ACSP Actions April 2006

ACSP President Mickey Lauria circulated this letter on 18 May 2006 describing the status of the PSPM initiative:

Dear ACSP Planning Educators,

The ACSP Governing Board has been considering a Planning School Performance Measurement process for over two years now. In April, in San Antonio, the Governing Board discussed this issue at length and voted to take initial steps to initiate a system for collecting and disseminating data about planning schools. This will be done in increments, under the direction of a new ACSP Task Force, informed by a poll of our member schools and with multiple opportunities for Governing Board involvement and review.

While I am aware that this is a contentious issue, I am also aware that there is much support of the ACSP taking control of this process (especially given recent initiatives by others to proceed without our guidance) to ensure that such a process works to the favor of our diverse membership, not a select few. The Board and the Task Force understand that this must be done very carefully. There are many pitfalls to be avoided. We are optimistic that the ACSP is the best organization to do this and that this Task Force and the Governing Board are up to the task.

The Academy and the Profession Committee first brought the subject of school performance measurement before the Board in April 2004. After reviewing the material the Board requested that a diverse Working Group be established to respond to the many concerns expressed by the Board and to develop a more detailed proposal to bring to the Board. At our Portland Governing Board meeting in October 2004, we had another lengthy discussion of the Working Group's draft outline of principles used to construct such a project. Subsequent to that discussion, the proposal went through a number of iterations with a final proposal being distributed to board members on September 17, 2005. At the Governing Board meeting in Kansas City (10/26/05), the Board considered the following motion but deferred decision until its Spring 2006 meeting:

The committee recommends that ACSP initiate a program of Planning School Performance Measurement based on the proposal of its working Group and consisting of three studies (Reputation, Faculty Accomplishment, Student Data) to take place in a six-year cycle. We further recommend that a committee be assigned to prepare a Request for Qualifications for contractors to undertake a Reputation study, with the intent that the Governing Board would select the contractor at its spring meeting.

As incoming President, I sent out an electronic version of the committees report and recommendation to your regional representatives in early November of 2005. The intent was to enable the regional representatives to share the full proposal report and recommendation with their region schools and faculty. I also requested that the Academy and Profession committee set up a web-site with the proposal and answers to frequently asked questions. http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/%7Ebstiftel/Urban%20Planning%20School%20Performance%20Measurement.html

A month prior to the spring 2006 Governing Board meeting I decided to resend that report reminding the regional representatives of my earlier request that they share it with their region schools and faculty for feedback for our upcoming discussion in San Antonio. Not wanting any room for omission, I also sent the proposal, report and recommendation directly to program chairs and to all ACSP affiliated faculty members recommending that they provide feedback to their regional representatives for our upcoming board discussion. At the same time, Bruce Stiftel acting on behalf of the Academy and Profession committee added a blog to the proposal web-site. http://acsppspm.blogspot.com/

At the Governing Board meeting in San Antonio (April 22, 2006), the tabled motion was reconsidered. The Governing Board discussed the issues at great length (much of the discussion on Planet and elsewhere was reiterated and discussed) and decided to proceed with the initiative as amended. The motion was amended to start with the Faculty Accomplishment phase first and to begin to identify potential contractors by the time of the Fall 2006 meeting, so that they could be involved in the discussions of indicators and methods.

During the new business portion of the meeting, I laid out my agenda as ACSP President. This agenda (in future e-mails you will be hearing about the other items on my agenda) included a detailed proposal and projected budget for the Planning School Assessment Project (my renaming of the initiative). The Board held another lengthy detailed discussion of the initiative (again reflecting the electronic discussions of our professorate). At the end of this discussion, the project had been significantly amended and the Board voted unanimously (with two abstentions) to support the following process for moving forward:

An ACSP Planning School Assessment Task Force will be appointed with members including a broad range of opinions on the issues involved. This Task Force will prepare us to undertake a project of data collection and dissemination concerning faculty accomplishments at planning schools. They are to develop a series of measures concerned with faculty output and resources available to schools, with attention to consistency with PAB requirements. They are also to prepare a draft RFQ to solicit qualifications from potential consultants who might be chosen to conduct the faculty accomplishment study, and if the Governing Board approves, they will distribute this RFQ in the hope of bringing a short list of potential consultants to the Board.

Following the Board's charge, I have appointed the following members to the Planning School Assessment Project Task Force.

Charlie Hoch (Chair), University of Illinois at Chicago, PAB Board member
Randy Crane, University of California at Los Angeles
Linda Dalton, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo Academy and the Profession Committee member
Ann Forsyth, University of Minnesota, ACSP Working Group on PSPM
Sharon Gaber, Auburn University, ACSP Board member
Dowell Myers, University of Southern California, ACSP Board member

I have charged them with two tasks:

First, to briefly survey planning program administrators on the following questions (to be answered after discussion with institutional research staff at their institutions): 1) Does your institution use or plan to adopt a set of comparator institutions against which you will be required to benchmark your planning program? 2) What measures/indicators/benchmarks do you use? 3) Where do you get your data? 4) Are there data you'd like to have that are not currently available? If so, what? This information should be used to help with the second and main task.

Second, following the second board motion above, develop the measures, the RFQ, and screen and invite applicants for the Fall Board meeting.

Your leadership has heard and understands the many perspectives voiced on this matter. We have deliberated about them at considerable length, and believe we have set up a process that will result in a set of actions which will be important to the healthy future of our schools. We encourage you to continue to provide input and feedback, especially through the new Task Force chaired by Charlie Hoch, but also to your Regional Representatives and officers

Mickey Lauria, President
Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning
Professor, City and Regional Planning
College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities
236 Hardin Hall
Clemson University
Clemson, SC 29634-0528
864-656-0520
Mlauria@clemson.edu

ACSP Governing Board to Consider Planning School Performance Measurement Proposal

On 22 April, the ACSP Governing Board will consider a proposal for a national system of urban planning school performance measurement (PSPM). This proposal, if adopted, would lead to a wide-ranging program aimed at portraying school performance across the full range of objectives sought by urban planning schools. Three separate studies are envisioned on a six-year cycle looking at: student data, faculty work, and reputation. The population of schools studied would be those offering PAB-accredited degrees at the bachelor and/or master level. Emphasis would be placed on data from national sources to maximize comparability and to minimize burden of data assembly on schools.

We think a national system of comparative data on school performance would:
(1) provide faculty with realistic gauges of the relative quality of our work;
(2) allow schools to make believable strategic arguments to the administrations of their universities; and
(3) improve the visibility of our profession and lead to stronger student recruitment.
These reasons are more fully described here.

There are controversial aspects to this proposal. Among them is the method of faculty census (We propose to use ACSP's "50% or greater in planning" convention.); and the concern that institutions with different missions not be compared directly with one another (We propose to report bachelor-only and master-degree programs separately; as well as to distinguish institutions by Carnegie categories.) Our Frequently Asked Questions posting attempts to show how we have reasoned through these, and other, points of potential concern.

The proposal is fully described at our main PSPM website. A complete copy of the proposal may also be downloaded from the same site.

This discussion forum is intended to encourage discussion of the PSPM proposal by planning educators and others. You may wish to post comments about the Proposal here. Members of the Working Group on Planning School Performance Measurement will try to reply to any postings that pose questions to us.

Bruce Stiftel, for the Working Group