Kenneth Brooks Honored for Exceptional Service to CELA and LAF
Educator Kenneth R. Brooks was presented with the Forster Ndubisi Professional Service Award at the CELA Awards Dinner on March 20, 2026.
The Forster Ndubisi Professional Service Award was created in 2022 by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) to honor an individual who has provided exceptional service to both organizations to significantly advance the discipline of landscape architecture. The award is named after former Texas A&M University landscape architecture professor and department head Forster Ndubisi, a longtime thought leader and friend of LAF who was given the inaugural award posthumously.
Kenneth R. Brooks, FASLA, FCELA, PLA, is Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture in The Design School in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where he has taught and served in various capacities since 2004. Prior to that, he taught for 22 years in the Department of Landscape Architecture / Regional and Community Planning at Kansas State University and for 5 years at Washington State University. Ken was President of CELA in 2003-2004 and served multiple terms as a Regional Director. Ken has also served on boards and committees of the American Society of Landscape Architects and its Arizona Chapter, the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board, the Sigma Lambda Alpha honor society, and the American Planning Association.
Ken has long been a strong proponent for advancing the landscape architecture discipline and its effectiveness through applied research. He championed landscape performance and integrating coursework on the measurable benefits of landscape solutions across built environment disciplines. He received Landscape Performance Education Grants from LAF in 2014, 2015, and 2016, helping to build a set of sample syllabi, readings, exercises, and other teaching materials for others to use.
In 2021, he established the Kenneth R. Brooks MLA Research Scholarship, offered through LAF, to provide financial support so that master's students can focus on a rigorous, evidence-based research project that contributes to advancing the discipline. In 2025, he established the companion CELA Kenneth R Brooks MLA Travel Fellowship, which provides funding for the scholarship winner to present their thesis or capstone project at the CELA annual conference.
“Ken Brooks is an energetic and diligent educator and thought leader, who is always advocating for students and working to improve landscape architecture education through service and collaboration,” said LAF CEO Barbara Deutsch. "He was an early champion of LAF’s vision to integrate landscape performance into education, design, and advocacy and has been a great sounding board for us, providing input and a wealth of perspective and background. If it pertains to landscape architecture education, pedagogy, or the discipline at large, Ken has thought deeply about it!"
Through his 50-year career of teaching, leadership, and service as well as his enduring investment to create the Brooks scholarship and travel fellowship, Ken has helped to evolve and strengthen the landscape architecture discipline and prepare future generations of designers.
