News & Events
September 2006
In this issue:
Planning, Policy, and Design (PPD) Students Boast Job Market Success
PPD Students Serve the Community, Part I, Professional Reports
PPD Students Serve the Community, Part II, Courses
PPD Ph.D. Alumni Teach in Top Programs
PPD Seminar Series, 2006-2007
Faculty Kudos
Graduate Study in PPD at UC Irvine
Planning, Policy, and Design (PPD) Students Boast Job Market Success
The California planning job market is booming, and PPD Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) students have many advantages. The PPD Department maintains a list of almost 300 potential employers. We host an annual planning career job fair, which attracts between 30 and 40 firms, agencies, and non-profit organizations. The result is that MURP students have a broad range of job opportunities. Surveys of our MURP students indicate that:
- 63% of MURP graduates accept permanent jobs by graduation
- 95% of MURP graduates are employed in planning or planning related fields within one year of graduation
- 87% of enrolled MURP students have interned during the program or during the summer between their first and second year
- The median salary for MURP graduates, one year after graduation, is between $50,000 and $60,000 per year.
PPD Students Serve the Community, Part I, Professional Reports
Linking education and outreach is a fundamental part of the PPD Department mission. Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) students write a professional report in their second year. The professional report is a substantive piece of planning or policy practice, written in collaboration with a client organization and under the direction of a PPD faculty member. Recent professional report topics include:
- Alternatives analysis for raising toll charges on the 91 freeway express lanes
- Principles for master-planned Suvarnbhumi Aerotropolis communities, Thailand
- Strategies to support the Costa Mesa employment referral and training center
- Analysis of water quality and quantity for Newhall Ranch development, Santa Clarita Valley
- Analysis of the costs and benefits green building techniques and LEED certification
- Pedestrian redevelopment of Mission Viejo town center
- Impact of foreign remittances on community development in Oaxaca, Mexico
PPD Students Serve the Community, Part II, Courses
Many graduate courses have a strong community outreach component. Two recent examples:
Grant Writing for Community Development: Each student in this class writes a grant proposal on behalf of a community organization. The students learn the important role of philanthropy and grant writing in modern community development. A recent student-written proposal to the California Endowment on behalf of Save Our Youth in Costa Mesa was funded in the amount of $30,000.
Sustainability and the Great Park: This class enrolled eight PPD students and eight engineering students who worked in teams of two to examine planning and technology issues related to the development of the Orange County Great Park. Great Park Executive Director Wally Kreutzen was integral to the course and provided feedback to the students throughout the quarter. Student ideas for sustainable development and green technology were transmitted to the Great Park staff and board.
PPD Ph.D. Alumni Teach in Top Programs
Recent Ph.D. graduates from the PPD Department currently have tenure-track faculty jobs at:
- San Jose State University, Urban Planning Department, Hilary Nixon, Ph.D. 2006
- University of Iowa, Urban and Regional Planning Department, Richard Funderburg, Ph.D. 2005
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, City and Regional Planning Department, Mai Nguyen, Ph.D. 2004
- University of Texas, Austin, Community and Regional Planning program, Tracy McMillan, Ph.D. 2003
- University of Texas, Dallas, School of Social Sciences, Roxanne Ezzet-Lofstrom, Ph.D. 2002
- University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Urban and Regional Planning Department, Michael Greenwald, Ph.D. 2001
PPD Seminar Series, 2006-2007
Thursdays are PPD colloquium day. All department colloquia -- Practice
Seminars, Research Seminars, and Community Outreach Partnership Center
Seminars -- are lined up for Thursdays - making scheduling easier for
everyone. The PPD Department web site has the list of speakers. Go to
http://www.soceco.uci.edu/ppd and click on “Seminars" for information
about speakers, topics, times, and places.
Faculty Kudos
In his new book, Water Policy for Sustainable Development (Johns Hopkins University Press), Professor David Feldman describes new management regimes for water supply. The shortage of fresh water is likely to be one of the most pressing issues of the twenty-first century. A UNESCO report predicts that as many as 7 billion people will face shortages of drinking water by 2050. Here, David Lewis Feldman examines river-basin management cases around the world to show how fresh water can be managed to sustain economic development while protecting the environment. He argues that policy makers can employ adaptive management to avoid making decisions that could harm the environment, to recognize and correct mistakes, and to monitor environmental and socioeconomic changes caused by previous policies.
Mireille Jacobson returns to the PPD Department after a two-year term as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation health policy fellow. This prestigious award, given to the top emerging health policy scholars in the country, allowed Jacobson to take leave to pursue her research at the University of Michigan. Upon her return in Fall of 2006, Jacobson will teach “Microeconomic Analysis for Urban Planning" in the MURP program and an undergraduate course on “AIDS Fundamentals."
Raul Lejano has published Frameworks for Policy Analysis: Merging Text
and Context, Routledge, New York. This book was written for several
audiences, including students in policy analysis courses. In his new
book, Lejano argues that traditional analytic techniques are limited by
their abstract and formal character. As an alternative, Lejano suggests
using multiple methods that bring deep knowledge of real-world context.
Lejano, an expert in environmental policy, has taught planning theory
at both the masters and Ph.D. level, and will teach a planning studio
class this year on wetlands restoration.
Graduate Study in PPD at UC Irvine
The PPD Department offers two graduate degrees – a Master of Urban and
Regional Planning (MURP) and a Ph.D. in Planning, Policy, and Design.
For information about each degree, visit http://www.soceco.uci.edu/ppd.
For information about applying for graduate study, visit
http://www.soceco.uci.edu/ppd/admissions.uci
