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100 years of Urban Planning at Illinois

 

Please join us as we celebrate our first 100 years of planning education at the University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign. We mark our beginning with the hiring of Charles Mulford Robinson as the first Professor of Civic Design in the country, appointed here at Illinois in 1913. Robinson implemented a curriculum that integrated design, economics, and the study of local government in the innovative new program. The Department of City Planning was formed in 1965, including the Bureau of Community Planning.  Over the years, Karl Lohmann, Henry Wright, Harland Bartholomew, Louis Wetmore and many others were significant in developing “the Illinois School,” a notable combination of professional planning practice and scholarly study. While the Department of Urban Planning has changed dramatically in many ways since that time, the University of Illinois continues to be a leader in research and education in the planning profession.

 

Our anniversary mark is a stylized version of the map of the quad and the University of Illinois included in Notes for a Study in City Planning in Champaign - Urbana, the product of Robinson’s 1913 and 1914 Classes in Civic Design at the University of Illinois, an effort which Robinson said was to give “concreteness and practicability” to the students’ academic work. “Dare to Plan” is from Andrew Isserman’s 1985 article for The Town Planning Review (October, 1985), entitled, “Dare to Plan: An essay on the role of the future in planning practice and education.”

 

Refresh your department memories through the anniversary additions to our web site, including Department Milestones and a Faculty Timeline. Included with the names and dates are links to our evolving digitized archive--photographs, biographies, UP Words, Alumni News, and more. We encourage you to help us better define our archive by sharing your stories and photographs with us at DaretoPlan100@illinois.edu. Remember someone’s name that we don’t have for a group photograph?  How about those group photographs in front of the West Nevada Street houses? SPO events?  Remember Fall Ball and Spring Fling?

 

Throughout 2013, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning will be celebrating its history and legacy.  Please visit this site for more information, including the 100th Events tab. If you want to be sure to get mailings, please update us through Staying Connected.