Law to Step Aside as Dean

Dennis L. Law, dean of the Kansas State University College of Architecture, Planning and Design, will step aside in August 2009 after 14 years in that post. He plans to return to full-time teaching for several years before retiring.

Law joined K-State’s landscape architecture department in 1974 as an instructor. He earned the rank of assistant professor in 1976, was named an associate professor in 1982 and was promoted to professor in 1986. He became acting head of landscape architecture in 1988 and head in 1989, serving until 1993, when he returned to teaching. Law became dean in 1995.

“Serving the College of Architecture, Planning and Design has been a pleasure,” Law said. “I am very proud of the progress we have made, and it is with mixed emotions that I step aside.

“However, I am extremely excited about my return to the classroom, my first and real passion, for a few years before retirement,” Law said. “I sincerely appreciate the wide support I received as dean from the college’s constituents and my colleagues.”

“Dean Law has done an excellent job of leading this important college to new levels of success,” said M. Duane Nellis, provost and senior vice president at K-State. “His personable and student-centered approach has earned raves from students and appreciation from employers who hire them. “Ninety-eight percent of 2006-2007 bachelor’s degree recipients were employed in their field of study within a few months of graduation,”

Nellis said. “Surveys conducted by Design Intelligence and the Almanac of Architecture and Design asked firms to name the schools that have provided them with the best employees in the last five years. K-State ranked eighth for interior architecture and design programs, first in landscape architecture, and eighth in architecture programs in surveys of interior architecture and design firms, landscape architecture firms, and architecture firms across the United States.

“This is due in large part to Dean Law’s leadership and the support he has from his faculty, staff, alumni and students. The university appreciates his leadership not only in the college but also across the university,” Nellis said.

Law received his bachelor’s degree in park administration from Texas Tech University and his master’s degree in landscape architecture from K-State in 1976.

During Law’s tenure as dean he worked diligently to supplement state funding, and the college’s endowment increased fivefold. He established an endowed chair for each of the college’s three departments. He also successfully lobbied for $6.2 million of “crumbling classroom” funds in the late 1990s to remodel the college’s teaching facilities. The coming year will see additional improvements in the form of a new roof on Seaton Court.

In keeping with national trends, in 2006 Law led the college’s transition to offering five-year master’s degrees rather than bachelor’s degrees. It also developed a doctoral program in environmental design and planning.

A revitalized Kansas City Design Center, in partnership with the University of Kansas, now houses an interdisciplinary studio in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Funded by the William T. Kemper Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation and others, the center promotes opportunities for collaborative research, community service, professional development and public education.

Rankings of the college’s academic programs have steadily risen. The number of the college’s students who participate in study abroad programs has doubled. The diversity of faculty and students continues to grow. The ACT/SAT scores of incoming freshmen continue to rise. The college’s graduates are in high demand. DesignExpo, the college’s annual career fair, is among the largest in the U.S.

Law has traveled extensively to meet with alumni, to recruit the best students and to connect with influential businesses and individuals. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius chose Law to be part of a trade mission to China in 2005 and to Mexico in 2007.

On a national level, he is one of the few landscape architects to be a dean of a major interdisciplinary college. Law was among the academic leaders profiled in the October 2004 edition of Landscape Architecture magazine. In 2005, Law was included in an elite group of U.S. educators who were noted for connecting the practice of architecture with higher education. In 2003 he received the outstanding administrator award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Named a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1999, Law has received several society honors, including the Prairie Gateway chapter’s merit award for the reclamation research project “Rehab: Oil & Gas Field,” and the Michigan chapter’s honor award for outstanding professional achievement for “Adapting Disturbed Land to Recreational Uses,” a chapter co-written for the book, “Restoring the Earth:  Environmental Design for Reclaiming Surface Mines.”

A respected teacher, Law’s Graphic and Visual Thinking class is always enrolled to over capacity. His teaching success shows in the passion his students bring to drawing and graphics.

Law is a member of Sigma Lambda Alpha, the national landscape architecture honorary, and K-State’s chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, a national honorary. He has been honored for his teaching by K-State’s chapter of Blue Key, a senior leadership society, and he has been a K-State presidential lecturer since 1991.

He has worked as a consultant and specialist with the Bureau of Land Management and as director of landscape architecture for Astroworld USA. His landscape design projects include parks, residences, landscape development and plazas. He also is an expert in environmental ethics, tropical rain forests and reclamation of disturbed lands.

Law has been an international speaker on global environmental issues who has presented more than 75 papers at national and international forums. In addition, he has written several books, chapters, articles and government publications on planting design, reclamation of disturbed lands, environmental ethics and landscape architecture education.

For more information, contact:
Dennis Law, 785.532.5950
Diane Potts, 785.532.1090