After 20 years at the University, the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management is celebrating its anniversary by honoring past graduates and promoting current students. The celebration will take place 3:30 p.m. today on the Hendricks Hall west lawn with the display of student projects beginning at 1:00 p.m.
The program will feature first-time awards for outstanding alumni achievement and outstanding service to Oregon. Michael Hibbard, the department head, said most of the presentation will also focus on the awards and a new endowment.
“The core of it is initiating and distributing the awards and also the new endowment for the department in memory of Wes Kvarsten,” Hibbard said.
Kvarsten is a University alumnus who passed away in 2001. His family established the new endowment in his memory to support faculty of the department in their research, curriculum design and professional development.
Kvarsten devoted most of his career to planning and public administration work. He was the director of the Mid-Valley Planning Council and Mid-Willamette Valley Council, as well as the Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission.
Others to be honored include outstanding alumni award-winners Kirstin Greene and Steven Wright, and outstanding service to Oregon award-winner Richard Townsend. All have been public leaders in their communities and in their work after graduating from the University.
Alumni are not the only people who succeeding, as current students are still involved in projects, internships and theses. The department gives students the chance to become a part of their communities and learn to be leaders in the future.
“We hope to connect government to the average person. We prepare those citizens and put them in leadership roles in the public to solve public planning problems,” Hibbard said.
Jean Stockard, a faculty member, said the department is great for students interested in planning, public policy and management.
“It is a challenging and rigorous program that requires both work in the real world, with an internship requirement, as well as a senior thesis,” Stockard said. “We have admission requirements and it is difficult to even get in.”
Hibbard said alumni are scattered throughout Oregon in successful positions.
“It is almost impossible to walk into a public agency in Oregon and not find graduates in leadership roles,” Hibbard said. “Students and faculty have shaped public policy in Oregon and around the world.”
Current projects from students and faculty include theses and papers proposing models for democracy, Oregon hazard planning, health care issues and environmental projects. There are also new features within the department, including graduate certificates in not-for-profit management. Renee Irvin, a faculty member, said the new certificate is a 24-credit program with courses that specifically deal with management careers in a nonprofit sector.
Irvin said that many students from several departments are interested in the new certificate. “Although the certificate can be a stand-alone post-baccalaureate program, we’re finding that University grad students from a variety of departments — international studies, environmental studies, PPPM and others — are adding the certificate to their masters degree for practical career preparation in the nonprofit sector,” Irvin said.