Larry Lawhon, RCP faculty member, retires from K-State

After serving the Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning department for 16 years, Larry Lawhon, regional and community planning professor, has decided to retire.

Lawhon received his Ph.D. in Urban Planning from Texas A&M University and his master’s in City and Regional Planning from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Lawhon is a certified planner and active in the American Planning Association and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

Prior to his pursuit of his Ph.D. in Urban Planning, he worked as a local government planner for approximately 11 years, serving as director of planning in two separate cities.

His areas of interest include growth management, development impact fees, planning history and housing. In 2010, he was invited to submit an encyclopedia entry on the “Neighborhood Unit” for the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research. He has collaborated with the International City Management Association (ICMA) since 2002 and completed three separate national surveys of local government use of development impact fees, and published the results of these surveys in the ICMA Municipal Year Book in 2013, 2007 and 2012.

During a May reception honoring his retirement, Department Head Stephanie Rolley recognized Dr. Lawhon’s contributions to the MRCP program and the planning profession, noting that “Larry Lawhon’s dedication to preparing future planners for their careers extends well beyond his teaching and research. His diligent leadership of the department’s Academic Affairs committee and participation in related college committees has ensured excellent stewardship of our planning curriculum. Larry is a true good citizen of the academic community who will be missed.”

In recognition of his teaching and services to Kansas State University, as well as his positive impact on the students and faculty, Associate Professor Lawhon will be put forward for the title of Emeritus Professor of Regional and Community Planning.

Expanding course offerings

We are expanding our course offerings in the online Master of Science in Community Development offered by the Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance. (LINK) Dr. Dan Kahl has joined the K-State MS Community Development faculty to teach Community Leadership and Capacity Building. A former K-State Extension staff member, Dan’s research and service are focused on community change and civic leadership.

Dr. Huston Gibson, RCP, will begin teaching Community Development I. This foundational course in the program will provide students from across the five participating universities with an additional opportunity to learn from K-State faculty.

Spring Faculty Presentations and Publications

PRESENTATIONS

Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Conference was held in Baltimore, MD, March 2014. Click here to see the presentations and exhibits that were presented by six landscape architecture faculty and five landscape architecture students.  In addition, two architecture students presented the work they completed under Assistant Professor Alpa Nawre’s direction in Italy last Spring.

Assistant Professor Brent Chamberlain (LA) presented Developing the Gap Analysis Tool for Outdoor Recreation: Case Study in Vancouver, Canada at the Digital Landscape Architecture Conference in Zurich, Switzerland in June.

Dr. Chamberlain also presented ”A New Visibility Analysis Toolset” under the The Socio/Human Factor in Design session at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego in July.

Assistant Professor Huston Gibson (RCP) was a featured presenter in this year’s SPOTLIGHT K-State. You can see his TED style talk covered his use of Twitter in World Cities here.

Dr. Gibson also presented “From Ideas to Implementation: Planning for Pocket Parks” at the 2014 Urban Affairs Association Conference in Miami in March. The paper was co-authored by Assistant Professor Jessica Canfield (LA).

Assistant Professor Howard Hahn (LA) presented Linking GIS-based Modeling of Stormwater Best Management Practices to 3D Visualization, co-authored with Instructor Dereatha Cross (LA), at the Digital Landscape Architecture Conference in Zurich, Switzerland in July.

Assistant Professor Alpa Nawre (LA) presented her research “Infrastructure for Sustainable Resource Management: Talaab System” in a panel via Skype at the “Brave New South Asia: Science, Technology and Society” Center for South Asian Studies Annual Symposium at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in April.

Assistant Professor Katie Kingery-Page (LA) participated in a radio interview titled “University Engagement”. Richard Baker (Communications) interviewed David Proctor (CECD), Kevin Sauer (Hospitality), and Katie Kingery-Page (LARCP) on Service Learning and Engaged Scholarship for his Kansas Public Radio syndicated Perspective Radio Show. The show aired Sunday, Feb 21 and can be heard here.

Professor Emerita Judith Major (LA) presented a lecture entitled “Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer: A Conscientiously Scientific Student” at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum in Boston in May.

Assistant Professor Kate Nesse (RCP) presented Setting New Standards in the Use of the ACS in Washington, D.C. at the ACS Data Users Conference in May.

Associate Professor Lee Skabelund (LA)  presented Understanding and Implementing Principles of Low Impact Development at the Low Impact Development Workshop in June in Overland Park, KS.

PUBLICATIONS

Assistant Professor Brent Chamberlain (LA) co-authored “Digital Outdoor Recreation Planning Tool Improves Efficiency and Cross Agency Communication: A Case Study in Metro Vancouver, Canada”, which was presented by his colleague Nalon Smith at the 2014 National Outdoor Recreation Conference, San Francisco, CA May 13-16.

The Landscape Research Record from CELA 2013 has been published online. Click here to view. The publication includes work from the following LARCP faculty:

– Assistant Professors Jessica Canfield (LA) and Huston Gibson (RCP) Resident Attitudes toward Stapleton’s Stormwater Parks
– Assistant Professors Jessica Canfield (LA) and Bo Yang, Utah State, Reflections on Developing Landscape Performance Case Studies

Assistant Professor Huston Gibson’s (RCP) article The Middle School Syndrome was recently published by Society. Click here for more information.

Associate Professor Larry Lawhon’s (RCP) paper ”Overcoming Potential Exclusivity Associated with Impact Fees: Loveland, Colorado’s 30 Year Experience in Development Impact Fees”, was accepted for publication in the Journal of Architectural and Planning Research (JAPR).

Assistant Professor Alpa Nawre’s (LA) article “Talaab in India: Multifunctional Landscapes as Laminates” has been published in Landscape Journal 2013; 32(2). Click here to view the article online.

Assistant Professor Alpa Nawre also has a chapter ’Managing Water in the Land of the Asian Monsoons: A planning Alternative for Naya Raipur, India’ in the peer-reviewed publication ‘European and Asian Sustainable Towns’ (ed. Pascaline Gaborit) PIE Peter Lang, Brussels. Publication available here.

Associate Professor La Barbara Wigfalls’ (RCP) essay, “Consensus Imagination: Design Competition in a Non-studio Setting”, is featured in a new book in the Taylor & Francis Routledge Research in Architecture series, Space Unveiled: Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio, edited by Carla Jackson Bell.