Jubilee Anniversary Celebration

Department of City Planning

March 24 - 25, 2000

Ian Skelton presenting to Sherri Blake. Various alumni. MPPI Forum Students dancing Firiday night and gathered for dinner. (Above l-r) Dean Michael Cox, Tom Yauk, Chris Leach, Basil Rotoff Alumni in front of student work displayed on panels and tables. Musicians in performance. City Planning Department Faculty with Dr. Leonie Sandercock.

The University of Manitoba has offered education in city planning for more than five decades. Its first 50 years, as Canada's longest uninterrupted graduate planning program, was celebrated in true jubilee style last March. Over 100 alumni and friends of the program participated in a series of events featuring decade-by-decade reminiscences from grads, an MPPI (Manitoba Professional Planners Institute) forum, professional development workshops and a presentation on 'Dreaming the Post-Millennium City' by Dr. Leonie Sandercock (author of Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities). An auction was also held to raise money for a student scholarship fund. Impeccably organized by Dr. Sheri Blake, most capably assisted by the curent student body, the celebration also triggered a major program retrospective publication. "Plans, Trends and other Motifs: Fifty Years of Excellence in Planning Education" was prepared under the direction of the Department Head, Dr. Ian Skelton. It features many references to a selection of theses, or practica, considered notable in some way or typical of a particular phase in the program's history. Copies of the publication are available by emailing Ian Skelton Student work past and present was prominetly displayed in and around Centre Space in the Russell Building, when Dr. Blake opened the Friday evening festivities. Fine wine and delicious nibbles fueled much reminiscing, combined with dancing - featuring music from each of the five decades. Dean Michael Cox reflected on the history of the department over the decades, beginning with Joe Kostka, the first department head. Dean Cox directly recognized several former professors in attendance, including Dimitrios Styliaras, Basil Rotoff and Mario Carvalho - the latter being the longest serving department faculty member, a former associate dean of the faculty, a fellow of CIP (Canadian Institute of Planners) and now professor emeritus. The Jubilee celebrations climaxed Saturday evening at the University Club. The evening opened with an auction with proceeds going to the City Planning Jubilee Student Scholarship Fund. A particularly memorable item on offer was having a character in a forthcoming mystery novel (by Karen Dudley) named for the successful bidder. Some spectacular pieces of art were also on offer. Distinguishing the event by their presence were Dr. Jean Friesen, deputy premier of Manitoba and minister of intergovernmental affairs, who brought greetings and congratulations from the province, and Councillor Garth Steek, representing the City of Winnipeg. In her address Dr. Friesen acknowledged the role of the faculty as one of the most prominent of current university-community linkages. Speaking from personal experience she observed that: "The province certainly would have been the poorer without the faculty. I particularly mention this because it is something to be very proud of when the university is under attack from so many quarters for being distant from the community." Dr. Friesen specifically complimented the department's community outreach work: "City planners have always been advocates, visionaries and regenerators. And over the past couple of generations you have been in existence - and as a profession - you have helped thousands of ordinary people to have a growing sense in their own ability to control aspects of their communities and their own lives, and enable them to live far better and more dignified lives than they otherwise would have done." The Jubilee was then substantially 'marked' by two weighty Tyndall stone plaque/plinth presentations. Canadian Institute of Planners President Elect Mark Seasons made the first presentation from CIP to the University of Manitoba, represented by Dr. Richard Lobdell, Vice Provost (Programs), to comemorate the jubilee and 'in recognition of the significant contributions made by the department to planning practice, education and thought.' Seasons noted that the Department of City Planning here was a well respected department in the corps of Canadian planning schools, with many of its graduates represented in the membership of CIP. A second presentation as then made to Dr. Skelton by Chris Leach, president of the Manitoba Professional Planners Institute. This recognized 'the 50-year tradition of excellence in planning at the Department of City Planning,' and affirmed 'the partnership between the institute and the department, and the shared goal of improving natural and human environments.' Leach also commented on the especially strong relationship between the planning profession and the planning academy in Manitoba - a relationship envied by many other CIP affiliates. Many of the program's 400-plus graduates have practiced in the province, and many of these continue to extend support in multiple ways. Distinctive musical contributed punctuated the proceedings. Adama Zon, a balafonist from Burkina Faso in West Africa absolutely captivated those present (the balafon is a gourd xylophone). Later he joined Batuque Percussion - a Winnipeg band playing world music with strong emphasis on druming. The evening and Jubilee was well and truly capped by the after-dinner lecture "Dreaming the Post-Millennium City", by special guest Dr. Leonie Sandercock from the University of Melbourne. Sandercock engagingly developed several of the main themes from her recent book "Towards Cosmopolis": (described by Robert Beauregard as 'the most important book on planning practice of the late 20th Century....It will set the terms of debate for years to come'). The talk also drew on Sandercock's current research on managing cultural diversity in globalizing cities, new ways of thinking about and doing planning, as well as change management. Sandercock offered us an agenda for the next 50 years of planning at the University of Manitoba. (From report prepared by Professor Ian Wight, Network, Faculty of Architecture July 2000, p6,7)