Massachusetts Agricultural College and early GCA Curriculum

[Ed Oden]

Tom MacWood (God rest his soul) mentioned the Massachusetts Agricultural College in a few old threads as the alma mater of some early architects who studied landscape architecture there.  Based on this March 11, 1920 article, it looks like the school actually had a specific golf architecture program...



Could this be the first GCA curriculum at an institution of higher learning?

[Joel Zuckerman]

As some of you might know, Mass Aggie eventually morphed into The University of Massachusetts, or UMass, the largest school in the state...located way out west (90 miles from Boston) in Amherst, Mass.

[JC Jones]

Ed,

Great find.  I think the coolest thing about this would be, if it was available, finding out who the professor was and what books/materials were used in the teaching of the course.  It would give us an idea of what people of that time thought to be the important texts.

[Joshua Pettit]

Great find Ed!  I couldn't help but laugh a bit...

I got my LandArc degree from UMass Amherst in 2009.  The irony for me is that while I was in the program, every effort I made to incorporate anything golf related into my studies was shunned.  The prevailing mentality in the department was that golf architecture wasn't a legitimate design discipline.  

During my time at UMass I had heard a bit about its history beginning as an Ag school.  My understanding was that Mass Agriculture College became Stockbridge School of Agriculture when the college began expanding into what is now the state university system.  Stockbridge is on the UMass Amherst campus and is affiliated, but I believe it is somewhat independent of the University.  I know their Turfgrass program is somewhat popular, at least it seemed like I met a lot of turf students during my time in Amherst.

With regards to having golf architecture programs at schools, I think it was a bad idea in 1920 and I think it's a bad idea in 2013.  Too many students today graduate feeling entitled to a good job pertaining to their academic discipline and a lot of them are finding out that there just aren't enough positions available for everyone with a degree to follow their professional pursuits in a given field.  

Perhaps more importantly, good golf architects cannot be cultivated in a classroom, and anyone who professes to being able to teach such a skill set should have their motives questioned.  Its inherent niche professional stature precludes any institution from scaling the requesite organic and independent educational processes necessary to thoroughly learn and understand good golf design.  

My apologies for the tangent.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Joshua,

I got laughed out of the department at U of I for trying to incorporate more golf stuff.  The LA schools were always teaching us to save the world via design and golf seemed frivolous to them.  I got the last laugh when I went back for an "alumni makes good" kind of speech.  My presentation was paired with an alum who did elderly housing gardens.  The head of the dept, introduced us as "Mary, who does really important work" and "Jeff who does golf courses....."

One student asked why I would design golf courses, and my answer was "because I get to work with people who actually have money and I get their first, before the building architects...two things that rarely happen in landscape architecture.

After a moment of stunned silence, a smattering of applause broke out, and even the hardened professors had to admit my pictures looked pretty good from an artistic standpoint.  Hey, nothing looks better than a golf course at dawn, especially though the lense of a great photographer.  Let's just say the students saw golf course design as something close to "pure design" whereas elderly housing gardens seemed pretty limiting by the end of the day.

[Joshua Pettit]

The LA schools were always teaching us to save the world via design and golf seemed frivolous to them.

Well said Jeff.  And GREAT story about your presentation.  I've often thought about what type of approach I would take given the chance to return and give a presentation like you did.  It would be fun but definitely a challenge to not belittle the self-righteousness rampant amongst the LA professors.  

Hey, despite my passion I can at least admit that GCA is rather trivial in the grand scheme of things!

[Joshua Pettit]

I think the coolest thing about this would be, if it was available, finding out who the professor was and what books/materials were used in the teaching of the course.  It would give us an idea of what people of that time thought to be the important texts.

JC,

Thats a great question, and I will do some digging to see what I can find.  I just remembered a thread I had posted years ago about a guy named Frank Waugh:

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,27837.msg531956.html#msg531956

He founded the Landscape Architecture program at UMass and it's conceivable he may have been involved with the GCA program mentioned in that article.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Josh,

Back at U of I, they had a guy named Walt Keith, an LA professor who was a golfer, too.  He designed a couple of local courses around Illinois, but nothing special.  I think most schools did have 'a guy" who could at least offer something since it is a well known branch of LA.  I think U of I always supplemented that.  I believe RB Harris went down there to teach.  I even took a semester off to teach a junior/senior/grad level studio down there.  (Had to had subdivision planning to make the course "relevant enough."

it would be interesting to know more about Waugh. I have been on the K State campus enough to know his work there.!

[Randy Thompson]

I grew up in the area and Stockbridge School of Agricultural was there first and UMass was built around it. I went to both but they only offered an archtiectural course in the eight week Winter School taught by Mr. Cornish. Brian Silva also atteneded at the same time as I did and when Dr. Robert Carrow left for Georgia, he taught in the two year turf program and was my teacher.

[BCrosby]

For many years Cornish taught a summer school course on gca at the Harvard School of Design.

Did any LA programs give credit for it?

Bob  

[Jeff_Brauer]

For many years, Garrett Gill was a professor or instructor at Texas Tech, as well.  I got a few of his grads to work for me. 

[Randy Thompson]

Perhaps more importantly, good golf architects cannot be cultivated in a classroom, and anyone who professes to being able to teach such a skill set should have their motives questioned.  Its inherent niche professional stature precludes any institution from scaling the requesite organic and independent educational processes necessary to thoroughly learn and understand good golf design.  

Joshua,
Agreed that good architect’s can´t be cultivated in a class room but I do think one could establish a foundation to further develop in the field. I had a course in golf construction at Stockbridge which served as a foundation but the real learning experiences came from the field. I think a lot of value could come from studying the eras of design and individual architect’s success from the past and present. The problem as you mentioned is getting the actual work experience following any kind of formal university studies in the present shrinking or dying market.

[Lou_Duran]

Oh but to be so young again to get into the RT School of Hard Knocks.  If nothing else, one would come out with some great life experiences and better Spanish pronunciation.  I have to believe that with what, 40k+ courses throughout the world, golf is far from dead.  Knowledgeable, honest, hard-working folks will always find a place.

[Randy Thompson]

Oh but to be so young again to get into the RT School of Hard Knocks.  If nothing else, one would come out with some great life experiences and better Spanish pronunciation.  I have to believe that with what, 40k+ courses throughout the world, golf is far from dead.  Knowledgeable, honest, hard-working folks will always find a place.

Mr. Durannn,
Just a quick question, did you eat TeX-Mex for breakfast? Something got your fired up today..I have been following the thread on perfect bunkers. Anyways, how much redesign work do you think those 40 k plus golf courses are going to produce in market where the number of golfers is on a decline and the foreclosures on golf courses on a record high. New courses in the US has gone from 350 to what, somehting like 4 last year. South America is nothing to write home about and Europe...so that leaves a few places in Asia. Seroiusly if you had, a hard working, intelligent and honest son of eighteen years of age and he said Dad, I want to become a golf course Architect. Would you tell him to go for it and get behind him 100%. Would you be willing to get behind him for the tune of 200,000 dollars for a good education? Because my son recently called me and told me he had 160 acres and maybe we should build a golf course and my fathery advice to him was look into building a cementary. Its just a better business, people are literally dying to get in!