Stephanie Rolley
Professor of landscape architecture and regional and community planning
Stephanie Rolley, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, emphasizes
interdisciplinary teaching through community-based collaborations that advance the
public recognition of the profession.
Her students often work with community leaders and representatives to assist them in future visioning of their towns and regions. Her first such project at K-State was a landscape architecture studio that conceptualized and developed plans for more than 200 miles of greenways and trails in the metropolitan Kansas City area. The MetroGreen Plan was completed in collaboration with the Prairie Gateway Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1991. It was implemented by the Mid-America Regional Council and grew to cover 1,200 miles and eight counties.
Of the 32 community-based service projects Rolley has directed, 15 have resulted in substantial documentation or construction, including being adopted and incorporated into city planning documentation.
Between 1995 to 2002, Rolley directed five workshops for the "Your Town" program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The workshops provided design ad environmental education for leaders of 131 community agencies in 10 states.
She has been honored for her work with the Outstanding Teacher of the Year award from K-State's department of landscape architecture and regional and community planning; the Collaborative Practice Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture; an Urban Parks National Award from the Landscape Architecture Foundation for the MetroGreen project; a National Award of Distinction from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture; and as an Alumni Honoree by the K-State College of Architecture, Planning and Design.
Rolley also was named the College of Architecture, Planning and Design's Jarvis Chair of Landscape Architecture in 2005. The competitive award is selected by a blind jury and is based on teaching excellence, scholarship and scholarly contributions to landscape architecture.
Active in the American Society of Landscape Architects, Rolley is the current chair of its Council on Education and serves on the Landscape Architecture magazine's editorial committee. She also is a former trustee of the association's Prairie Gateway Chapter.
She also served K-State's department of landscape architecture and regional and community planning as associate department head and director of the master of landscape architecture program from 1993-98. Her professional experience includes serving as an urban designer at Carr Lynch Associates from 1986-88; project manager at Carter and Burgess, 1983-85; and a landscape architect at Rehler, Vaughn, Beaty and Koone, 1982-83.
Rolley received a bachelor of landscape architecture from K-State and a master's in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rolley can be contacted at 785-532-5961 or srolley@k-state.edu.