Since 2006 work has been underway to create a book commemorating the Conway School’s fortieth year. Drawing Lessons: Forty Years of Design Education at the Conway School is now available and your purchase of this 116-page, heavily illustrated book will include a tax-deductible donation to the school.

You can purchase the book online by clicking on this button:
Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.


“One of the great stories in design education is that of the Conway School. For 40 years and counting it has turned out outstanding landscape designers and planners. This is a story to be celebrated and an institution worthy of a national reputation.” David W. Orr, Oberlin College


“Over the thirty-four years I have known and admired the Conway School I have learned much from its flawless pedagogy. Totally interdisciplinary, the School aims to give its students the ability to link ecological science, design principles, human needs, and the history of the land, in their problem solving process. This makes the student’s work an exercise in asking the right questions, rather than applying the currently approved abstract design principles.” Jill Ker Conway, author of The Road from Coorain, Woman’s Education, and When Memory Speaks.


“Having read Jane Roy Brown’s book recently, I am re-inspired by the remarkable approach and success of the school.” David Evans ’76


You can view the book’s foreword, first chapter, and other sample pages here:

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The book got started when award-winning journalist Jane Roy Brown was first asked byLandscape Architecture magazine to write a story about Conway. For that article Ms. Brown and photographer Bill Regan shadowed the class of 2007 for the  entire academic year. Drawing Lessons grew out of and dramatically expands on that earlier work. Ms. Brown conducted extensive interviews with current and past faculty and students and paints a vivid picture of a community of committed alumni, students,  and faculty working diligently to make a difference in the world through design.

A team of Conway alums and a current student helped shepherd the book through the publishing process. Tom Jandernoa ’10 and Kate Dana ’07 were professional graphic designers before coming to Conway, as was Shana Hostetter ’12. Also helping was Katharine Gehron ’09, a professional copyeditor for a major publisher before Conway.

Below is the book’s table of contents. The heavily illustrated book has 116 pages. Publication date: November 2011


  • Foreword
  • Road Trip
  • Design in All Its Complexity and Depth
  • “At Some Point, the Narrative Comes Through”
  • Form Finding
  • Ruthless Isolation
  • Zooming Across Scales
  • Real Projects, Real Clients
  • Learning and the Real World
  • Public Presentation Day
  • Going Electric
  • Presentations
  • Standing Naked Before Strangers
  • An Experiment
  • Walt, “the Action Guy”
  • Function and Appearance
  • Pragmatic Design
  • A Shift Toward Ecology
  • Commencement
  • Epilogue
  • Endnotes
  • Acknowledgments
  • Photo Album (with photographs of all of the Conway classes, 1973-2012)

You can purchase the book online by clicking on this button:
Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.