Newspaper
Stamp of approval for Essex graduate courses
The University of Essex’s Writtle College has become the latest higher education institution to offer Landscape Institute-accredited courses.
The LI’s Council has given conditional accreditation to two graduate entry courses – the landscape management MSc and landscape architecture MA – plus an undergraduate entry package: a landscape and garden design BSc combined with the postgraduate diploma in landscape architecture. This follows a visit to the College by an accreditation panel earlier this year.
The landscape and garden design BSc has been offered by Writtle for more than a decade, but the diploma and landscape architecture MA are new courses to be run from September 2006. The landscape management MSc is also to be offered for the first time from September but is an evolution from an existing programme that has been running for a decade.
LI president and chair of the Institute’s accreditation sub committee Nigel Thorne led the panel that reviewed the masters in landscape management. Members included Tony Leach MLI, Jon Rooney, professor James Hitchmough and Hilary Ludlow MLI. Paul Harris MLI led the panel considering the MA and the BSc/diploma package and was accompanied by Margaret Claridge MLI, Paul Fraser MLI, Lucy Garratt and Edwin Knighton.
“Writtle has a long-established reputation in the sector and we are delighted to be able to formalise our relationship with the college,” said Thorne. “It has invested extensively in its facilities and infrastructure, and staff and students alike are clearly very passionate about landscape. Their plans for the future are extremely exciting.”
Martin Stimson, Dean of the School of Design, told Vista: “The LI has been very helpful and supportive during the development phase of the programme and, as part of its continued support, we have to work closely with the panels and seek their advice and guidance. It will be a much closer relationship and we’re very much looking forward to that.”
Course leader Jeff Logsden said of the new diploma and landscape architecture MA: “The difference between these courses from others – and others at Writtle – is that we have a very intensive part in which we study landscape ecology in both the social and ecological dimension and a full semester on landscape and garden design history and theory.”
Candidate course status is granted to courses which have demonstrated that they are on track to meet the standards for full accreditation by the LI, even if they are yet to see their first graduate.
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