Message From The Chair
The University of Florida’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning is one of the nation’s strongest graduate planning programs. Our faculty members are internationally recognized in planning education, research, and professional practice. They have been active in various public and community service activities, including working with the Governor and Legislature in designing Florida’s landmark comprehensive Growth Management Act and participating in the State’s Governor’s Affordable Housing Study Commission.
The department is known for its creative use of planning information systems and technologies and interdisciplinary research and education in sustainability and growth management, planning information and analysis, transportation and land use planning, urban design, housing, historic preservation, crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), and international planning. Members of our faculty recently received the “Best Use of Technology by a University” award from the American Planning Association in 2007. We offer a variety of specializations and certificates at both the graduate and undergraduate level in our department. In addition, we collaborate with faculty within our college and the rest of the University to offer three certificates in historic preservation, Latin American studies, and sustainability; and many joint/concurrent degrees with Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering – Transportation, Law, and Real Estate.
Our department offers exceptional learning and research experiences for our students. The students come from all over the world; many of them actively participate in faculty research as research assistants. Our goal is to educate the future leaders of the planning profession in the Master program and to develop future scholars in the Ph.D. program. We expect our graduates to provide both vision and leadership within the profession. Our graduates have, and will continue to participate in the transformation of the planning profession in Florida and throughout the nation. Our alumni are in leadership positions in local, state, and federal agencies; the private sector; and nonprofit organizations.
The department is situated in the College of Design, Construction, and Planning, a prominent and unique college in the United States that covers the full spectrum of the built environment and urban development and includes planning, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, and building construction. The department has three research centers: the Geoplan Center, the Center for Building Better Communities and the Center for Health and the Built Environment. In addition, faculty in our department are also associated with other research centers within the college and across campus, including Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing in the Rinker School of Building Construction, the Transportation Research Center and the Center for Multimodal Solutions for Congestion Mitigation (CMS) – a U.S. Department of Transportation Tier 1 university transportation research center. In these research centers and through other research activities of our faculty, we provide a productive environment for our students to participate in interdisciplinary research and learning. Many relationships between individual disciplines within the college and around the University are mutually beneficial; urban planning faculty and students are involved in various interdisciplinary research projects. We recognize the value of team building – planners working with and leading interdisciplinary teams that solve complex planning research projects and “real world” problems. We select research projects that expand the horizon of planning theory and provide students with a “hands on” environment within which to study and grow as professional planners.
In summary, we have outstanding and productive faculty that teach and advise quality students. We are proud of our achievements in the past in urban and regional planning research and education. We are looking forward to a more prominent future. The department will undertake the development of a new strategic plan and a new 5-year plan in the next year and as part of that process will be reviewing its core specializations, focused research areas, curriculum, graduate funding opportunities and doctoral program to strengthen our identity and gain further recognition at the national and international level.
Zhong-Ren Peng
Department Chair
