Not all students can say they helped plan a city while they were in college, but students in NAU\u2019s Public Planning program are gaining real-world experience outside the classroom.<\/p>\n
Three student interns in the program working for the city of Flagstaff are helping to create a regional plan update for both the city of Flagstaff and Coconino County.<\/p>\n
Public planning majors\u00a0Brandon Rabidou<\/strong>, junior, and\u00a0Jenny Blue<\/strong>, senior, are being incorporated into the planning process, while sophomore\u00a0James Gardner<\/strong>, is working on housing and community investment scenarios.<\/p>\n \u201cThese students are working on real projects, they\u2019re not just making copies,\u201d said\u00a0Dawn Hawley<\/strong>, professor of geography, planning and recreation. \u201cWith these internships, everything they\u2019ve learned in class is coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n Updating the plan is a major undertaking requiring 18 to 24 months of work. Once finished, the plan will be used for the next 10 years as a guide for the character and land development of the area. Rabidou is helping plan community development with schools, houses and other buildings as well as doing public outreach.<\/p>\n \u201cI can really see the correlation with public participation classes I\u2019ve taken,\u201d Rabidou said. \u201cSome of the technology we were using in my classes was something the city hadn\u2019t done before.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabidou incorporated classroom knowledge as well as his own interests to bring public participation in the city planning process to a broader audience. He created a\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0for the city and video streaming of public meetings using inexpensive and free online tools such as WordPress and Twitter. He also converted the blog into Spanish to reach a larger audience.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that I\u2019ve implemented these new tools, different people from the city are asking me for more blogs and web sites to update,\u201d Rabidou said. \u201cI\u2019m taking that little step out there and now more people are really interested.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of the Public Planning program, students are required to work at least 300 hours for a professional agency, giving them a competitive edge.<\/p>\n \u201cOur students have the opportunity to gain up to a year of professional experience before they\u2019re even out of school,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to transition from academics in the professional realm and really gives them an advantage in the job market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"