Balancing Books and Trails: Garrett Smith, Lecturer in SBE and Landscape Architecture Interim Chair

9 Questions with Garrett Smith, Lecturer in Sustainable Built Environments and Landscape Architecture Interim Chair

 
"Working on real-world and applied projects allows me to gain an understanding of what students need to know to prepare them to be successful in whatever topic I am teaching them."
  

What brought you to CAPLA and the University of Arizona?

This is my second time being a part of CAPLA, with my first experience being a graduate student in what was then the Environmental and Conservation Planning program. Through this experience, I became familiar with the culture and vibrancy of CAPLA and that is what brought me back as a professor. Before returning to CAPLA, my wife and I lived in Telluride, Colorado where I was the program chair and lecturer for Western Colorado University’s Master of Environmental Management (MEM) satellite campus. In addition, I worked as a mountain guide and did research through my personal consulting firm.

Tell us about your current research and what you find most exciting in this work.

My current research is focused on visitor use management issues that arise due to recreation on local, state and federally managed landscapes. There are several aspects of this work that excite me. First, is that each project I work on is unique in terms of both the social and natural implications on communities, recreational users and the landscape. Second, is the evolving nature of the data - whether it’s spatial, social, or natural - and methods to collect and analyze this data that necessitates the need to consistently learn new skills. Over the past couple of years, I have become excited to use more qualitative methods. My wife, who earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Arizona, encouraged me to seek a more nuanced and deep understanding of how people experience landscapes and explain these experiences and why they choose to recreate them in the first place. Finally, I am excited about public land management issues since recreational usage on publicly managed landscapes has been consistently increasing (particularly during the heights of the COVID pandemic), meaning that there will always be challenges that need to be addressed.  

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Are you currently practicing in your field? If so, tell us about that.



Yes, I have a consulting firm, Pointer Consulting, that I started when I graduated with my PhD. Over the past four years, I have worked with several local, state and federal land management agencies on projects ranging from recreational crowding and conflicts between different recreational user groups to the impacts of winter recreation on overwintering wildlife. This consulting work allows me to work on real-world, applied projects that have immediate impacts on agencies’ management decisions. It has also allowed me to understand all the intricacies of working with a wide variety of stakeholder groups and community members on what at times can be contentious subjects. 

What are you teaching this semester, and what do you most enjoy about teaching?

I am lucky enough to have and continue to teach some classes that are technical in nature, which provides many enjoyable experiences. I find that once students have that light bulb moment when they are working on something more challenging, they realize that they are actually more technically skillful than they realized. Additionally, being forced to stay up to date on the latest and greatest technology in a class setting not only ensures that I am providing relevant content for my students, but also allows me to be a life-long learner and not rest on my own laurels, making me more relevant in my field. 

How do you bring your research into your teaching?

Working on real-world and applied projects allows me to gain an understanding of what students need to know to prepare them to be successful in whatever topic I am teaching them. This is particularly true in my GIS class where I design all my lectures, labs and assignments around real-world situations I have faced as a practitioner. I am also teaching a new public lands management course in the spring, which will also be heavily influenced by my own personal experiences of working on public land management projects. Being able to translate research and practice into course design and delivery is one of the things that excites me most about teaching.

Tell us about your community or other service work.

As interim chair of the SBE program, one of my main focuses is on increasing the Indigenous presence in the program. As such, I have been able to be involved with several Indigenous groups on campus, including Native SOAR and Indigenous Voices. This summer, I have been serving as a faculty representative for the University’s AI training initiative.

Beyond teaching, what are your passions?

Outside of teaching, and beyond spending time with my wife and pups, I spend as much time as I can running through and exploring the never-ending natural landscapes this planet has to offer. I am an ultra-marathon runner and have completed almost 100 ultra-marathons races and numerous other self-supported runs of various lengths and difficulties. Another passion is reading books about nature, mountaineering, exploration and other fetes of human endurance and/or perseverance. I am an avid reader and seek to read at least 52 books annually, one for each week throughout the year.

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What advice do you have for prospective or current CAPLA students??

There are three things I would tell a prospective or current CAPLA student. First, find something outside of school that allows you to seek balance. Second, be curious and ask questions when things do not make sense. And third, do not be afraid to make mistakes or fail.

What does the CAPLA experience mean to you? 

The CAPLA experience for me is one of community, diversity, and energy. 

Learn more about Garrett Smith and discover ways you can support CAPLA faculty research and creative scholarship.