Temple Ambler planning degree
will answer call for qualified planners

Construction is booming in the suburbs, but who’s thinking about its impact?

Take a look at the Chester County Planning Commission’s Web site. A quick glance at the available jobs listed shows an obvious need for professional planners in a variety of positions.

Chester County certainly isn’t alone in its search for qualified planners. The problem, however, is finding individuals with the right skills to fill the numerous available jobs in the private and public sectors.

“What is needed are analytical thinkers who are fully versed in planning issues,” said Richard Schmoyer, president of the 2,500-member Pennsylvania Planners Association (PPA). “As a Commonwealth, we are going to experience an extreme deficit in qualified planners if this is not addressed at the higher levels of education.”

As the struggle to balance the need for new development and the need to ensure sustainable communities grows, so does the demand for professional planners.

To meet this growing demand, Temple University Ambler has developed a new community and regional planning undergraduate degree program. The degree will be offered for the first time in fall 2002.

“I think it will be a tremendous benefit to all planning agencies in the region,” said Kenneth B. Hughes, director of the Montgomery County Planning Commission. “There are not enough people coming out of the planning schools to fill the available positions and there are very few planning degrees being offered in Pennsylvania right now. It creates a potential pool of employees that will be a help to everyone.”
Just as Montgomery, Chester and Bucks counties are dealing with “enormous pressures” from new development, so too is the rest of the state and much of the nation, Schmoyer said.

“In Adams County, we went from a staff of two people to a staff of eight dealing with the entire array of planning issues. Sometimes you’ll find locations where there isn’t a great deal of public support for planning, but all it takes is a few projects to galvanize interest,” he said. “There is a high demand for planners who can take a broad perspective, who can weigh the pros and cons and come up with viable solutions. I think that is where a new undergraduate and graduate degree (in community and regional planning) will be most valuable.”

According to Temple University Ambler Dean Sophia T. Wisniewska, the new program “offers Ambler College an opportunity to respond to the great need in the region for graduates with training in regional and environmental planning.”

“I am delighted that the University has approved our proposal to offer an undergraduate degree in planning,” she said. “Based on our surveys and discussions with professionals in the field, there is a resurgence in the need for planners, particularly those with skills in urban and suburban planning, and sprawl issues.”

Ambler College, a new academic division established at Temple University Ambler in 2000, includes the landscape architecture and horticulture department’s degree programs and will subsequently include the new planning degree program.

An interdisciplinary University committee made the recommendation for the new community and regional planning degree program after surveying professionals in the planning field. The majority of respondents to the survey said the need for planners was “great” to “very great” in the area.
“We were finding businesses with job openings [for planners] that they could not fill,” said Baldev Lamba, associate professor of landscape architecture and chair of the faculty committee that developed the undergraduate program. “There has been a great deal of press coverage on issues of sprawl, open spac, and planning; governments are talking about it, institutions and organizations are talking about it. One of the key elements missing is a planner.”

Traditionally, planning has been offered at colleges as a graduate degree program, Lamba said.

“The nature of the field lends itself to graduate study; we are challenging that in a way,” he said. “Planning tends to become a very specialized degree—landscape planning, ecological planning. There is a need for a generalist who combines all of those specializations.”
The new degree will be ideal for students who are attracted to the idea of taking a proactive role in shaping their environments, including existing communities and newly built housing areas.

“Students will learn about the necessity for good planning and all the strategies that can make planning successful,” Wisniewska said. “Students will have to know about the roles of local and state politics, how local ordinances work, about site planning, transportation, regional cooperation and even conflict management, when competing interests can’t agree.

“Planning is not sitting in an office,” she continued. “It’s a matter of getting out in the community and working to solve problems in ways that people can agree upon.”

Greg Lippincott, township manager of Hilltown Township in Bucks County—an area experiencing extreme pressures from development—called the new degree program “a great resource for suburban communities,” and saw great potential for Temple students to partner with area townships in a variety of projects to gain hands-on skills.

“These are issues that we are dealing with every day. I wish it was offered when I was going for my own degree,” he said. “The township has a planner to review projects, but there are so many other needs that a university program could help us with. Greenways, parks and recreation, long-range planning, historical planning—these are things a township always wants to get done but is never able to.”

The new degree program will involve a range of topics, from state and local politics to the environment and society to research and design methods.
According to Dr. Phil Yannella, associate dean for curriculum and planning, the University is in the final stages of the approval process for a master’s degree program in community and regional planning with a final decision likely coming within the next few months.

“It is an extremely important component of the overall program. We expect to have the graduate program approved this fall and have it up and running by next fall,” he said. “For our students, community and regional planning is a strong intellectual program that assumes a commitment to the environment and community issues. The jobs are there for students with the proper skills.”

The community and regional planning degree also will act as a natural companion to the Center for Sustainable Communities at Temple University Ambler (CSC), which was established in July 2000 to promote the development and management of sustainable communities through effective land use planning, ecological restoration, and community revitalization initiatives. It was designed to build on Temple University Ambler’s strengths in horticulture and landscape architecture, and to draw upon the expertise of Temple University faculty.

“Having a degree program in planning provides a solid foundation for the center by strengthening its capacity for research and community service projects through greater faculty and student involvement,” said Elizabeth Richard, associate director for the center.

For admissions information on the community and regional planning degree program, call 215-283-1201 or 1-888-GO- AMBLER. For advising and curricular information, call 215-283-1237. For more information on the CSC at Temple University Ambler, call Richard at 215-283-1628.

— James Duffy, Ambler Public Relations