Fran Beatty Department Head B.S. Landscape Architecture, Pennsylvania State University# M.A. Preservation Studies, Boston University fbeatty@uark.edu 479/575-5617

Fran Beatty’s career began in conventional practice and continued to a path of serving the urban public realm. After working in land development in Texas, she moved to Boston to direct the redevelopment and reconstruction of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace park system (1896); Boston Common, the nation’s oldest park (1634); and the Public Garden, the nation’s first botanic garden (1859). These internationally recognized historic landscapes, comprising about 1200 acres and half of the Boston park system, are on the National Register of Historic Places and are regularly studied in landscape architecture and architecture programs across the nation as premiere works of urban design.

Beatty has led the department of landscape architecture since 2001.  In addition to teaching and administrative duties, Beatty guides the development of Garvan Woodland Gardens, the school’s botanical garden in Hot Springs. Her research focus is currently on the connection between Ralph Waldo Emerson’s American Transcendentalism and Frederick Law Olmsted’s country park designs that provided a19th-century foundation to the new profession of landscape architecture. She also is exploring the connection between 19th-century Parisian boulevard design and the creation of American parkways. Her other interests include the role of art in the public realm, design education, and contemporary design theory.