Use the tools of architecture, history, and environmental science to learn about, experience, and intervene in the emerging history of Ithaca, New York. Join us as we discover and transform the natural and social constructs that have shaped and reshaped our community.

Students standing outside in a circle in the IC natural lands

The Rebuild Better program will be a great fit for you if you like to think with your hands and learn by doing things, are interested in understanding the active connections between environmental and cultural history, and want to sustain the environment by sensitively remaking it.

During your first semester you will learn drawing and modeling skills as you study the buildings and landscapes where humans and non-humans intermingle in Ithaca. In the second semester, research and writing activities will deepen your understanding of how in Ithaca, and everywhere else, “the past is never dead. It's not even past.” In the third semester you and your cohort will choose a specific project that requires all the knowledge and skills from the previous courses to create an ecologically resilient intervention that will at once restore and transform a section of Ithaca College’s Natural Lands.

Upon completion of this dynamic program you will have the skills, knowledge, and experience that will allow you to understand and give back to your surroundings in a way that supports our non-human neighbors and ourselves, no matter where you find yourself.

Please contact Prof. David Salomon for more information.

Applications through the IC-Connect portal are now being accepted. After applying to Ithaca College you will receive your login for IC-Connect.