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With increasing academic research in the past few decades, the knowledge scope of landscape architecture has expanded from traditional focus on aesthetics to a broad range of ecological, cultural and psychological issues. In order to understand how academic research and knowledge expansion may have redefined the practice, two surveys were conducted: one on Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) in 2010 (n=230, response rate=43%), and another on the members of American Society of Landscape Architect (ASLA) in 2012 (n=239, sample rate=5%, response rate=31%). Results revealed that the scope of knowledge has expanded since 1970s in areas such as public welfare and personal pleasure. 2) The need for academic research is widely perceived in landscape architecture profession. 3) Academic research primarily generate explanatory knowledge, which has become an important supplement to judgmental design knowledge learned through systematic professional education and construction design knowledge learned through practice. 4) Practitioners believed that they use more logic thinking than intuition in their practice today, and expected more research to facilitate the former than the later.

The professional skills and expertise demanded of practicing arborists are greater than at any time in the past, and many employers and educators believe that higher education plays a role in educating future professionals in this field. Although recent surveys have identified major instructional topics that are critically important for future arborists, no assessment of whether these topics are being taught in college and university programs is available. The following paper is a syllabus-level assessment of 68 arboriculture courses being taught at U.S. institutions of higher education. The most common instructional topics observed in syllabi of arboriculture courses at both two- and four-year institutions were pruning (85%), disorders (81%), physiology/biology (79%), risks/hazards (79%), and soils/nutrition (75%). Tree planting and tree selection, topics identified by educators and public sector employers in previous studies as among the most important instructional areas, were found only in 74% and 62% of course syllabi, respectively. Safety was mentioned in only 53% of syllabi. Syllabus content was similar at two-year and four-year institutions, although tree identification and arborist certification were mentioned more frequently in two-year institution syllabi. Trends in arboriculture education and implications for employers and professionals are discussed.

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