Page 45 - Free State Summer 2022

2022 MNLGA Scholarship Recipients

native landscapes in their own backyards. Making nature appointment with the school’s career counselor on how to
more accessible, inclusive, and inviting for everyone is apply to graduate programs as she is a first-generation
important to Kelly. She is confident that with the help of the college student. She is beyond grateful for being accepted
talented professors at Morgan State University, she can into the program at Morgan State University as it has given
achieve this goal in her future work within the Chesapeake her the opportunity to become intimate with landscape
Bay Watershed. This scholarship would help alleviate some architecture, and explore the expansive subjects it covers.
of the financial stress of graduate school and allow her
to cut back some hours at work so that she can continue As she prepares for graduation and joining the workforce,
to fully devote herself to expanding her knowledge of she hopes to work in urban development and restoration.
landscape architecture. With climate change, the urban environment especially
Baltimore is suspectable to sea-level rise, increased
stormwater, drought, and more. Designing spaces and
Kaila Blevins restoring abandoned sites can help soften the effects of

Kaila is currently this, as well as create more spaces for everyone to enjoy in
entering her third the urban environment. Being considered for the MNLGA
and final year in the Scholarship will allow her to focus on school without the
Master of Landscape stress of having a lot of debt since she is paying for her
Architecture Program education herself. Upon graduation, the scholarship will
at the Morgan State also allow her to focus on becoming a certified landscape
University in Baltimore. architect, arborist, and other certifications like SITES.
During her time in the
program, she enjoys Kayla Goldstein
learning about the
complexities of the Kayla had just finished
built environment including grading, site inventorying, and making another multi-
understanding plants and their needs. While it may not be thousand-dollar cake
fair to select a favorite piece of the design process, plant sculpture, unsatisfied
selection takes the cake! And that is what brought her to with her career
this field. trajectory, she started
wondering, what else
During her final year working on her Bachelor of Science in can she do with this
Environmental Science at University of Maryland, College Bachelor of Fine Art.
Park, she interned at the National Arboretum and enrolled After contemplating,
in Wetland Design class. Her internship exposed her to the it hit her like a Juglans
world of public gardens and the plant world overall, but nigra fruit on the noggin. She had always been an
she wasn’t sure how she could marry her plant love to her environmental science nerd - her family was shocked she
future career. That is until her professor invited a guest chose art school. Plants would be her medium. Little did
lecturer, a landscape architect who designs wetlands. she know at the time, this journey would be much deeper
Kaila was immediately enthralled. After leaving, she an endeavor than making pretty landscapes. Landscapes
began researching landscape architecture and made an

Get Active. Stay Involved. • SUMMER 2022 45