Professor Bob Grese named CELA Fellow
Bob Grese has been recognized by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) as a CELA Fellow for his many accomplishments as a landscape architecture educator.
Professor Grese has been teaching and mentoring students in landscape architecture for 34 years. For the past nineteen years, he has also served as Director of the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum. He has been director of the combined Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum since 2004.
Grese is widely known as an advocate for ecological design. His research into the work of Jens Jensen, O.C. Simonds, and other early practitioners has showcased a rich history of design that emphasized regionally and ecologically-based approaches to design. Other research and his teaching have emphasized an interest in community, an appreciation of landscape heritage, the restoration of environmental integrity, and the building of connections between people and landscape. He is a active participant in CELA, routinely reviewing manuscripts and taking part in conferences.
During his long career of teaching at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability, he has taught well over a thousand students in courses emphasizing ecological design and landscape analysis, participatory design, ecological restoration, planting design, and design history and theory. Former students are found in leadership positions at professional firms, in government agencies, and academia across the U.S. and around the world.