Molly McCahan

Molly McCahan holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Ohio State University’s Knowlton School. She is the recipient of the Ohio State Graduate School Fellowship as well as the Knowlton School’s Architecture Research Travel Award (2020), Faculty Prize (2021), and Studio Award (2019). Her research focuses on people and place/nature relationships; analyzing and criticizing the systems that control and impact those relationships and observing the ways in which they manifest in the landscape. McCahan additionally holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Theory and Composition with a Dual Major in EcoGastronomy from the University of New Hampshire. 

CV

Research

My research interests focus on people and place/nature relationships; analyzing and criticizing the systems that control and impact those relationships and observing the ways in which they manifest in the landscape. My current research engages the realm of spatial justice and is titled, “Commoning as Resistance.” I theorize that people in reaction to the modern enclosure of landscape by state and private powers create places that act as unofficial, autonomous commons within their communities. I am interested in the practices of commoning that are exercised in these communities, the ways in which these practices and spaces end up taking the form of commons, and how these commons are serving as both resistance and remedy to violence and oppression. 

This project works to illuminate counter narratives of landscape beyond the constrained notions established by capital and the state. In the future my aim is to extend documentation of landscape types that serve as Autonomous Commons as well as the practices of the people that define these spaces. I seek to understand these actions and they ways in which they may or may not be deployed across spaces and times, with an eye towards the creation of a published field guide to commoning. This line of research aims to provoke people to question the ways in which our cultural norms influence our ability to engage deeply with place, and asks us to imagine alternative, more just possibilities for how to relate to the land we share.

Teaching

I strong identify as a teacher and have been teaching people in various capacities for fifteen years. I began as a young person teaching swimming to children in the lakes of New Hampshire through the local parks and recreation. During my undergraduate education, I taught private lessons in piano. Prior to my graduate career, I worked extensively in outdoor education ranging from writing and executing curriculum to meet state public school standards in Montana, to teaching adults how to ski in Colorado. As a graduate student, I worked as a graduate teaching assistant for five courses in the landscape curriculum ranging from introductory plant identification and the survey course in landscape to the advanced history and theory course. My extensive experience and trainings have all served to develop my teaching philosophy, which stands on several pillars of emphasis: the cultivation of positive group dynamics, development of the critical eye, embodied practice, and intrinsic curiosity.

My most recent work in outdoor education was with the Thorne Nature Experience located in Boulder, CO, whose mission is to foster earth stewardship through place-based environmental experiences. Through Thorne I received training in social-emotional learning, non-violent communication, lesson writing, group facilitation and leadership, conflict resolution and ecological literacy. I learned from other teachers and through my own experiences with my groups the power of a resilient group dynamic based upon trust and respect. I pay close attention to the relationships between my students in the classroom and openly state the expectation of mutual respect. I model and demonstrate this through my own language and behavior. I strongly believe that cultivation of the group dynamic and establishment of a positive, healthy classroom culture creates the space in which people are able to become brave, takes risks, fail, succeed, learn, and become dynamic, bold thinkers.

In addition to fostering healthy minds, my teaching endeavors to develop critically thinking design minds. The key foundational skill of design literacy- being able to quickly see and understand the designed world around us- has been a large part of my work as graduate teaching assistant. I focus on deconstructing the ideological frameworks present in material culture so that our students can better observe their own ideologies, allowing them to have a clearer view of their design decisions. 

At the forefront of my work as a teacher a fierce sense of compassion and my belief in a more just world.

Statement of Ethics