Members of IACP Met in Fort Worth during Annual ACSP Conference

On November 10, 2006 approximately 40 members and friends of IACP had a gathering in Renaissance Worthington Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, the venue for the 47th Annual Conference of Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). Qing Shen, Vice Chair of IACP, reported IACP activities in the past year, which included Board of Director (BOD) monthly meeting, Newsletter, website development, fundraising, application for non-profit organization status in Washington DC, and participation in the Ministry of Construction (MOC)-MIT joint conference in Beijing in June 2006. He then outlined the planned activities for next year, including a joint conference with MOC in Beijing in May 2007 and election of new BOD members. Zhong-Ren Peng, Ming Zhang, and Zhan Guo, members of IACP BOD, attended the meeting and gave updates on IACP website, membership and account balance, and preparation for next year’s joint conference.

Participants of the meeting discussed various issues and provided many good suggestions. Karen Polenske, professor at MIT, emphasized the critical importance of ensuring conference participation of junior faculty and graduate students. Karen’s view was seconded by her MIT colleague Larry Vale, who pointed out that China should organize international conferences using international conventions and standards. Several people, including Robert Marans (professor at Michigan), Xinhao Wang (professor at Cincinnati), and Qisheng Pan (professor at Texas Southern) asked questions regarding the theme, schedule, and location of next year’s joint conference with MOC. Of particular concern is that universities with the quarter system often do not start summer break until June, and consequently their faculty and students cannot attend international conferences in May. The BOD members explained the considerations of deciding on the meeting time and place. Both MOC and IACP would like to coordinate the IACP meeting with Tongji University’s 100 year anniversary celebration so that some invited guests can go to the IACP meeting in Beijing after the celebration at Tongji. MOC chose the meeting site at Beijing because it is convenient for some central governmental officials in Beijing to attend. Jiawen Yang, a professor at Georgia Tech, initiated a discussion of the possibility of organizing some session(s) at the annual ACSP conference next year.

Many graduate students (from MIT, Michigan, Georgia Tech, Cornell, Maryland and several other schools) gave constructive suggestions for providing online data and publication services for IACP members. Several students volunteered to take the lead in exploring possibilities for IACP to gain data and publication access.

There was also a discussion on fundraising. Richard LeGates, a professor at San Francisco State University, suggested that we approach some major publishers to discuss the possibility of helping them market books at conferences in China (e.g. asking each publisher to mail us several copies of books for free to be exhibited at the conference in China, along with $100 donation as a reward for our marketing effort). Other suggestions included preparing an IACP brochure for PR and fundraising, encouraging IACP faculty and student members to ask for their department chairs for more research and conference support, and urging all members to help IACP identify potential donors.