downtown revitalization with the city of Lincoln’s urban planning department.
“Through that project, I collaborated not only with my planning colleagues, but with engineers, with landscape architects, architects, interior designers, and that sort of space really can’t happen when you don’t have the connection of the outside space with the inside space,” Jones said.
According to a statement from the American Society of Landscape Architects, there are at least 18 landscape architecture firms in Nebraska. Zack Fergus, landscape architect at Lamp Rynearson and one of the first graduates from the program in 2011, said 80% of his firm is made up of UNL graduates.
“This pipeline of graduates helps to provide our local firms with qualified designers to create some of the most renowned, most visited outdoor spaces in the state, including Omaha’s riverfront and Lincoln’s Antelope Valley,” Fergus said.
He added that the program has a 91% job placement rate over the last four years and all of the 2024 graduates found jobs post-grad.
Karle said the loss of the landscape architecture program would be harmful to the accreditation of the other programs in the College of Architecture. She said there are several classes that landscape architecture professors teach that are integral to the other programs.
“So for architecture — site design, land and water management is all required, and those types of outcomes are taught by landscape architects,” Karle said.
Bruce Carpenter, senior vice president of HDR in Omaha and a 1979 UNL graduate from the College of Architecture, said keeping all of the disciplines in the college is important for companies like his. HDR started a practice studio called Studio C, where they found the perfect mix of architects, interior designers, community planners and landscape architects to create amazing outcomes.
“I look out the window of my office, and that’s the group that’s working together,” Carpenter said. “We’ve tried a different mix of disciplines, but that group seems to have kind of the same wheels to creativity and the collaboration and the conversation is consistent or is applied through almost every project we have.”
Carpenter said he supports an alternative plan that the landscape architecture and the community and regional planning programs have put forward to keep the two programs.
The College of Architecture building recently underwent a renovation that David Howlett, president of the professional advisory council for the College of Architecture, said shows the college’s growth.
According to UNL, landscape architecture had 47 students enrolled in the 2024-25 school year, which was up from 38 the previous year. In that same year, there were 10 graduates from the program, which doubled from the 2023-24 school year.
“The new addition and upgrade of the physical facility, along with the enrollment increases over the past several years, points to continued growth in the college,” Howlett said. “And yet the university is proposing that the landscape architecture program close, eliminating an endowed program, jeopardizing donor trust and damaging the university’s reputation.”
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