Urban Landscape and Garden Development Certificate

Faculty and Advisory Committee

Faculty

Jim Allen, UMass Boston
Jim Allen is the greenhouse manager for the Biology department at the UMass Boston campus, where he has worked since 1996. Prior to that he worked as part of the nursery and landscape team of the University of Mass Extension program, conducting surveys on fertilizer use and composting practices in Massachusetts green industries. He also worked as a field scout, reporting on landscape IPM. At the UMass Boston campus, he has contributed to flower bed plantings and landscape improvements. This work was profiled in the most recent UMass Boston alumni magazine.
Andria Post Ergun
Andria Post Ergun is Senior Landscape Architect for the City of Boston, Department of Neighborhood Development. She directs HUD’s Community Development Block Grant funding towards open space projects. As Director of the Grassroots Program, she oversees the design and construction of projects that are developed by non-profit organizations. Andria has also owned and operated residential landscape design firms in Boston and Bridgehampton, New York. Her involvement with Boston community organizations has included the Boston Urban Forest Coalition, Boston Greenspace Alliance, United South End Settlements, and the Parkland Management Advisory Committee.
Betsy Johnson
Betsy Johnson is the executive director of the American Community Gardening Association, the non-profit organization supporting community gardening in the United States and Canada. Locally, she is the president of the South End Lower Roxbury Land Trust, a volunteer-run organization that owns and manages 16 community gardens in Boston.
Betsy has 30 years of community activism experience in urban open space improvement, air quality, occupational health, recycling, and neighborhood development issues. She is a former teacher and has worked for Chefs Collaborative, American Lung Association, Massachusetts Audubon Society, and "green" engineering companies.
Andrew Theokas
After enjoying a career in science Andrew Theokas studied at the Harvard Design School receiving the Master in Landscape Architecture degree with a concentration in urban design in 1991. Following work in design firms both in the United States and England he is now with the City of Boston as a Senior Mapping Systems Specialist and is also on the faculty of the College of Architecture at the Boston Architectural Center. A longstanding interest in design strategies that promote the urban public ream has resulted in the publication of Grounds for Review; the Garden Festival in Urban Planning and Design. He is currently working on another book, Urban Passages, which will survey the progression of urban open space design from antiquity to the present.

Advisers

Wayne Mezitt, Weston Nurseries
R. Wayne Mezitt is a third-generation nurseryman and a Massachusetts Certified Horticulturist, now chairman of Weston Nurseries of Hopkinton, MA (www.WestonNurseries.com). He has served as President of the Massachusetts Nursery and Landscape Association, the New England Nursery Association, and the American Nursery and Landscape Association, based in Washington, DC.
Dr. Adenrele Awotona, UMass Boston
Dr. Awotona, a professor of architecture and urban studies, is the Dean of the College of Public and Community Service. He was Dean of the School of Architecture at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and director of the Community Design and Research Center. Dr. Awotona also served as the director of graduate studies in architecture and urban design at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne; director of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Center for Architectural Research and Development Overseas; and as director of the Architecture and International Development Program at the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom.