Teaching certification: Instructional Skills Workshop through Teaching and Academic Growth, UBC
Interests
- Canadian/comparative housing policy and governance
- Urban growth and development; structural change in cities
- Immigrant settlement and integration; ethnic neighbourhoods
- Transportation behaviour and patterns of special demographic groups; transportation policy and governance
Courses
PLAN 425: Introduction to Contemporary Planning Issues
This course has for many years been the only undergraduate course offered at our school of planning, and was taught by 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 (click to see the current SCARP course list). The students also learned from guest speakers who work in the region including Gordon Price, former Vancouver councillor and head of the Simon Fraser University City Program (seen at right on a tour of Yaletown), and Heather Wornell, Senior Environmental Planner at Metro Vancouver.
Many of our students have gone on to Masters programs in planning, environmental design, and sociology at UBC, University of Calgary, University of Toronto, McGill University and the University of Cardiff (Wales).
Invited Lectures
“Urban research methods” (with Sage Ponder, Liam McGuire, Emily Rosenman, and Sam Walker). Urban Research (GEOG 450, Dr. Elvin Wyly), UBC Department of Geography. January 17, 2012.
“Demographic shifts and transit provision.” Canadian Urban Transit Association Youth Summit on Sustainable Urban Transportation. Vancouver. August 21, 2011.
“The need for a Canadian perspective in planning” (with Silvia Vilches). SCARP Lecture Series, March 9, 2011.
“Mixed method approaches in urban planning.” Urban Analysis (GEOG 450, Dr. Elvin Wyly), UBC Department of Geography. January 11, 2011.
“Housing, transportation, immigration and the city.” Urban Studies (URB 200/GEOG 250, Dr. Elvin Wyly), UBC Department of Geography. December 2, 2010.
“Social Travel Patterns of Youth and Young Adults.” Qualitative Methods (PLAN 515, Silvia Vilches), UBC School of Community and Regional Planning. February 13, 2008.
Guest Criticism
UBC School of Community and Regional Planning (Revelstoke Urban Design studio PLAN 548L, James White). November 9, 2011.
UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Robson Square Landscape Architecture studio LA 504, Alyssa Schwann). October 3 and 19, 2011.
University of Oregon Department of Architecture (field studio on Granville Island, Stephen Duff). May 13, 2011.