Chair: Timothy Beatley

Message from the Chair

Dear Incoming (and Returning) Planning Students:

We are excited about the coming year and want to welcome you again to the community of the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and the School of Architecture. As some of you are aware I have taken over as department chair from Bruce Dotson, who has recently retired. Bruce’s daily presence will be missed but we are hopeful that he will remain engaged in the life of the Department and School.

It has been a frustrating early summer for us here at UVA and I am sure many (most?) of you have followed the events surrounding the dismissal and reinstatement of our President, Teresa Sullivan. The good news is that democracy and political activism are alive and well here at Mr. Jefferson’s university, and we are an even stronger university community as a result of these events!

Now that things have quieted down a bit, I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a little about some of the things that will be happening in the fall. As always there are many lectures, exhibitions and events planned for the coming year. Here are just a few, a sampling if you will:

-Rachel Carson exhibition: commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the publication of her groundbreaking book Silent Spring. Students and faculty in Planning are taking the lead on this exhibition, working in collaboration with the Rachel Carson Council. We will have a September opening launch and likely one or more speakers who will address Carson’s last legacy.

-Water has been selected as a special theme in the Architecture School during the coming year. A number of courses, lectures and other activities will be organized around this theme.  In anticipation of this, we’re suggesting that you do a little reading on water issues this summer, and I will shortly be sending you some suggestions for some summer reading on water issues.

-Richard Jackson, from UCLA and recently receiving lots of accolades for his PBS series on healthy communities, will be visiting and lecturing in the department in October. We are excited about this and will be co-hosting his visit with the UVA Center for Design and Health.

-Design and Health film and lecture series. As a lead-up to Dick Jackson’s visit we will be organizing a weekly design and health film series and discussion (and exploring the possibility of offering this as a one-credit short course).

The Planning faculty: What Are We Up To? Please “Follow Us”!

I wanted to also let you know a bit about what our very energetic faculty is up to—focus of their current research, some of the current writing they’re doing, and travel and field work they may be undertaking this summer.

Here is a just a sampling:

Ellen Bassett, is one of our two new faculty hires for the fall, and will be moving here from Portland. She tells me she has a number of research and writing projects underway this summer:  “One paper is centered on the challenge of homelessness for state transportation agencies; at the center of the paper is a case study of Oregon's DOT and the resettlement of a longstanding tent city from a rest area.  This is aimed at TRB--which will be a first for me in terms of audiences!  The second paper focuses on how low income Portlanders conceptualize "a good neighborhood" and how that relates to the city's normative ideal of the "20 minute neighborhood" as well as the general mobility/moving to opportunity literature in housing and community development.” She has also recently participated in a "Pedalpalooza" biking event, traveling by bike along the western edge of Portland’s Urban Growth Boundary (and you will likekly see photos of this if you take Ellen’s class in the fall).  More on Pedalpalooza can be found at:  http://www.shift2bikes.org/cal/viewpp2012.php. 

Tim Beatley  has primarily been working this summer on his Summit Foundation-funded Biophilic Cities Project. He and his terrific summer staff have unveiled a new webpage (www.biophiliccities.org) and blog, and he encourages you to follow his “tweets” on this project and other planning and environment topics (at either @TimBeatley or @BiophilicCities).

Tanya Denckla Cobb, Associate Director of the UVA Institute for Environmental Negotiation, has among other projects been spearheading the Virginia Food Heritage Project, and will thins summer be developing “an innovative and interactive web portal for VFHP that will share maps, stories, videos, recipes, seeds varieties, and more, as well as engage people so that they can submit mapping information, photos, stories, etc.”  She has a number of other projects underway including “facilitating a two-day meeting of scientists, academics and policy makers to set strategic priorities for key Chesapeake Bay fisheries”, as well as continuing her work on sea level rise. Tanya’s groundbreaking book Reclaiming Our Food, has been racking up accolades and praise and recently won the prestigious Nautilus Book Award.  You can follow Tanya at: @ReclamngOurFood, and visit/follow her blog at tanyadencklacobb.com, and also connect via LinkedIn. 

