Conference Wrap-up

Barry Zwicker:

While I was sitting there making notes, I ended up with another column - what are some things that practitioners could do and what are some things the schools could do to see some immediate change and some immediate improvement in terms of the products that are coming out of the schools and the value to which those students and new practitioners can use for those of us who are in the field for awhile? Somebody mentioned it this morning. One of things they do in the NSCAD programis create a one or two page summary of what their research projects are. That's the first time I've heard of that. Wouldn't it make some sense that at the beginning of each school year when there's various research projects going on that that list and the two page sheet get circulated? It could either put on a Web site or get e-mailed to all of us who are potential employers or potential people who work on various workshops, so that we can see the kinds of things that actually are being done. That would take zero effort to do. Knowing it's there now, I'll go check it out. As an example, DalTech, I've no idea what the thesis topics are that the current students in the system are actually working on. I'm not saying the school has got to do all the effort to make me knowledgeable about that. There's an effort that I would have to put out to become more knowledgeable on that, but there's some little things like that I think will make the relationship between the profession and the schools a lot more meaningful.

As practitioners, what we need to do is participate more in the actual programs at the schools. For the last three or four years, we get invited to participate, I'm going to use DalTech as an example, in the year end reviews of all the projects that the students work on at DalTech. For the last couple of years, it's been lonely sitting there. Nobody else is coming out and participating. When I look at the email to see the list of people on it, we're just not showing up, so from a professional practitioner point of view, we're not supporting the schools from that perspective. It doesn't matter whether we are all busy. I'd defy anybody to tell me you're any busier than I am from time to time but we have to make the effort to do that and we almost have to make it an organized effort and if it's NSAPP in Nova Scotia that's going to do, then we need to coordinate that to make sure when those year end reviews happen in both schools that we've got some people there. If it means, as an example, we invite Ken to come down and if he has got some travel expenses and he's available and interested to come, then NSAPP has got to be ready to fund some of that. All of those things need to happen and we need to know well in advance from the schools when that's coming and we as a profession need to make it happen so that we're there.

I think the other thing that we need to do, and I know the schools attempt to in quite an eager way, is to hire some students for work terms, but we need to actually think and spend more time and actually hire more students than we have had and actually get them in some of the main stream activities. Peter as an example in Truro has been an excellent example of hiring students on a regular basis and others have too but I know it's a struggle every year for the students to try and find good meaningful employment during the work term and that's really our role to do that.

I think some of the things the schools might be able to do, is try and keep in contact with us from some kind of a survey perspective at the start of each year or before Christmas to find out the kinds of projects that are going on in various planning offices. Peter is doing a plan review and he's right in the midst of it big time and I'm sure there are some issues involving some kind of research project. Colchester and Truro a year or so ago did their floodplain analysis. The schools need to know those kinds of projects that are going on to stay current with the issues that are happening at various planning offices, whether it's a consulting firm or a municipal, provincial, or federal office,

so that you have some sense of what it is we need in terms of supporting research to help all the work that we're involved with.

Several people mentioned the people who teach in the planning programs should have more practical experience. At some point in their career, maybe they should have been a practitioner or maybe they should try to do some planning work while they are a practitioner. Getting practical experience is an important thing. Getting practical experience while you are working as a professor in a planning school and competing in the open market with no overhead and using students to do your projects is also not fair. I have a great problem with that. What I think the solution is, is to make sure the planning programs have people on their staff in a part-time fashion who are practitioners, who are working in the field. I know that is done to a certain degree because I know John, for example, has taught some courses and Brant who was here yesterday, has taught some courses in each of the schools. I think it has to go one step beyond coming in and offering a program. I think they need to have some people who are sitting in on the studio courses. Those courses that you do every afternoon or every second afternoon that kind of carry a term, have some people who are in the field who can be hired by the schools who can come in and meet with you once a week and actually go through some of that work instead of just coming and giving a course. There just needs to be a stronger effort and I think it'll also make it easier in terms of dealing with CIP accreditation. I think Mark mentioned this morning that we are going to be seeing a by-law amendment coming through CIP to deal with the accreditation process in a different way and all of that boils down to is having full time CIP members on staff because that's the issue. For small schools it's very difficult to meet that criteria. One of the ways is to have practicing planners as part of your team all the time and I think it's a doable thing. There's a whole bunch of us that are interested in doing that kind of thing and working with the schools.

One of the things Vernon mentioned was that we hire students out of school, they go through basically an apprenticeship program and it takes a couple of years to get into the swing of it and to start paying back in a serious way for your employer and I don't think it's unreal at all that that has to be the case but the reality is the debate question yesterday - the student coming out of a planning school - can they be hired anywhere in Canada and fulfill a meaningful role. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes as long as you're getting some good experience while you're going through that. You need to have that apprenticeship aspect to become a real valuable entity in the whole planning world - not just in Atlantic Canada but in the rest of the planning world around us.

One of the things I want to do is thank the facilitators, note takers, and presenters. You all did an excellent job. It's a tough enough job at any time to get a dozen or a half-dozen planners around a table talking one at a time, let alone be able to make notes of that and do an excellent job of presenting them to the rest of the group.

Atlantic Planners Institute

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This document was last modified on January 11, 2000.