MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dear SURP alumni, donors, supporters, and students,

The idea for a Planning Program at the University of Alberta came about sometime around 2008 when Erik Backstrom (now the President-Elect of the APPI) emailed me with the suggestion. Not long after that, I recall standing in line at a university picnic for staff and faculty and our Provost, Carl Amhrien, was serving hot dogs. Carl, who I had not yet met, was not only our Provost, but also a professional planner. As a relatively new faculty member, I nervously approached Carl with my bun open and as he was serving me, I introduced myself and told him that I was putting together a proposal for a new planning program at the University of Alberta. Carl, along with Don Iveson, Simon O’Byrne, Jodie Wacko, and a number of others were key supporters in the push to launch the program. We accepted our first students in 2012. 

Over the past 12 years, a lot of students have come through our school. As I engage across the planning landscape in Edmonton, I see our alumni everywhere. When I go on LinkedIn, I see that others have spread throughout the world. I am so very impressed by them and the impact they are having. With more than 12 years of history, I felt tremendously honoured this past year to accept the role as director of our School. I have the privilege of following in the footsteps of our founding director, Sandeep Agrawal who led the effort to expand our programming to include our Masters of Urban and Regional Planning and who brought everything together as a School. His leadership has set us up for continued success. Sandeep has gone on to be an associate dean in our Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral studies.  

This past year was the first year since 2020 that has felt really normal to me. Our classes were all back fully in person and it was fantastic to engage with our students on a regular basis. We welcomed 25 new MURPs this year with students from Ghana, China, Iran, and other locales from around the world (including Edmonton). At our welcome session, I couldn’t help but recall the bonds I built during my own masters program and was excited for these folks as they started their journey. Similarly, we had 17 new students join our undergraduate program. 

Our faculty members had tremendous success. Sandeep was the University of Alberta lead on a successful $98.6M CFREF grant. Kristof Van Assche produced two books as well as being the lead editor of the Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Planning & Design. Emily Grise continued her work on ‘all things transit’ focusing on topics such as gender, electrification, and user comfort. Jeff Birchall gave a presentation to the Canadian Senate in Ottawa on his work on adaptation and risk to infrastructure. Kyle Whitfield launched an exciting new course on planning for social equity. As always, Neal Lamontange took the lead on teaching a number of our courses including leading a studio project on downtown vibrancy. 

In an exciting first, we had an alumnus back to teach in our program. Elise Shillington taught our graduate studio course along with Yolanda Lew. We also welcomed Craig Thomas who taught our Professional Planning Practice course and Mitchell Hayward who has taken over our Planning Law course with our long-time law instructor Kelsey Becker Brooks being appointed to the Court of King's Bench. These folks join our group of Professional Associates who taught in the program this year including Dnyanesh Deshpande, Chelsea Whitty, Ryan Eidick, and Melanie Harding.  

I am tremendously excited about the future. We will soon have a new faculty member joining us as our program grows, every year we see stronger applicants to our programs, and we have tremendous support from APPI and continue to benefit from that relationship. We have a tremendously supportive planning community, not just in Edmonton, but throughout Alberta and the northern territories where a number of our graduates end up. That support and our continued momentum suggest a bright future ahead. I’d encourage anyone wanting to know more about the SURP to reach out to me. 

Sincerely,

BOB SUMMERS
Director, School of Urban and Regional Planning
Academic Director, Sustainability Council