Daniel Marcucci
Courses & Programs
What first drew you to your field?
We become who we are incrementally — or at least I did. I grew up in a large family, but it was clear as a young child I was the gardener in the brood. A few years later, when I could spend time in the woods through scouting, I was the one who knew the names of all the trees. In college, I took a practical engineering path, which was interesting but not exciting. I had always been attracted to maps and read books about faraway lands. It took the advice of close friends for me to see a different path for graduate school. I enrolled for a master of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied with Ian McHarg. He was like a Scottish Presbyterian minister preaching the gospel of landscape. Hearing him explain the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of landscape was beautiful. Other faculty at Penn, notably Anne Whiston Spirn, C. Dana Tomlin, James F. Thorne, and Christa Wilmanns-Wells, played important roles in my studies of large landscapes as the domain of enduring nature and human achievements.
In the end, I would say listening to my innate interests and some good friends led me to my field. But, putting myself in the path of exceptional scholars and teachers was instrumental in leading me from a desirable avocation to a learned vocation.
What can a student expect to gain from your course?
All education should be about the learner, and this is even more so for graduate-level professional learning. Working with professional adults who are looking to enhance, or perhaps redirect, their careers is a privilege, partly because they are coming to the table ready to commit time from their already busy schedules and even more because they are driven by their own interests.
In creating Landscape Strategies for Global Development, I articulated the course learning outcomes that we will all work on as a team. Importantly, in the first week of the term, each of the learners will also be asked to articulate their own personal learning outcomes for the course. Our format and course design allow everyone to explore their interests in this subject. But more than explore, they will also share. I strive to and will ask everyone to assist in creating a learning community. Interacting with your peers leverages the course activities to optimize your learning outcomes. This is part of my perennial goal to make efficient use of everyone’s time and resources while maximizing benefits. Plus, it’s more fun to work with others.
The course learning outcomes Landscape Strategies for Global Development are designed to create specific knowledge and also the ability to adapt to new situations in a complex world. At the conclusion, the learner will be able to:
- Use landscape theory to explain landscapes as coupled human and natural systems.
- Understand the role of landscape ecology in explaining structure, function, and change of landscapes.
- Recognize the social construction of landscape.
- Appraise landscape case studies from around the world.
- Assess options for collaborative solutions for sustainable development.
- Envision strategies for integrated landscape management.
About Daniel Marcucci
Daniel Marcucci is an environmental and landscape planner with terminal degrees in both landscape architecture and city and regional planning. His research and professional interests focus on how large landscapes have rich histories and are essential components of a sustainable biosphere. He worked for several years in planning for a regional non-profit and became a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Daniel started teaching college in 1999. Since 2014, he has taught almost exclusively asynchronous online courses in a Master of Natural Resources program. He finds teaching graduate school online to be creative and rewarding — his objective is to create an active social learning environment. Get Daniel started, and he can talk about it for a long time — in fact, he and a colleague have a podcast — currently on sabbatical — about online higher learning called Wired Ivy.
Daniel loves to travel and investigate new landscapes. He has a blog for his thoughts and photographs about this called Lay of the Landscape, which went quiet during the pandemic but will restart in 2025. He has been doing a lot of traveling and has a backlog of places to write about. For example, he spent the 2024 fall semester as a visiting researcher at the Politecnico di Milano, investigating durable Italian landscapes.
In addition to his online teaching, Daniel regularly leads short-term Global Study programs engaging graduate learners in sustainability fieldwork. He has led trips to Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Argentina, Finland, Italy, Spain, and China. As much as he has a high opinion about the efficacy of intentionally designed remote learning, he places a high value on learning about landscapes through experience. Daniel recently bought a house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he is rediscovering the landscapes of his youth. That is another story.