Undergraduate Planning Students Visit Boston
In March, 27 students in the Urban and Regional Studies (URS) program spent a weekend in Boston to participate in a series of meetings and tours that provided a glimpse of professional planning practices.
Led by Thomas Campanella, associate professor of city and regional planning and director of undergraduate studies, the students spent the weekend touring the city, meeting with alumni, and seeing the work of various planning organizations. Highlights included a presentation by Prataap Patrose, deputy director for urban design at the Boston Redevelopment Authority; a meeting with Angus Jennings (M.R.P. '01), principal at Carr, Lynch, and Sandell, an urban design firm based in Cambridge; a tour led by Alyson Fletcher (M.L.A./M.R.P. '13) of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the park that sits on land created by the Big Dig; a walking tour of Chinatown led by Tunney Lee, professor emeritus in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning; and a stop in Providence, Rhode Island, to visit with Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, former mayor of the city, who shared stories about his career and his actions to achieve his vision for Providence.
"The trip was a great success," says Kenneth Kalynchuk (B.S. URS '14), president of the Organization for Urban and Regional Studies. "[We] loved exploring these two cities."