PLAN 425: Introduction to Contemporary Planning Issues
Co-taught with James T. White
This course has for many years been the only undergraduate course offered at our school of planning, and was taught by the venerable Dr. Tom Hutton. It’s always been a major source of graduate students for our Masters programme, so James White and I redeveloped the course as a primer for undergraduate students interested in a future career in planning. We taught PLAN 425 for two years.
The course introduced students from various undergraduate degrees (geography, economics, business, psychology, landscape architecture, etc.) to the seven areas of concentration at SCARP. These are constantly under revision, but in 2008 they were: Urban Design and Physical Planning, Urban Development, Regional Planning, Ecological and Natural Resource Planning, Comparative Development Planning, Transportation Planning, Community Development and Social Planning, and Disaster and Risk Management. The course readings were designed to get students into planning theory (Friedmann, Sandercock, Forester) and practice (Huhtala, Roseland, Frank). We also tried to include as many Canadian authors as possible (Perks, Ley, Sewell, Tomalty). The syllabus was slightly re-worked in 2009 to reflect students’ comments and interests.
Course Syllabus 2009 [download PDF (103K)]
Course Syllabus 2008 [download PDF (100K)]
Students were engaged in a number of small and large group discussions, debated and developed their own definitions of planning, went on a field trip to discuss current developments in downtown Vancouver, and got to know the school and graduate course offerings.
The students also learned from guest speakers who work in the region including Gordon Price, former Vancouver councillor and head of the SFU City Program (seen at right on a tour of Yaletown), and Heather Wornell, Senior Environmental Planner at Metro Vancouver. Many of our students apply to graduate programs in planning upon completion of the course, and several are now Masters students in planning, urban studies and sociology.
Teaching certification: Instructional Skills Workshop through Teaching and Academic Growth, UBC