Frank Dukes, Director of the UVA Institute for Environmental Negotiation is involved in a number of projects this summer. He is completing a new about stakeholders and mountaintop removal mining, as well as writing a chapter about human needs and conflict for a new edited book. He is also working on the Clinch River Valley Initiative (http://clinchriverva.com/),  a Hampton Roads Stormwater dialogue involving the localities, the state and EPA, and the University and Community Action for Racial Equity (UCARE - www.ucareva.org).  He is also leading the Sustainable Europe class during June and July (traveling to Marseille, France and Riva San Vitale, Switzerland), with a focus on immigration and post-conflict rebuilding.

Guoping Huang is extremely busy this summer, starting new projects in Mozambique, Malaysia and China. His GIS and digital visualization classes are very popular and he is in high demand as a co-collaborator on research projects around Grounds. He has teamed up with Psychology professor Sophie Trawalter, for instance, on a recent NSF grant proposal exploring influences on sense of place.

Bill Lucy, among other things is working on an article about that asks: “Has the Trickle Down Process of Neighborhood Change Reversed Direction?” He is also completing a book manuscript on  Adaptive Infrastructure for Sustainability, and continuing his work leading the School focus group on the same topic (adaptive infrastructure).

Suzanne Moomaw, also joins the fulltime teaching staff this fall, but is a colleague we have had the pleasure of knowing and working with for several years.  This summer she is working on two books: a new book, Competitive Global Communities: Using Sustainability and Innovation to Secure the Future, and revisions of the tenth anniversary edition of Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders can Invent a Brighter Future, scheduled for release in 2014. She is also working on a new project exploring  sustainability in Cuba, focusing on the sugar industry.  This summer is again co-directing the Public Service Internship in Sustainability, with Professor John Quale in the Architecture department. As Suzanne explains: “Now in its second year of a re-launch, the internship gives students from all four departments in the Architecture School the opportunity to work with a local non-profit or government agency on some aspect of sustainability and receive three hours of academic credit. Students also attend a two-hour seminar each week that focuses on sustainability policy and best practice.”

Daphne Spain is working on finishing her book, Constructive Feminism: Building Women's Rights into the City as well as writing an article on "Gender and the City."  The final report of her Planning and Nonprofits class (entitled “Habitat That: Building Awareness of the Habitat Store”) was recently awarded “Honorable Mention” in the “Student Planning Project Award” category, by the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association.

As you see, we are an extremely productive and active faculty indeed!  And we are looking forward to your involvement and participation in many of these intellectual endeavors and topics.

One reminder for incoming students especially: please send along your bio and photo (if you haven’t already) to Tim Kelley (tek2jk@virginia.edu), who will be assembling them into a booklet.

That’s it for now—please try to enjoy the rest of your summer, and we look forward to seeing you soon in August.

Should you have any questions along the way or wish to share a bit about what you’re doing this summer that would be terrific.

All the best from Charlottesville,

Tim Beatley, Department Chair

Degrees Offered

The Department currently offers two degrees. In addition to a four-year Bachelor’s and a two-year Master’s of Urban and Environmental Planning, the Department offers a Minor for students throughout the University and a certificate in Historic Preservation. There are also a number of dual degree opportunities within the Master’s program.

A proposal to offer an interdisciplinary PhD is currently being developed.

Dual Degree Programs

These programs are available with the other departments in the School of Architecture and various departments throughout the University. Common dual degree arrangements are with law, business and engineering. These dual degree programs permit the joint use of credit to satisfy some of the requirements of each degree and shorten the time required for attaining both degrees. Interested students should consult the department chair and see Dual Degree Programs for more information.

Study Abroad

Planning students may, with approval, spend a semester in one of the programs abroad when offered. Please see the International page for further details.

Student Life

Planning students are very active in the UVA and Charlottesville communities. A number of organizations are composed primarily of planners, although students from a number of disciplines add to the dynamism of these groups. Planning organizations include: Student Planning Association, Green Grounds, Developers Anonymous, and the UVA–Community Garden.

