LAF’s Multi-Year Program for BIPOC students
Many barriers to becoming a landscape architect occur during the period between entering college and entering the workforce, particularly BIPOC students who may not see themselves or their lived experience reflected in their faculty, employers, and peers.
LAF Ignite was developed to support students through this important stage and help them overcome prevalent barriers so that we can make the discipline of landscape architecture as diverse as the communities in which landscape architects work.
The program launched in 2022 thanks to the generous investment of 146 Founding Donors. Interested landscape architecture professionals can get involved as an internship provider, mentor, or donor. For students, the next cycle of LAF Ignite will begin in fall 2025, with applications open in spring 2025.
Congratulations to the third cohort!
Five landscape architecture students have been selected for the third cohort of LAF Ignite, which begins in fall of 2024. Ignite is a multi-year program with three core components: an annual scholarship, summer internships, and ongoing mentorship. We look forward to working with these students!
- Brendan Tyler Hall, MLA Candidate, Illinois Institute of Technology
- Johnathan Hampton, MLA Candidate, University of Texas at Arlington
- Sara Harris, BLA Candidate, Utah State University
- Jaliyah Shephard, BSLA Candidate, North Carolina A&T State University
- Piper Thyden, BSLA Candidate, Colorado State University
Ready to ignite your journey to becoming a landscape architect?
LAF Ignite is a comprehensive Scholarship + Internships + Mentorship program for BIPOC* college students, providing participants with an annual $10,000 scholarship, annual paid summer internship, and access to mentors throughout their educational path.
Each year, 4-6 students are accepted into Ignite and participate until they have completed their landscape architecture degree. Every new cohort joins the group from past years for facilitated virtual meetings and peer-to-peer mentorship. Participants are matched with a one-on-one mentor and use paid summer internships to explore different career paths within landscape architecture.
*For the first several years of the program, eligible candidates must identify as Black/African American. LAF plans to broaden this to other groups in future years.
Program Goals
We live in a world that is inequitable by design. And through design we can begin to change it. Ignite represents a focused effort by LAF — and the many individuals, firms, organizations, and partners who have invested in the program — to make the discipline of landscape architecture as diverse as the communities in which landscape architects work.
Many barriers to becoming a landscape architect occur during the period between entering college and entering the workforce, particularly for BIPOC students who may not see themselves or their lived experience reflected in their faculty, employers, and peers. Ignite was developed to support BIPOC students through this important stage and help them overcome prevalent barriers by providing:
- reliable and meaningful funding, so they can stay in and focus on school
- access to mentors, so they have a guide and support network
- paid internships, so they get real life (paid) experience and exposure to a variety of ways to practice
By investing in these deserving students, we can grow and change the field of landscape architecture and infuse it with new energy and ideas to create a healthier, more equitable, and sustainable future.
Expanding Over Time
The LAF Ignite program has been several years in the making with input from many different groups to ensure it responds to identified gaps and needs. For the first few years, it will focus on Black/African American students, recognizing the disproportionate oppression and disinvestment Black/African Americans have experienced and continue to experience, upheld by systemic racism that is embedded in all aspects of society.
Starting with this more targeted group has allowed LAF to build the program with Black/African American partners, more effectively understand and address the specific barriers experienced by Black/African American students, and create a shared-identity experience and network of support that will more strategically focus on the identified needs and opportunities.
As the program builds and is opened to other students of color in future years, LAF will continue this process by seeking out partners and landscape architects from specific racial/ethnic groups to more fully understand and address the particular barriers and provide focused opportunities for each community.
