Carolina Planning Journal : Volume 43 / Planning for Uncertainty
Y EA R I N R E V I E W An Update From New East
What a year it’s been at the Department of City & Regional Planning (DCRP). From conferences to publications to awards, DCRP students, faculty, and staff have been incredibly busy, with forty-two Master’s and nine doctoral students graduating in May 2018. Under department chair Noreen McDonald, DCRP welcomed thirty-five new Master’s candidates and two new doctoral students in August 2017. DCRP also launched a new website at planning.unc.edu in the Fall of 2017 thanks to the hard work for Master’s students Lisa Fiedler and Sarah Parkins, Information Specialist Udo Reisinger, and Student Services Coordinator Sandra Lazo de la Vega, and the leadership of Professors Noreen McDonald and Nikhil Kaza and Digital Solutions Manager Kim Vassiliadis. In other exciting news for this year, Planetizen ranked DCRP third on its prestigious biannual list of Top Ten Urban Graduate Planning Programs.
LEADERSHIP Student organizations in DCRP had a busy year, organizing weekly happy hours, resume workshops, brown bag lunches, and more. Planners’ Forum, chaired by Stephanie Watkins-Cruz and Ellis Johnson II, welcomed new 2018-2019 chairs James Carter and Matt Cohen-Price. Under the leadership of Hilary Pollan and Darien Alexander Williams, Plan for All organized a Fall 2017 Racial Equity workshop led by North Carolina’s Racial Equity Institute. The rewarding and transformational workshop was well-attended by faculty, staff, and graduate students and very much appreciated by all.
CONFERENCES Second-year Master’s student Charlie Stanfield presented research on rural transit systems in North Carolina that he conducted through his job at the 11 4
Institute for Transportation Research and Education at the Transportation Research Board Conference in Washington, D.C. in January 2018. Second-year Master’s students James Farrell and Alyson West presented at the International Cycling Safety Conference in Davis, CA in September 2017 and the North Carolina Bike/Walk Summit in November 2017 on injury severity and crash types for cyclists on rural roads in comparison to urban roads. Travis Crayton, who is a dual-degree Master’s student in City & Regional Planning and Public Administration, presented at the Health Law Roundtable on Current and Emerging Issues at the November 2017 American Public Health Association Conference. His presentation was titled “Autonomous Vehicles: Developing a Public Health Research Agenda to Frame the Future of Transportation Policy.” Doctoral student Mary Wolfe presented research on children’s exposure to air pollution during school commutes at several conferences: the International Conference on Transport & Health in Barcelona in June 2017, the ACSP Conference in Denver in October 2017, and the Transportation Research Board Conference in Washington, D.C. in January 2018. Doctoral student Kai Monast presented research at a number of conferences in 2017, on topics including transit system connectivity, intercity bus systems, methodologies for allocating public transportation expenses, and more. He also served as a member on the Orange County, NC Master Aging Plan development committee.
HONORS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS Doctoral student Mary Wolfe and Master’s student Charlie Stanfield both received Dwight David Eisenhower Fellowships from the Federal Highway Administration/U.S. Department of Transportation. Mary was also selected as one of eight Lampley Graduate Fellows in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences for 2018-2019.