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Kevin McCambley’s Introduction to Community and Regional Planning class has been exploring planning concepts in a different way lately.
“One of the last things we did for the semester was a project looking at ‘hot topics’ in Community and Regional Planning. Basically we had to do research on the web for 10 articles related to planning,” he said. “It was a great way to re-cap all of the major ideas of the course, that everything is interrelated and everything you do will have an effect on something else.”
Planning, Kevin said, is a complex field “and no matter what you do, you are not going to make everyone happy.”
“Part of the job is to try to make the best of the situation that you have to work with,” he said. “That’s what planning is all about — knowing what has to be done when others might not.”
Kevin’s hot topic research brought him to the concept of “blogging,” a not all together new phenomenon that has gained steam lately on the Web.
“People set up websites to talk about their ideas and opinions. I explored how this could be used in the planning field,” he said. “It could be opened to the public on any community’s website. If there is no meeting, or you can’t get everyone into a room to share their opinions on a project, a blog can give them the opportunity to speak their mind. I don’t think townships are going to be canceling meetings any time soon and replace them with blogs, but it could give residents another way for their voice and opinions to be heard.”
In History of Community and Regional Planning, Kevin handed in a 10-page paper on water management, a topic that he was well versed in thanks to the Natural and Built Environment course he also took during the fall semester.
“For years we’ve been building detention basins and other structures to harness or divert the power of water only to learn that in many cases we are making the situation worse,” he said. “We see stream banks eroding and we now know why that happens.”
In South Dade, Florida, for example, “they used piping to dry out thousands of acres of wetlands 50 years ago not knowing that the wetlands helped to control heavy rains,” Kevin said.
“They built canals to get rid of the water and now they are working to bring it back slowly into the wetlands,” he said. “Finally people are taking a close look and restoring the natural landscape. They are realizing that manmade controls are often more expensive in the long run and not the best solution.”
From water resource solutions to problems of a different sort. Kevin’s final for Modern European History centered on identifying “people, places, events, plans, and doctrines.” The second half of the test focused on quotes from readings throughout the semester.
“One of the quotes was from the time that Hitler was in power and, with the promise of food and jobs after World War I, citizens in Germany bought into his ideology,” he said. “The other examined the difference between colonization — where people wanted to relocate, create their own businesses, and fend for the themselves — and imperialism, which had the superpowers looking for ways to manufacture goods cheaply by colonizing weaker countries for cheap labor.”
In addition to studying for those courses and a Microeconomics final, Kevin has also been working quite a bit to help pay for tuition, though spring 2006 — when he will be completing his second year in the Community and Regional Planning undergraduate program — could bring new horizons.
“A friend of mine (Accounting major) Mike Josephson and I are thinking about studying abroad. I’ve never been anywhere other than the east coast of the United States and Canada,” he said. “I’d like to study in Rome; I want to experience all of the historic sites. Depending on how it would work with my major, a four to six week summer program might fit better.”
Of course he has a little time to plan all of that out. Closer to home, Kevin intends to spend the semester break on the ski slopes with trips to Elk Mountain and Montage.
“I call them Elktage,” he said with a smile. “They are 50 miles one way and 50 miles the other way, so we usually hit them both.”
And while he’s hitting the slopes, he’s already thinking of summer.
“I’d like to find an internship to add to my experience in my major, possibly at Rohm and Haas or another company in the area,” he said. “I saw a sign in Montgomery Township that they were looking for new members for their planning committee. I’m going to keep my eye out in Horsham.”
In the mean time, Kevin has the Spring 2005 semester worked out — a mix of Community and Regional Planning and core courses and a Film and Video Analysis course for good measure.
“I’d like to take two major course each semester mixed with core courses and electives. If I do study abroad that might change things and I’ll have to load up on Community and Regional Planning courses one semester, we’ll see how it goes,” he said. “I liked this semester a lot. I like my major and I’m doing well in it. That’s what I want to strive for each semester.”
This is the third part of an “A Year in the Life” series featuring Kevin McCambley. Kevin, who lives in Horsham, began his first year in the Community and Regional Planning program at Temple University Ambler in 2005.
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