The University’s Sustainable Cities Initiative has hired former ASUO president and Rhodes Scholar Robert Liberty as its first ever executive director.
Currently serving as an elected representative within Portland’s regional government known as the Metro Council, Liberty draws experience from both the public and private sectors, and has held representative positions for more than 30 years at the municipal, state and federal levels of government. During his half-decade of service as a council member, Liberty has represented roughly 240,000 Oregonians in Northeast, Southeast and Southwest Portland since 2005.
Despite years of success as a politician, the incoming SCI director will officially resign his Metro Council position on Saturday and become a full-time University employee by the end of next week, according to a Jan. 3 University press release.
SCI is a three-year-old cross-disciplinary organization housed at the University working to develop solutions to city design problems by utilizing cutting-edge research and sustainable design methods. Its newly created position of executive director involves cooperating and building relationships with state and federal policy makers. SCI hopes Liberty, bringing his decades of experience collaborating with large governmental bodies to the table, will help to develop the program’s research, education, service and public outreach efforts in the area of sustainable city design.
“Robert’s expertise is a great fit for the leadership opportunity we envisioned with the role of the executive director,” Marc Schlossberg, the initiative’s co-director, said. “(The initiative) will have greater impact on national policy, research and community change with his leadership.”
Liberty himself is eager to start working with University faculty members and expanding SCI’s efforts at the state and national scales.
“I am looking forward to working with the dynamic faculty members at the University of Oregon to expand the impact of the Sustainable Cities Initiative across Oregon and the nation,” Liberty said in a press release. “I look forward to building new partnerships with governments, business(es), non-governmental organizations and other universities.”
SCI organizes several initiatives annually, one of which is an expert-in-residence program, where national sustainability experts take up residence on the University’s Eugene or Portland campuses for three-day sessions held throughout the school year. During their stay, the industry professionals engage with students and faculty in classrooms, conduct private and public sector workshops and deliver community lectures.
In another program known as the Sustainable City Year, SCI students partner with one city in Oregon per academic year to plan for future sustainable urban construction and transportation. The 2009-10 program, which took place in Gresham, Ore., focused on nine city projects, including fashioning a redevelopment plan for the Rockwood neighborhood, drafting designs for a new city hall and improving commercial design standards, housing affordability and neighborhood walkability.
This academic year, faculty and students partnered with Oregon’s capitol city, Salem, on 14 specific projects involving redevelopment of downtown areas, restoration efforts on Minto Island and integration of safe bicycle and pedestrian access into downtown parks and paths. These projects are expected to involve more than 600 students enrolled in more than 25 courses across seven University academic departments.
University spokesperson Julie Brown is confident that filling the new position with such an adept public policy professional will benefit the city outreach program in particular.
“They want to expand the work they are doing, especially with the Sustainable City Year,” Brown said. “This executive director position is really going to help them grow that program.”
After serving as the 1974-75 student body president and graduating from the University’s Robert D. Clark Honors College, Liberty enrolled at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, going on to earn his juror’s doctorate from Harvard Law School. He was also a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design during the 2002-03 year.
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