EMU Planning Program Main Page

Eastern Michigan University Urban and Regional Planning Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

...Thinkaboutit Quote...

"Good planners plan actions, they don't plan results."
Adapted from Dennis Wholey

Student Planning Conference

The 2010 Student Conference of the Michigan Association for Planning will be held this coming February in Kalamazoo at Western Michigan University. The call for student presentations is now open and I encourage you to alert students to this opportunity to present their work, including individual research, group projects, and studio or workshop course projects. The call for presentations flyer is posted at: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~jyin/smapcall.pdf

Greening of Detroit November 7th

Tens of millions of trees have been lost throughout Michigan, the Northeastern US, Ontario and Quebec, due to Dutch Elm and Ash Borer diseases. Greening of Detroit depends on volunteer help to plant a variety of trees, replacing some of the vast number that have been lost. They plant most weekends during the spring and fall. This autumn, with a generous grant from the Cotton family, they are planting 135 trees along East Jefferson Avenue, between I-375 and Alter Rd, over a four week period. They can use as many volunteers as they can get to plant trees along Jefferson on November 7th. What's more beautiful than a tree? And they clean the air and produce oxygen as an added bonus.

PLACE members are planning to carpool to Detroit to help with the Greening project. Contact one of the members if you would like to join them. For more info, see http://www.greeningofdetroit.org.

Interested in Transportation Planning?

MOVING MINDS: THE NEXT TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE is a transportation conference scheduled for November 9 12 in Ann Arbor. Urban transportation thought leaders, practitioners, business leaders and policy makers from the U.S. and around the world will be there. Note especially the New Mobility Primer Salon Mon. Nov 9, 6:30 pm free and open to the public. Find out more at http://um-SMART.org.

Accreditation Site Visit Team

On Monday through Wednesday, October 12-14, three planners from the American Planning Association were at Strong Hall as part of the undergraduate Planning Program accreditation process. They had continuous meetings throughout the day with students, faculty, administrators, alumni, our advisory board, employers and others. After meeting many individuals, they said their overall impression was that students and alums seemed to really like the program. That was encouraging.

We will let you know more about their comments as we receive them in their report to the Accreditation Board, who will make a final decision in April.

Students and Alums at MAP Conference

Some of the EMU students and alums attending the conference...
Fifteen or so current Planning students and many program alums attended the annual conference of the Michigan Association of Planning (MAP). We are proud that each year EMU sends many more planning students to the conference than any other program in the state.

The conference took place at the Soaring Eagle Resort in Mt. Pleasant from September 30 through October 3. Students learned a lot by attending the sessions, but gained just as much by mixing with former students and having a chance to meet planners from across Michigan. On Thursday evening we "took over" the Water Lily Lounge at the resort for an informal time together before breaking into groups to have dinner or go explore downtown Mt. Pleasant.

The conference included presentations by EMU alums, including Amy Chestnut on Locally Unwanted Land Uses, James Schafer on Planning Ethics, Rodney Nanney on Zoning, Michelle Reardon on Lansing's Housing program, and Leslie Kettren on the Congress of New Urbanism. The Executive Director of MAP, Andrea Brown, is a program alum and led many of the general sessions.

Student mug shots Norm is posting on the Strong Hall bulletin board the latest photos of undergrad and graduate Planning students. If you are not included, see Norm to have your photo taken and included.

Rick Sambrook, new department head

The Department of Geography and Geology had a new department head beginning July 1st. Richard (Rick) Sambrook comes from Eastern Kentucky University, where he served as interim chair of the department. With degrees in geography and anthropology, his areas of specialization included Latin America, economic development, travel and tourism, and cartography. He also has experience with planning and historic preservation, has served as director of an Ecuador program, and has been on many professional committees relating to geography.

Sambrook's arrival allows Bob Jones to return to the faculty from his role as last year's interim department head. It also is good timing, allowing Bob to facilitate the arrival of a site visit team, coming in October, which will review the undergraduate Planning program and hopefully recommend its continued accreditation.

German Students Visit

On Sunday, September 13, fourteen Planning students and faculty from the University of Kassel in Germany visited Ann Arbor. Norm Tyler led them on a tour of the city's revitalization projects. They also had a chance to speak with Andrea Brown, director of the Michigan Association of Planning, and Lis Knibbe and Ilene Tyler, restoration architects with Quinn Evans Architects.

The students were on a one-week tour of rust-belt cities, traveling from Chicago to Cleveland. After visiting Ann Arbor, they were to tour Detroit. They were especially interested in the evolution of American downtowns and suburbs.

Building Place Notebook Planning Program alumnus Rodney Nanney AICP has extablished a website with a selection of articles on planning. Called the Building Place Notebook, it includes special articles on zoning, economic development, advice for planning students, and other topics. You can find it at www.buildingplace.net.

Planning Awards Announced

It is with great pleasure the recipients of this year's Planning Program awards are announced.

