Sasaki Day 2025 inspires community and celebration

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On the last day of classes, we celebrated our 43^rd annual Sasaki Day with a full program of activities, starting with a welcome lunch at the Illinois Conference Center attended by student leaders, faculty/staff members, Department Resource Committee members, and special guests, including our 2025 Sasaki Day Lecturer, Ernie Wong, and family members and friends of Terry Harkness. After lunch, we hosted a gathering to remember Terry. The family provided a wonderful set of photos from throughout Terry’s life, and special reflections were offered by Frank Clements, Jim Martin, Matt Torgerson, Gary Kesler, and Elen Deming.

After the memorial gathering, everyone migrated over to Temple Buell Hall and Mumford Hall for an end-of-semester Landscape Architecture Studio Open House (aka “studio crawl”). As part of that sequence, we visited the new Business Instructional Facility site designed in Prof. O’Shea’s studio and for which the planting was then in progress. Again this year, the Sasaki Day Awards Competition was scheduled for the week after Sasaki Day, so we were able to make use of the afternoon in this new way.

Returning to the Illinois Conference Center, we enjoyed an evocative, deeply personal, and inspiring lecture by Ernie Wong, Founding Principal and President of site. Given the quality and depth of what he shared with us that evening, it’s easy to understand why the firm has flourished and why so many of our alumni have found happy, satisfying, and meaningful careers under his vision and leadership.

The day concluded with our Awards & Recognitions Ceremony and Banquet. Dozens of student prizes, scholarships, and traveling fellowships were presented, and the department’s 2025 Alumni Medal was awarded to Alan Watkins (BLA 2005), Account Representative at Clarence Davids & Company, Past President of Illinois ASLA, Chair of our Department Resource Committee, and instructor for our Professional Practice course since Fall 2019.