News

For much of rural Ontario, there is a struggle to retain existing population numbers.  With low birth rates, outmigration and an aging baby boom population there is a significant risk of population loss (and in many rural communities this is already happening).  The opportunity for rural communities is to increasingly attract immigrants.  Recent research identifies success stories from across the province and establishes best practices that can help rural communities to succeed in stabilizing, and potentially growing their population.

Adjunct faculty member, Bamidele Adekunle in the Capacity Development and Extension program, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development has recently co-published the book “Negotiating South-South Regional Trade Agreements:  Economic Opportunities and Policy Directions for Africa”.  

Graduate students from the Rural Planning and Development and Master’s of Landscape Architecture programs took part in an interactive exercise to learn about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, and the implications of the evolving relationship and colonial policies.  The activity was offered as part of the newly developed Contemporary Aboriginal Issues course offered by Dr. Sheri Longboat in the Rural Planning and Development program. 

Rural Planning and Development graduate students are currently working on a project for Professor Wayne Caldwell's Advanced Planning Practice course to help Seaforth community members with ideas for downtown facelift.

View of downtown Seaforth, Ontario (picture courtesy of Huron Expositor).

Master of Landscape Architecture student, Nadine Bohner, will receive a NASA-Michigan State University Professional Enhancement Award  to present her thesis research on landscape characteristics associated with turtle trauma at the International Association for Landscape Ecology meeting in Baltimore in April. The NASA-MSU awards are unique to this organization and promote the development of emerging landscape ecology scholars.

van·tage

van(t)ij/
noun
noun: vantage point

A place or position affording a good view of something. "from my vantage point I could see into the front garden"

The photos on cover of the January/February 2017 edition of the Ontario Planning Journal were recently taken by event organizers of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute October 2016 Symposium in Hamilton, Ontario. The Rural Planning and Development graduate students from the University of Guelph are showing their tech social media savvy by being connected with everyone/everything that was happening at the conference on the topic of "Healthy Communities and Planning for the Public Realm".

Professor Al Lauzon, in the Capacity Development and Extension program, has recently published two chapters in the reference book The Encyclopedia of Strategic Leadership and Management. The titles of his chapters were "Building Adaptive Community Capacity to Meet the Challenges of Global Climate Change: Implications for Community Leadership" and "Meeting the Cognitive Demands of Leadership in Times of Uncertainty." 

Capacity Development and Extension Professor Helen Hambly along with Grain Farmers of Ontario's Mark Brock were featured on CTV's national morning show Your Morning on December 21, 2016 discussing precision agriculture and rural connectivity.

CTV video clip can be viewed here.