As Students of the University of Nebraska’s Master’s of Community and Regional Planning Program (MCRP), we were both shocked and deeply concerned to see our program on the list for the most recent set of program eliminations at our beloved University. Concern not just for the program which we’ve invested our time and hearts into, but for the State of Nebraska. The Planning profession is one of the foundations of modern governance and economic development, from the village boards and county commissions of the Great Plains, to the federal departments of Washington, no public investment occurs without adoption of a plan. The ability of our communities to put their shared dreams and necessary actions to address challenges are formalized in the work of our chosen profession. In the classrooms of Arch Hall, we prepare ourselves to rise to the challenges of today, and to lay the foundations of a better tomorrow. A tomorrow which most of us hope to spend in these lands we know as Nebraska, serving her people and enabling the Good Life to flourish.
With over a half of a century of history as a department, and a ranking in the top ten of peer programs in the Academic Analytics Scholarly Research Index, our program’s strengths give us hope for its room for growth. Last year was the largest incoming cohort in the program’s recent history, and, with that backdrop, many of us have our own stories about why we choose Nebraska. We arrive at the Planning Master’s program with a rich diversity of backgrounds (History, Environmental Science, Journalism, and Public Health to name a few) and amongst the variety of “nontraditional” students there comes work experience in parallel professionals like community development and education. Given that range of perspectives on Planning work, the relative isolation of Planning to the College of Architecture has left many of us somewhat disappointed. A disappointment that, fortunately, we’ve felt is indicative of an opportunity for a renewed vision for the program. A students’ vision for the future of MCRP that we began crowdsourcing last winter, but for obvious reasons see now is the moment to assert.
Our care for the future of the program is of great concern to us and it should be to all Nebraskans. We are the only accredited Planning program in Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, or the Dakotas. CRP’s termination would leave the plans for the future of the northern Great Plains to those educated outside of these lands. Existing planning agencies, private and public, would lose their pipelines for home grown talent. What we hold in common as students in the program, despite our differing answers for “why here?”, is our desire for a program aligned with the present and foreseeable planning challenges facing Nebraska. Achieving this requires bridging the multitude of knowledge sets and relationships crucial to meeting them. We hope to see this take shape through a focus on three “C”s – Curriculum, Community, and Collaboration…