Leadership blossoms at Longwood

The Longwood Graduate Program is all about horticulture, yet many of its students graduate without having once put their hands in the soil.

That's because the program focuses on public horticulture leadership--the art and science of successfully managing a public garden, arboretum or other horticultural institution. Internationally recognized, the Longwood Program is a collaborative endeavor of the University and Longwood Gardens, the renowned public gardens just outside Kennett Square, Pa.

Although they may not get their hands dirty, Longwood Fellows know what it means to roll up their sleeves and get to work. The two-year master's degree program has a reputation for being selective in its admissions and rigorous in its curriculum.

First-year Fellows participate in a summer-long orientation at Longwood Gardens that is so intensive it comes with a warning not to expect any free time in the schedule. Second-year Fellows face an even more daunting challenge: They are wholly responsible for planning and executing a spring symposium that has featured some of the top names in horticulture as guest speakers. In between, there are field trips, internships, seminars and graduate-level coursework in such topics as project planning, economics, human resources management and museum studies.

But, participants and alumni say, all the hard work pays off. Graduates go on to leadership roles at some of the nation's most prestigious botanical gardens, arboreta, display gardens and community greening associations. Former Fellows currently work at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., the Smithsonian, Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

The Longwood Program was the first of its kind when it began in 1967, according to James Swasey, who has been program coordinator for two decades. Other institutions quickly followed suit and began offering their own master's degrees in public horticulture. But, Swasey says, Longwood remains unique in the way it brings together the creative and intellectual powers of academia with the real-world business acumen found at one of the world's leading public gardens. The Fellows are given access to every facet of operations and administration at Longwood Gardens. In return, they're expected to become contributing members of the Gardens' professional team.

Second-year Fellow Gerald Diehlman was a landscape designer before entering the Longwood Program. Now, after a busy week of classes, meetings and study sessions, he spends Fridays in front of a computer at Longwood Gardens, where he's part of a team responsible for landscape architecture for several long-range projects. Depending on their individual strengths and interests, other Fellows have worked at Longwood in youth education, finance, development, research, public relations and plant collections.

"We're training our students to be leaders," Swasey says. "We've discovered that one of the best ways to do this is to place the Fellows in demanding, real-life work situations at Longwood Gardens. Then, they come back to the classroom and share what they've done--and what they could do better next time--with the other Fellows.

"Our goal is to see these students develop the skills they'll need to oversee people and budgets and handle the myriad of things that go into managing a public garden."

Swasey, who came to the program in 1984 and plans to retire in 2005, says that of all his accomplishments, he is most proud of having instituted the annual symposium project. "I have a hands-off approach to the symposium," he says. "By design, the responsibility for this mammoth undertaking lies squarely with the Fellows."

Students have come to the program from almost every state in the nation, several Canadian provinces and a few other international locales. First-year Fellow Christian Galindo, a citizen of Guatemala, says he eventually plans to return to that country and help revitalize its public gardens, many of which have fallen into neglect and disrepair.

"Longwood is giving me the preparation I need to go out and make a difference," Galindo says. "I couldn't ask for better training."

--Margo McDonough, AS '86, '95M