Landscape architecture professor Andrew Wilcox was voted one of the nation's Top 25 Most Admired Educators in Architecture, Interiors, and Landscape Architecture by DesignIntelligence, a national firm whose closely followed annual surveys track industry and education trends in the design, construction and engineering fields.
The educator ranking was determined by a survey of 10,000 students, deans, educators and industry professionals.
Wilcox, who is the department's undergraduate program coordinator, teaches design studios at all levels with an emphasis on interdisciplinary practice and urbanism.
"I have always tried to combine creative and scholarly practices to develop a trajectory that is working to be bravely curious in its inventiveness and variety while effectively exposing new and non-traditional audiences to landscape architecture," he said. "I generally seek venues and platforms across a broad geography and inclusively across the discipline."
Landscape architecture is concerned with the design, management, preservation, and use of the land. At Cal Poly Pomona, students majoring in landscape architecture are immersed in an interdisciplinary curriculum of landscape design and planning processes, graphic communications, ecology, plants and planting design, construction methods, environmental history and extensive field study.
The program is one of fewer than 20 universities nationwide whose undergraduate and graduate programs are accredited by both the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB), and it is only one in California.
"Professor Andy Wilcox is a perfect model of applying and enhancing the student-centered teaching philosophy and learn-by-doing pedagogy of Cal Poly Pomona," said Associate Professor Weimin Li, the department's graduate coordinator. "Through in-depth classroom discussion, hand-holding studio skill development, and eye-opening field trip exploration and effective advising and mentoring activities, Professor Wilcox truly inspires design thinking, imparts knowledge and experience, passes on creative skills and [ignites] environmental conscience among landscape architecture students."
Wilcox is a product of the program he now leads. He graduated in 2000 with his undergraduate degree and started on tenure-track in 2005. He received tenure at the College of Environmental Design in 2012.
"This honor is a tribute to Andy's leadership, vision, commitment, perseverance, and stamina," said Michael Woo, dean of the College of Environmental Design. "It is also recognition of the quality of our current faculty, students, and staff, and the legacy of our alumni and the previous faculty who have created and sustained one of the most venerable landscape architecture programs in the nation."
In addition to his teaching, Wilcox runs Eagle Rock-based landscape architecture firm, il Finch.