Where Belonging Takes Root
A new, donor-funded greenspace opens at the Poetry Center.
The University of Arizona Poetry Center has long been a sanctuary for the imagination, and in the fall of 2025, its spirit of curiosity and inspiration expanded beyond the walls of the iconic Helen S. Schaefer Building with the unveiling of the McCauslin-Smith Gardens. What was once a service alley is now a sweeping, elegant greenspace where visitors are invited to sit, reflect or simply enjoy a detour.
The space was realized and developed through the work of Chris Stebe, the university’s landscape architect, along with Line and Space (the architectural firm that designed the Helen S. Schaefer Building) and Lloyd Construction. The gardens combine native and desert-adapted plants with a quietly brutalist palette of concrete and raw materials, all sustained by a thoughtfully engineered water-retention system designed to help the landscape fulfill its potential.
None of it would have been possible without the generosity of donors, including the gardens’ namesake donors Max McCauslin ’73 and John Smith ’87. The gardens are divided into sections acknowledging donor support — Bubbe’s Garden, named by David ’05, Ashley, and Morrison Hazan and Leslie Glaze in honor of Soozie Hazan ’67 ’73; the Apostrophe Garden, honoring an anonymous donor; and the Sculpture Garden, dedicated to Tim Schaffner and Anne Maley-Schaffner.
Gifts to the Humanities Seminars Program Plaza, an outdoor patio space, have been provided by the program’s participants with the lead gifts from Nancy Davis, Nancy Peterson and Dave Becker, and Suzanne ’69 ’72 ’76 and Les Hayt. The list of donations is extensive and includes a generous gift provided by the late Susan Von Kersburg ’62 ’72, whose lifelong support of the arts and humanities lives on through her multiple gifts to the university.
Mirroring the Poetry Center’s strategic mission of fostering community and connection (the Belonging Initiative), the McCauslin-Smith Gardens open the door for more public engagement. It is a space, too, that will only ripen with time. The trellised vines will bloom on the steel, the mesquite trees will thread their roots deeper into the earth and the bamboo will grow tall and sturdy around the expanded outdoor stage, the Hillman Odeum. Whether you visit for a poetry reading, a field trip or simply to have a conversation about Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost (depending on what your flavor is), the McCauslin-Smith Gardens are a reminder that art is often the strongest harbor of community.
