News related to Rural Planning and Development

Professor Harry Cummings with Rural Planning and Development graduate students, April Smith and Aimee Alderman from his EDRD*6690 Programme Evaluation class, are helping the Wellington Dufferin Guelph Public Health Unit in a healthy kids programme in North Wellington. The Health Unit and the community have identified childhood obesity as an issue. An international model, EPODE, ‘Ensemble Prévenons l'Obésité Des Enfants’, (Together Let's Prevent Childhood Obesity), developed in France to deal with the issue is being applied.

The first round of the National Student Evaluation Case Competition, takes place this Saturday, February 6th, 2016 in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development.  As some of you may know, Rural Planning and Development students from this department have a bit of a reputation for winning this competition (2009, 2002, 1999, & 1998). This annual Canadian competition has established a reputation as a dynamic, hands-on opportunity for post-secondary students to learn about evaluation.

In December 2013, members of Wayne Caldwell’s and Jennifer Ball’s Community Engagement class became involved with a community revitalization strategy in Vanastra, Ontario. After a successful Business Retention and Expansion (BR+E) initiative, the task of the students was to explore more closely what some of these revitalization strategies might look like for the Village.

Several students joined Dr. Wayne Caldwell, Interim OAC Dean and an Environmental Health Manager, Helen Doyle from York Region Public Health to present at the Latornell Symposium on November 17, 2015. The session entitled “Building Resiliency with Rural Communities to Adapt to the Impacts of Climate Change” showcased recent work from the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development concerning healthy rural community planning as well as considerations for green infrastructure in rural locales.

On Saturday November 7th, two University of Guelph, Rural Planning and Development students traveled to Ryerson to compete in the 1st ever OPPI Student Case Competition. Queens, York, Waterloo, UofT, and Ryerson were the opposition schools, as they went head-to-head to develop the transit hub for the City of Hamilton's Light Rail System. The site to be planned was the Queenston traffic circle location near the historical City Motor Hotel, where planners from Hamilton suggest they wanted to implement mixed use buildings incorporating both residential and commercial amenities.

Prof. Al Lauzon has been named the interim director of the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development (SEDRD) effective November 1, 2015. 

Lauzon will assume interim director duties as Prof. Wayne Caldwell serves as interim dean of the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC).

Anissa McAlpine received the 2015 Gerald Carrothers Graduate Scholarship at the Ontario Professional Planners Institute AGM meeting on Wednesday, October 7, 2015 in Toronto. Anissa is a second year MSc student in Rural Planning and Development at the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph. Anissa's research at the graduate level focuses on farmland preservation in both the Ontario and British Columbia context.  She is also involved in research that is tracking Official Plan amendments as a means to measure current activity related to farmland loss.