Exploring the Planning Term
For several weeks now our corner of the world has been in a deep freeze. Temps have dipped below 0°F and the ground is resting under many inches of snow. It's the perfect time for students to begin the work of Conway's winter planning term.
Over the years we have heard that it can be difficult to understand the context and relevance of our planning term. When most people think of planning - if they think of it at all - they envision a dry profession full of endless bureaucracy and stakeholders arguing over policy and money. What they don't see is what we do see all winter long: rural towns trying to keep their communities healthy and safe in a rapidly shifting climate; students facilitating thoughtful discussion that provides opportunities for all voices, not just the most powerful; cities struggling to maintain food security and affordable housing; a research process that examines the accomplishments and sins of the past and the hopes and fears for the present; and the beauty that emerges when lines of data are conveyed visually as graphics and maps.
Planning is a crucial piece of ecological design. It lives at the nexus of interpersonal human relationships and the relationships between humans and the rest of the dynamic world, and it can mean life or death for so many different types of communities. The planning documents that are delivered to clients traverse a much larger expanse of space-time, providing communities with reference manuals for their decisions about projects to prioritize, funding to pursue, and spaces to protect years, decades, and generations into the future. The planning term also guides students from the skills of small site analysis and design of the fall term to the increased complexity of stakeholder engagement, large scale information collection, and analysis that they will encounter in their spring projects.
As our society becomes increasingly fragmented and relationships everywhere fall apart, the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer above become even more urgent. We cannot build landscapes or infrastructure without building the relationships that will ensure their (and our) well-being.
If you're intrigued by the work that our students are doing right now, we encourage you to join us at the end of this month for Winter Project Presentations, where students will present their shared client visions for land and relationship restoration.
