News from Winter, Spring 2004

Scholarship Winners Announced

The PLACE Scholarship Selection Committee has announced winners of this year's scholarships. They were individually recognized at the Department's Awards Program on April 5th and each will receive a $400 award.

Shown in the photo are this year's recipients, Bonnie Wessler, Justin Snyder, Andrew Armbruster and Andre Stone. All are undergrads except Justin, who is in the graduate program.

PLACE In the News

The student Planning club received a nice article in the EMU College of Arts and Sciences Casenotes newsletter. You can read it below.

Students talk about traveling:
International Planning Awareness Day

PLACE sponsored a special event on Thursday evening, January 29th, and attracted a large crowd of other students. Four Planning students, Andre Stone, Andrew Armbruster, Li Wu and Xinyue Ye, gave perspectives on traveling abroad and working in a foreign country. Information was presented on Germany, France, Japan and China. Refreshments from around the globe were included.

Grad student?

This is a reminder to current graduate GIS/Planning students that information on the paper of publishable quality and orals requirements are included on this web site. Simply click the Curriculums link on your left.

Yichun Xie featured

GIS faculty member Yichun Xie was featured on the cover of EMU's Exemplar magazine. The article inside describes the work his Institute for Geospatial Research and Education is doing with the city of Detroit and its public schools. IGRE has created software to monitor the position of school buses on their routes and allows updates to parents and students when a bus is running behind schedule.

For information on this and other IGRE projects, go to their site at http://ceita.acad.emich.edu/

Amy's wedding

We know there are a number of weddings happening with students and alumni this summer. Amy (Bavin) Pintus sent us pictures of her recent wedding, one with the new groom and another with fellow alum Kristine (Inman) Goddard.

Amy is still working in Fort Myers, Florida, but has switched from being a city planner (she was replaced with three new people) to the private sector, where she is looking forward to doing some design.

Congratulations, Amy.

P.S.: Amy said there are positions in Fort Myers currently for a GIS Analyst and a Principal Planner. Amy would be glad to help anyone from EMU; contact her at apintus@johnsoneng.com

Planning Alum Survey

Recently the Michigan State University Planning Program surveyed its alumni regarding their opinions on the most important aspects of a planning education. The results may surprise you, but don't surprise us. The results were as follows:

What skills gained from the MSU planning program did you find most useful?
36 percent of those surveyed found communication/ teamwork skills (writing, public speaking, making presentations, etc.) most useful.

What skills do you think are most valuable for planners today?
32 percent indicated the same communication skills were most valuable for today's successful planners.

Can you identify any experience or training that the Planning Program should consider essential for its revised curriculum?
The hishest percentage of respondents noted communication skills were most essential in revising the curriculum.