The University of Oregon’s Community Service Center will receive the 2013 Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association’s Special Achievement in Planning Award at the OAPA conference in Portland on May 30.
For 40 years, the center has linked the skills, expertise and innovation of higher education with local planning, economic development, and environmental issues to improve quality of life for Oregon communities and residents. The center provides student-participants important service and professional experience by helping to solve community and regional issues.
The center started small in 1973, when then-UO faculty member David Povey envisioned a program that linked higher education with local communities to solve pressing community problems. The first project evaluated the impacts if Senate Bill 100 — Oregon’s innovative land use law that celebrates its 40th anniversary this month — was not passed. Since then, the CSC has grown to engage more than 120 students each year in more than 170 projects statewide.
The center includes four core programs: Community Planning Workshop; Resource Assistance for Rural Environments; Oregon Partnership for Disaster Resilience; and Economic Development Administration University Center. These programs provide community service coordination, technical assistance, problem solving, connections with state and federal agencies, training and applied research.
In 2011, center projects engaged 4,924 community members, provided 1,018 training hours to community members, presented 241 times at community meetings, engaged 125 students and completed 174 projects for 53 Oregon cities and 34 counties.
The center partners with the UO Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management and the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.
- from the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts