The Conway School

Last week students got to meet with alums Sarah Torresen ‘23, Liam Gude ‘23, and Daniela Portal ‘24, who generously returned for our end-of-year Alum Panel. Part of the preparation as we send this year’s class into their post-Conway lives, the panel provides students with the opportunity to hear from recent alums and ask them questions about their career paths. With no faculty or staff present, both alums and students can be totally candid. Everyone (including staff and faculty!) are invited to pizza after the panel. Thanks to our amazing alums for helping this year’s class graduate on solid footing!

Continuing our "What's after Conway?" conversation as the year draws to a close, how about accessible trails planning? Shaine Meulmester '18 co-authored "Trails for All: Expanding the Accessible Trails Network in the Commonwealth," a report of a collaborative effort led by the MA Office of Outdoor Recreation which presents a coordinated, statewide strategy to expand and sustain an accessible trail network that is equitable, high-quality, and integrated into existing planning, funding, and management systems. Shaine works for Dodson & Flinker, a landscape architecture and planning firm in Florence, MA, and was the alum speaker at one of our Online Information Sessions. If you'd like to learn more about her work, you can read the report at https://tinyurl.com/trailsforallreport or email [email protected]. New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA) All Out Adventures Mass Parks For All Mass Audubon

Trails for All: Expanding Access to Nature Across Massachusetts Approximately 26% of Massachusetts residents live with a disability. Almost half of Massachusetts residents would benefit from accessible trails, yet less than 0.5%—just one half of one percent—of trails meet accessibility standards—a stark mismatch that limits access to nature, undermines pub...

Remember the “real clients” we mentioned in our last post? Well, the thing about having real clients is, sometimes they carry out the recommendations you just spent months putting together for them! The City of Greenfield is using the bike network plan developed by Conway students over the winter term to apply for grant funding for implementation, as well as to help them prioritize initiatives. Read the whole article in the and tune in to tomorrow’s presentations to find out what the spring project teams are doing! .wild

Conway students work with real clients, and they are included in the process from the beginning. This means that presentations can’t happen once a project is complete, but instead are done partway through the project to better reflect the professional iterative design process. As a result, students are already familiar with this process when they transition into a career path after Conway. If you want to see what that’s like in action, join us on Zoom this Friday! Registration link in bio.

At Conway we don’t train students for any one career path. Instead we give them a set of knowledge and skill sets that they can apply in many different professional directions. Thanks to David Grist ‘18 and Brett Towle ‘23 for their presentation yesterday on one version of what life post-Conway can be: a professional design collective in Burlington VT!

Rain? What rain? ☔🎺

The Conway Krewe showed UP at .oyster.bar last Thursday for a packed house full of good people, great Cajun food, and plenty of community spirit. From gumbo to po’boys to jambalaya, every delicious bite helped support Conway students and the communities they serve.

Huge thanks to everyone who braved the weather, brought friends, raised a glass, and helped make the night such a success — and to the amazing team at GOMBO for their incredible generosity.

Y’all brought the Big Easy energy to Northampton and reminded us what the Conway community looks like: warm, joyful, generous, and ready to dance through the storm. ⚜️🌧️

We did it — 🌱

Thank you to everyone who supported Conway Grows by donating, spreading the word, and cheering us on along the way.

Your support directly helps fund hands-on ecological design education with real-world impact on major issues in New England communities like climate resilience, conservation, housing, and food systems.

We’re deeply grateful for this incredible community of alums, clients, partners, neighbors, and friends who make this work possible.

Missed Conway Grows? There’s still time to support the work:
🌱 Give online: https://hubs.li/Q04h1kV20
🌱 Learn more about IRA giving, donor-advised funds, legacy planning, and other ways to give on the Conway School website
🌱 Questions? Send us a note at [email protected]

Thank you for helping Conway grow.

It might be dreary outside, but inside .oyster.bar it’s so warm and cozy, you’d swear you were in the middle of NOLA instead of NOHO 😄 Open till 9pm for dine in or take out!