welcome

The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development brings together major academic fields concerned with creating strong communities. The four highly respected units that have come together to form SEDRD share many common goals but approach them in different and complimentary ways. This model reflects the imperatives in building authentic communities where planners, leaders, communicators, designers, the citizens and politicians all play important interdependent roles in community strength.

Within SEDRD there is:

• Rural Planning and Development – with two professionally accredited graduate programs allowing study in the international or national realms with concentrations in a number of pertinent areas
• Landscape Architecture – with a professionally accredited graduate program ( MLA) and an accredited undergraduate program ( BLA) these programs are internationally renowned with graduates working in a broad range of capaticities in public and private offices around the world
• Capacity Development and Extension - offering an MSc providing focus in leadership, international and domestic community capacity development.
• Rural Studies – This program capitalizes on our common focus and encourages students to access resources from throughout SEDRD and the university. Through this program we offer a PhD that has currency in a broad range of disciplines and fields.

While choosing a tag line is difficult for any organization – finding one that reflects the breadth and depth of expertise housed in SEDRD has been a very difficult task and will continue as we evolve and respond to contemporary issues. The text must reflect our expertise in the physical and social components that contribute to making our environment better. The closest we have come is:

SEDRD – creating stronger communities

Wayne Caldwell
Director