Each year a recognition award is given to graduating seniors with a GPA of 3.5 or better. This year's recipients are Shane Dillon, Will Grapentine and David Nestor.

The Robert M. Ward PLACE Scholarship is given to individuals who will be full-time students in the Fall semester. They are selected by a faculty/alumni committee, based on four criteria: GPA, an essay, involvement in activities, and need. This year the committee had difficulty selecting from a large pool of deserving applicants, but ultimately decided to give $600 scholarships to Mark Ferrell and Kate Rogers.

The selection committee also decided to give a Planning Student of the Year Award to graduate student Adam Cook for his contributions in Planning Program activities over the past year. This year the award includes an honorarium, based on donations from three individuals.

What is planning?

Top Urban Thinkers

The Planetizen web site did a poll of planners to determine who were considered the top "urban thinkers." The leader by a large margin was Jane Jacobs, most famous for her classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Here is the top ten from that list of one hundred.

1 Jane Jacobs
2 Andrés Duany
3 Christopher Alexander
4 Frederick Law Olmsted
5 Kevin A. Lynch
6 Daniel Burnham
7 Lewis Mumford
8 Léon Krier
9 William H. Whyte
10 Jan Gehl

Best Careers

U.S. News and World Report issued a Career Guide listing the "Best Careers." The list included "Urban Planner." The careers were chosen based on job satisfaction, training difficulty, prestige, job market outlook, and pay. It lists the median national salary for someone in Planning as $68,800. This is an important recognition of the status of our profession, but, of course, we already knew this.

Alumni News Updates

If you're interested in keeping up-to-date on the activities of our programs' alumni, link on over to the Alumni News page. It's updated regularly.

Want a scholarship? EMU has a web site listing many scholarships now available. It is certainly worth a look. Find it at http://www.emich.edu/cas/stu-scholarships.html

URP T-shirts now available
Beautiful long-sleeve green t-shirts proudly displaying the EMU Planning Program are now available for sale. The design, created by grad student Lauren Carlson, includes the program name on the front and our famous web site URL on the back.

Would you like one? All sizes are still available, and are available from Norm for $15 onsite or $16 through the mail. (Any checks should be written to "Norman Tyler.") All proceeds benefit the PLACE club.

Shown modeling the new shirts are (front row) John Dybalski, Ron Akers, and Mark Ferrell; ((back row) Scott Kree, Will Grapentine, and Norm Tyler.

Promote the program.

We would like to increase the number of students in both the undergrad and graduate Planning programs. There are a number of ways that can be done effectively. This web site is a great promotional tool, and referring someone to it is usually the most effective way to give them information. Many students have also been attracted to the program by looking at one of the program flyers. Undoubtedly, the most effective way is to be told about the program by a friend or acquaintance. Just think of the power if all three means were used! Let's say you made a copy of the program's flyer, gave it to a potential student, and reviewed the info on the web site with them. This would work wonderfully!

To that end, included here is a link to a .pdf of the program's flyer. Are you willing to make a few copies of the flyer and share them with individuals who might be interested, either as potential students or friends or family of potential students? This would be the best promotional program we could imagine. Encourage anyone interested to contact me (734.761.5549 or ntyler@emich.edu) or Bob Jones (734.487.0218 or robert.jones@emich.edu) to discuss the program in detail. We love doing that.
...Norm

*EMU Map Library* Joanne Hansen, the map librarian for the Halle Library, offers a great resource for students. Joanne has always been very helpful to Planning students. Check out the map library at Map Library web site.

Important Note To All Undergrads

It is VERY important that every undergrad student who is majoring in Urban and Regional Planning declare it as your major. (Note: You can change majors at any point in your studies.)

Go to your my.emich account and declare. It's easy and painless.

Take a class at another university?

Are you a grad student who would like to take a class at UofM or MSU or Wayne State. The Michigan Intercollegiate Graduate Studies (MIGS) program allows you to do just that. If the Host University has room in the class, your advisor can set it up with the host instructor. You pay the tuition rate of the Host University, and your grade applies to you degree requirements at EMU.

For more information, check out MIGS online or see your advisor, Norm Tyler.

Guide to Planning Programs Are you an undergrad student considering going into a graduate Planning program. You can look for schools online at: http://www.acsp.org/org/links_to_planning_schools.htm

"Cyburbia" Cyburbia was founded in 1994, and is the Internet's oldest continuously operating planning-related Web site; it functions today as a portal and busy social networking site for planners and others interested in the built environment.

"Planetizen" There's an online service that will send you twenty interesting articles on planning twice a week. It also lists job openings for planners. It's called "Planetizen" and it's free. The Planning faculty use it regularly to stay updated on news.

Contact For information on the Urban and Regional Planning program, contact Planning Program director Bob Jones at robert.jones@emich.edu. For the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program, contact Hugh Semple at hsemple@emich.edu.