Every year the Student Planning Association (SPA) hosts a Department–wide Thanksgiving dinner in November, where planning students, faculty, family, friends come together to celebrate the department as community. Since 2006, this annual dinner has been a “100–mile Thanksgiving dinner” at which all dishes were to be prepared from foods grown within a 100–mile radius of Charlottesville. The idea was first proposed by Professor Tim Beatley to generate awareness of the importance of local food systems.

The Department also sends a number of students to a variety of professional conferences, including the American Planning Association’s national convention and the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association’s (VAPA) annual conference. Recently approximately twenty students traveled to Philadelphia for APA’s convention to attend three days of seminars, lectures, and social gatherings of planners from around the nation.

Urban + Environmental Planning Undergraduate Student Handbook 2012-2013

PAB Standards

The new PAB standards, approved in April 14, 2012, contain a new criterion 7D, Public Information which states the following:

The (UVA Department of Urban and Environmental Planning) program shall routinely provide reliable information to the public on its performance. Such information shall appear in easily accessible locations including program websites. Information shall include, but not be limited to:

1. Student achievement as determined by the program:

Bachelor of Urban and Environmental Planning (BUEP)

The Program in Urban and Environmental Planning balances the development of professional planning skills with a liberal arts education emphasizing interdisciplinary study. Students are prepared for public, private, and non-profit sector professional work upon graduation.

Students must have a minimum of 122 credits, or 40 courses, with at least a 2.0 average in order to graduate with a Bachelor of Urban & Environmental Planning degree. Required planning courses make up 8 of these, with an additional 4 courses in professional electives and one planning application course elective. These core planning courses are supported by general skill and knowledge courses taken outside of the Department including statistics, economics, and other social sciences. The remainder of the courses are liberal arts courses, some of which are social or natural sciences and others of which are open electives. Electives provide frequent opportunity for interdisciplinary exchange with students in other programs and with graduate students in planning.

Master of Urban & Environmental Planning (MUEP)

The Master of Urban and Environmental Planning program prepares students to become responsible practitioners in a variety of public, private, and non-profit settings. Graduates are eligible for certification by the American Institute of Certified Planners after two years of professional practice.

The degree requires 50 credits: 23 in the core generalist courses, 15 in a special concentration, 6 in planning application courses (one of these courses must be in the area of concentration), and 6 in open electives. Courses are selected from those in the department and in other departments in the School and University. Students earning dual degrees or who have transferred from other planning programs may warrant advanced standing and be able to complete the planning program in less than two years. Students may take more than the minimum 50 credits if their schedules allow it.

A distinctive feature of our program is our commitment to community sustainability. Sustainability is addressed in specific courses with that title, but sustainability also provides the underlying framework for virtually all of the department’s courses. The title of our department is Urban and Environmental Planning. We believe it is necessary to consider both the urban and environmental aspects of a setting to address its issues, problems, and opportunities. We are as much concerned with the economy and issues of equity as we are with the environment and find it more useful to emphasize linkages than distinctions. We hope to inspire our students to share our enthusiasm for addressing the planning needs of sustainable communities.

2. The cost (tuition and fees) for a full-time student for one academic year:

3. Student retention and graduation rates, including the number of degrees produced each year, the percentage of master’s students graduating within 4 years.

The percentage of master’s students graduating within four years:  98%

The number of degrees produced each year from 2007 to the present:

4. The percentage of bachelor’s graduates who pass the AICP exam within 5 years of graduation:

86%

5. The employment rate of fulltime graduates in a professional planning or planning-related job within 1 year of graduation:

78%

Associated Faculty

• Ellen Bassett
• Timothy Beatley
• Tanya Denckla Cobb
• Richard C. Collins
• Frank Dukes
• Karen Firehock
• Guoping Huang
• Satyendra Huja
• William H. Lucy
• Frederick Missel
• Suzanne Moomaw
• David L. Phillips
• Daphne Spain