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December 2008
News
A time for celebration
On December 3rd, the School celebrated several important milestones:
and
In 1978 the Canadian Institute of Planners recognized two professional planning degrees in the city. The Nova Scotia Technical College received recognition for the Master of Urban and Rural Planning degree. The Nova Scotia College of Art and Design had approval for the Bachelor of Design in Environmental Planning program. Both programs had small but enthusiastic cohorts of students, led by a small but well-qualified group of professors. Over the years the institutions which offered the degrees changed names (NSTC became the Technical University of Nova Scotia, and then merged with Dalhousie University); in 2001, faculty members from the two programs came together within a new School of Planning in the Faculty of Architecture and Planning at Dalhousie University. In the period since the marriage of the programs, planning education has grown in new directions and attracted large numbers of students to the region. Hundreds of students have graduated with professional planning degrees from the schools and have taken important positions throughout the world. The School celebrates this important milestone with our professional colleagues in the Atlantic Planners Institute and in the Licensed Professional Planners Association of Nova Scotia.
Mike is retiring after a long and distinguished period of service in planning education. Having earned degrees at University College, University of London and at the University of California Berkeley, Mike then taught at the University of British Columbia and at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Mike joined the Technical University of Nova Scotia in 1982, teaching in the Department of Urban and Rural Planning. He was promoted to professor in 1988. Through his academic career Mike supervised dozens of masters projects, received research funding from several organizations (including the Donner Foundation, SSHRC, and CIDA), and published over 30 chapters, monographs and academic articles (often in high profile journals like JAPA, Environment and Planning B, and Town Planning Review).
Mike served many years on the faculty union at TUNS and Dalhousie. He took on onerous jobs like serving on the ethics review committee and on Senate. For four years he served as Head of the Department of Urban and Rural Planning and spearheaded the effort to bring faculty members from NSCAD to Dalhousie. We will miss Mike’s insightful critiques and dry humour, but we wish him a rewarding and relaxing retirement.
The School welcomes our newest colleague, Eric Rapaport. Eric joins us from the University of Northern British Columbia where he has been teaching environmental planning since 2003. Eric also taught in Sweden for several years while earning his doctorate at the Royal Institute of Technology. He brings a background in landscape architecture, natural resource management, environmental engineering and sustainable infrastructure with him. In the winter term Eric will teach a course on 3D rendering and a methods component on aesthetic assessment.
In January Susan will take over as Director of the School. Susan has been teaching planning here since 1993. Prior to that, Susan taught at NSCAD and in Environmental Studies at Dalhousie. Susan served as Head of the planning program from 1996-98, and was academic program coordinator at SRES from 1979-84, and 1992-93. We wish her well in her new role.
As I prepare my last newsletter as Director I look back over the last six years and see a period of dramatic change. When I came to Dalhousie in 2001 we knew as a group of colleagues that we were entering a new era. The university offered us an opportunity to change the trajectory of planning education in the region, and we ran with it. We have accomplished a great deal in our short time together. We developed and implemented a suite of new programs. The number of students in our programs increased from about 48 in 2001 to almost 170 in 2008. Dalhousie is recognized as one of the premier planning schools in Canada and attracts the highest calibre students. We are hiring new faculty members and positioning ourselves for a transition to the next generation of planning scholars. The future is promising.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the work of Director of the School and thank everyone for all the support you have given me in this role. I’m especially grateful to Carol Madden and to Dorothy Leslie for their amazing support in the office. I look forward to working with Susan Guppy as she takes the helm and leads us through the next challenging period of preparing to move into a new School of Planning building.
2009 Planning Conference: Sustainable Action
The winter conference will be held February 11 to 13 in the School on the theme of Sustainable Action: Turning challenges into opportunities. The conference will again be held in collaboration with Service NS and Municipal Relations and with the Downtown Business Commission’s Carmichael Lecture. Watch for registration information!
Kate Thompson’s master’s research was featured in the fall newsletter of the National Housing Research Committee (CMHC). Kate is investigating the role of the suburban environment in women’s sociability patterns. She hopes to defend her thesis shortly.
The Cities and Environment Unit has moved to a new location at 5257 Morris Street. The new office is able to accommodate its recent staff expansion to 11 community planners. Watch for news of an open house to see the new digs.
Grad student Kate MacKay organized a professional development workshop on Health and the Built Environment at the API conference in Charlottetown in October. Patricia Manuel and Jill Grant also presented in the session.
Jill Grant published articles with former graduate students Leah Carson (in Urban Design International), Stephanie Bohdanow (in Journal of Urbanism), and Robyn Holme and Aaron Pettman (in Planning Practice and Research).
Retired architect/planner Leon Kentridge, who worked with MMM consultants in Toronto, gave a talk on his work on the master plan for Dar-es-Salaam in the late 1970s and reflected on the experience.
The Society of Undergraduate Planners organized a Fall Feast to celebrate World Town Planning Day in November. The food was locally-sourced and those present participated in a planning trivia game.
The International Field Trip for Masters students will travel to Edinburgh for a week in December to learn about planning in that great city.
The Faculty of Architecture and Planning has hired an External Relations Officer, Anne Swan. Anne will be helping us maintain contact with our alumni and will assist with fund raising around scholarships and other support for our programs. If you are thinking about sponsoring a scholarship or otherwise contributing to planning education, please contact us with your ideas. (A commitment of $500 a year over three years is the minimum required to sponsor an on-going named prize in the university. A gift of $10,000 or more can endow a scholarship.)
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