February 2010

News

A message from Susan Guppy, Director of the School of Planning

I took over the Directorship from Jill Grant last year. Jill had done a superb job – under her leadership, the School grew and achieved success on many fronts. Applications to the Bachelor of Community Design (BCD) and Master of Planning (MPlan) programs have grown, and both of these professional planning programs are attracting high calibre, strongly motivated students who come to Halifax from across Canada and from other parts of the world. Faculty have been successful in obtaining funding and collaborators for their research, and in publishing and disseminating that research. Graduates are working as planners throughout Canada, many in positions of high authority. We have new faculty members. The University has committed to providing the School with a home of its own.

Success brings challenges, and one of my tasks, as Director, is to position the School to meet those challenges and to take full advantage of opportunities. With that goal, we are going through a strategic planning exercise. That work is important, but it is not my primary ambition for the School. I hope to build on Jill Grant’s work and see the School, in its new home, become a vibrant centre for planning ideas, a place of education for professionals in practice as well as those who are full-time students, and an accessible resource for the communities we serve – our colleagues on Sexton Campus; our fellow teachers, researchers and students at Dalhousie; our immediate community of Halifax; the planning profession throughout Atlantic Canada; and our colleagues throughout the country.

Susan Guppy

People

Though we were sad to say goodbye to Mike Poulton when he retired in December 2008, we were fortunate to be able to welcome a new faculty member, Dr. Eric Rapaport in January 2009, and another new faculty member, Dr. Ahsan Habib just a month ago, in January 2010.

Eric Rapaport came to us from a teaching position at the University of Northern British Columbia. His training was initially in landscape architecture, and later in sustainable infrastructure and environmental engineering, followed by a PhD in planning at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In his first year at Dalhousie, he has taken on teaching in environmental planning, site infrastructure, and planning methods. Students quickly discovered that Eric is a passionate and committed teacher, and they have been turning to him to make sense of the complexities of GIS. Eric’s wife, Dr. Cecilia Alstrom-Rapaport, is a biologist by training, who offered a course in statistics for planning which received very favourable comments from the students, and which we hope she will offer again.

Ahsan Habib recently completed his PhD in transportation engineering and planning at the University of Toronto. He is teaching transportation planning and research methods during his first semester with us. Ahsan studied planning, at both bachelors and masters levels, at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. We all look forward to working with Ahsan.

Jill Grant took a short six month sabbatical at the end of her Directorship. It was a very productive time for her, in which she had three articles, a book review and a book chapter accepted, and a further five articles and two book chapters submitted, as well as posting four research reports online. Jill attended four conferences, presenting two papers and a poster, and gave a public lecture in the Faculty of Management. Since returning in July 2009, Jill has taken on a heavy teaching load, and has recently had two more papers accepted. As well, Jill has been appointed to the editorial boards of the British journal Planning Theory and Practice and the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research.

Patricia Manuel, who has for several years served as the Undergraduate Coordinator, as well as teaching widely in environmental planning, is presently on a short sabbatical, during which she is working on climate change adaptation planning, as well as doing research into health and the built environment.

Frank Palermo continues his work with the Cities and Environment Unit, building on the Unit’s award winning work on Comprehensive Community-based Plans in First Nations’ communities. He will be taking a sabbatical this coming year (2010-2011).

Events

Conference

Each year, the School puts on a conference designed to bring students, faculty, the profession and the public together to learn about some topic of current interest in planning.

In 2009, the conference was held in February at Pier 21, on the theme of Sustainable Action. Heather Ternoway, who was the conference coordinator, wrote:

Over two and a half days, the conference attracted about 160 participants including community members, planning and design professionals, speakers/presenters and students.
Once again we partnered with the Downtown Halifax Business Commission to present the Carmichael Lecture, which attracted several hundred participants and was a great way to kick off the conference. Our keynote speaker Dr. Marc Weiss participated in the conference panel discussion and design charrette, as well as meeting with local business and community leaders while he was in town to help launch a climate prosperity strategy for Halifax.

This year, the conference will be held later, in March (Thursday 18 to Friday 19 March). It will be held in the Medjuck Building (which we share at present with the School of Architecture) and it will be on the theme of Play. All are welcome to attend.

To find out more about the conference, please visit the conference website.

Maritime field trip

For several years now, we have organized field trips to various parts of the Maritimes, designed to help new graduate students learn about the region in which they will be living and studying. These trips, part social, part introduction to the area, part initiation into the work of planners, rely heavily on the assistance of planners in the area being visited.

Patricia Manuel and Eric Rapaport led the field trip to New Brunswick just before the start of the fall semester in 2009. The students learnt a great deal about planning in New Brunswick, and we are extremely grateful to the planners there who helped arrange the trip and organized meetings and activities.

International field trip

Students choose and plan the international field trips, and in December 2009 a group of students had the opportunity to visit Amman, Jordan and to learn about planning in that country. We are fortunate to have among our second year MPlan students Fahed Abudjaber, a Jordanian architect whose family works in development and construction. Fahed organized a fascinating itinerary, and, for all the students who chose to go, it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The students presentations of work originating during that trip take place on Wednesday 17 February, 2010.

API conference

The API conference was held in November 2009 in St. Johns Newfoundland, and was attended by several faculty members (for whom it proved a wonderful opportunity to catch up with alumni) and a number of student volunteers from both the BCD and MPlan programs.

CAPS conference

Each year, the Canadian Association of Planning Students holds a conference. This year the conference has been held in Guelph (February 2010), and a large contingent of Dalhousie students is in attendance.

End of year celebration

At the end of each school year, the we hold a day of celebration and presentations of student work.

This year, the date is set for Wednesday 14 April, and all are welcome to attend.

Dates to note

• Wednesday, 17 February, 3pm, Exhibition Room:
presentation of work by participants in the Jordan field trip.

• Wednesday, 17 March to Friday 19 March, Exhibition Room and HA19: School of Planning conference on the theme, Play.

• Friday, 26 March, 9 am to noon, Exhibition Room:
students in the Reading the Landscape course display posters of their community studies.

• Wednesday, 14 April, Exhibition Room:
School of Planning year-end presentations

 

News Archives:

Revised 9 February 2010