Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- BYU's landscaping team won its 10th National Collegiate Landscape Competition championship.
- The team, led by students, excelled in 30 events, beating 57 schools for the title.
- Students gained networking opportunities, with 15 earning scholarships, enhancing career prospects.
PROVO — Within the confines of Brigham Young University lies an unheralded yet decorated dynasty.
It's not one of the school's successful sports teams or even the BYU Cougarettes, who have won 26 hip hop and jazz dance national championships.
That dynasty is BYU's landscaping team that in March won its 10th National Collegiate Landscape Competition championship, an event hosted annually by the National Association of Landscape Professionals.
This year's victory marks the university's sixth national title in just seven years.
For the competition itself, BYU brought a team of 60 students in the plant and landscape systems program to Colorado State University to compete across 30 different events like interior plant identification, landscape maintenance operations, and robotics and technology in landscape design and maintenance, just to name a few.
"It's kind of like a track meet in that everyone has their own event," said Tyler Stewart, a BYU student and one of two team leaders for the competition. "My event was hardscape installation, and for that event, we built a little patio with a fire pit in it."
Like track and field, teams that win their respective events earn points that go toward their overall team score.
When it was all said and done, BYU bested 57 other schools in the 49th rendition of the competition.
The structure of the landscaping team is unique from other teams in that most schools are primarily led by faculty members.
Nearly a decade ago, Greg Jolley, a professor in the plant and landscape systems program at BYU, realized that "students respond to students a little bit better, sometimes, than professors."
"These students are integral in making the team," Jolley said. "They create the synergy and team dynamic that makes them successful."
McKinsey Flores, a BYU student and other half of the landscaping team's competition leaders, said part of being a team leader entailed directing a class that students participated in during the winter semester, where they prepared for the conference.
"We talked a lot about networking and career opportunities that we would have at (National Collegiate Landscape Competition) and how best to utilize those as well as making sure that they were preparing in the best way possible for their event and keeping track of that," Flores said.
Jolley added that the program and the team benefits from a strong partnership with the BYU grounds and landscape management team — tasked with maintaining the campus' outdoor setting — which provides hands-on experience and additional mentorship.
Beyond bragging rights, students are also exposed to valuable networking opportunities at the competition. Before the events kick off, companies such as John Deere and Caterpillar put on educational workshops and hold a career fair for students.
"The competition part of it kind off shows that you can perform. If a company sees somebody that is well-spoken or asks good questions during the career fair — then they compete and succeed — that just shines more of a spotlight on that individual person that's looking for an internship or a full-time position," Jolley said.
This year, BYU students earned 15 scholarships at this event, including three Platinum Ambassador Scholarships worth $2,000 and up.
Jolley added that winning these national titles helps to boost the program's visibility and let students know it's a viable option for future careers.
"I don't know that landscaping is one of those (fields) where people go, 'Oh, I need a degree to do this,'" Jolley said. "The engine that provides the work being done is mainly labor but the management of that labor and the management of clients and people that want the work done is really done by our students that graduate from the program."
But beyond the academic and professional benefits, Stewart and Flores both agreed that it's nice to bring home some hardware for BYU.
"It's really exciting. Really fun that we won and it's something that we can be proud of," Stewart said, adding that
Flores echoed these sentiments.
"It's really fun to say I'm number one in the nation," she said. "It's so rewarding when your hard work that you've put in all semester goes into winning."
