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Eastern Michigan University Planning & GIS Programs

Scholarship Winners Announced

The PLACE Scholarship Selection Committee has announced winners of this year's scholarships. They were individually recognized at the Department's Awards Program on April 5th and each will receive a $400 award.

Shown in the photo are this year's recipients, Bonnie Wessler, Justin Snyder, Andrew Armbruster and Andre Stone. All are undergrads except Justin, who is in the graduate program.

Hold That Date!
Golf Outing

PLACE has announced a date for this fall's "Links To the Future" Golf Outing. It will take place on Friday, September 24th, at the beautiful Eagle Crest Golf Course. This event is eagerly awaited each year by alumni, students and other friends and golfers.

More details will follow as the golf outing committee (Bonnie Wessler, Joe Meyers, Andre Stone) put the plans together.

Watershed planning project Faculty member Kevin Gustavson has been involved in a large regional planning project dealing with water resources in the local Stony Creek Watershed. He is working with the Water Resources Consortium and EMUI's Institute for Community and Regional Development (ICARD). You can look at this work at the following web site: http://www.emich.edu/wrc/stonycreek/

Nick Raphael dies

It is with sadness we report the passing of Nick Raphael, a long-time professor in the Department of Geography and Geology. Nick joined the faculty in 1967 and regularly taught courses in Physical Geography, including Coastal Processes and Field Studies. During his career he had been a guest professor in Mexico, England, Saudi Arabia, Shanghai and Costa Rica. He also served as national editor for the G.T.U. Journal. With the Greek Orthodox Church, he served as a volunteer in Guatelmala and Tanzania.

His wife, Joan, has indicated donations in Nick's memory can be made to the Hogar Rafael Orphanage in Guatelmala, with checks written to St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in Ann Arbor.

Armbruster presents at Symposium Undergraduate student Andrew Armbruster presented at the Undergraduate Symposium on Friday, March 26th. His topic was "The Fundamental Impermanence of Japanese Urban Space: Metropolitan Tokyo" and reflected his understanding of the approach to city planning in Japanese culture. Three other students from the department also presented.

Carlisle-Wortman Info Page Carlisle/Wortman Associates is relaunching their informational Planning Bulletin on their website. It will present articles on municipal planning prepared by their staff of professional planners and is intended as a service to communities. The Bulletin can be viewed at www.cwaplan.com/planning_bulletin.html

Yichun Xie featured

GIS faculty member Yichun Xie was featured on the cover of EMU's Exemplar magazine. The article inside describes the work his Institute for Geospatial Research and Education is doing with the city of Detroit and its public schools. IGRE has created software to monitor the position of school buses on their routes and allows updates to parents and students when a bus is running behind schedule.
For information on this and other IGRE projects, go to their site at http://ceita.acad.emich.edu/

E-Governance Conference Faculty member Norm Tyler presented on March 5th at a conference on "e-governance" at Ohio State University. The conference was oriented to using web sites for local government and planning. Tyler presented his work on the WebPolis Consortium project.

PLACE meetings

This is a reminder that the student club, PLACE, meets every Thursday from 4:45 to 5:30 in the Studio of Strong Hall. Feel free to join them whenever you can; there's lots going on. There is no membership fee; all you have to do is show up and join the conversation with other grad and undergrad Planning/GIS students.

Also, Andrew Armbruster, editor of the successful PLACE Journal, is looking for articles for future issues, either new writing or existing writing from students and alums. Articles should be up to 1,000 words and include one or two relevant graphics. Email Andrew at an_an@sbcglobal.net to find out more or express an interest.

Students talk about traveling:
International Planning Awareness Day
PLACE sponsored a special event on Thursday evening, January 29th, and attracted a large crowd of other students. Four Planning students, Andre Stone, Andrew Armbruster, Li Wu and Xinyue Ye, gave perspectives on traveling abroad and working in a foreign country. Information was presented on Germany, France, Japan and China. Refreshments from around the globe were included.

PLACE Journal
The student Planning club is proud to announce the first edition of the PLACE Journal, an online publication showcasing articles and work of EMU Planning Program students, alumni and faculty. Undergrad Andrew Armbruster is to be congratulated for leading this effort, along with other PLACE officers. And thanks to alum Rodney Nanney, who along with Andrew has contributed this edition's initial articles.

You can download the first edition as a .pdf file at http://www.emich.edu/public/geo/PLACE.Journal.pdf

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PLACE In the News The student Planning club received a nice article in the EMU College of Arts and Sciences Casenotes newsletter. You can read it below.

Planning Alum Survey

Recently the Michigan State University Planning Program surveyed its alumni regarding their opinions on the most important aspects of a planning education. The results may surprise you, but don't surprise us. The results were as follows:
What skills gained from the MSU planning program did you find most useful?
36 percent of those surveyed found communication/ teamwork skills (writing, public speaking, making presentations, etc.) most useful.
What skills do you think are most valuable for planners today?
32 percent indicated the same communication skills were most valuable for today's successful planners.
Can you identify any experience or training that the Planning Program should consider essential for its revised curriculum?
The hishest percentage of respondents noted communication skills were most essential in revising the curriculum.

Contributions welcome
Would you like to make a contribution to the program's scholarship fund?You can send your contribution at any time to the EMU Foundation, 1349 S. Huron Street, Ypsilanti, MI 48197. Indicate it is for the Robert M. Ward Urban and Regional Planning Program Endowed Scholarship and put the Account No. R28750 on the check. Or contact Norm Tyler at ntyler@emich.edu for further details.

And thanks a lot!

Grad student? This is a reminder to current graduate GIS/Planning students that information on the paper of publishable quality and orals requirements on included on this web site. Simply click the Curriculums link on your left.

Contact For information on the Urban and Regional Planning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programs, contact Norm Tyler at ntyler@emich.edu or 734.487.8656.