Offering Leadership Training to a Global Audience
To realize their visions of what ought to be, urban planners need to be effective leaders, navigating competing visions of the future and the hurdles of a typically long time scale for their projects. Only as leaders can planners build the coalitions needed to start and see projects through to completion. A new DUSP Open Learning course, Leadership in Planning: How to Effectively Advance Great Urban Planning Initiatives, offers practical skills and techniques for leading planning initiatives and public organizations. Led by Jeff Levine, Associate Professor Practice at DUSP, the course opened enrollment starting April 7th on EdX, with new course content and modules released weekly.
“Leadership in Planning is underpinned by the premise that good planning practice requires more than technical expertise and is about leading people to plan and follow through,” says Levine. “Since the failures of urban renewal in the US and elsewhere in the world, the planning profession has struggled with the perception that bold planning might doing bad things to communities. This course challenges the perception by separating out the effective leadership skills planners need from the bad decisions many planners made in the mid-20th century.”
Following a case study-based learning format featuring historical and current American city planning examples, students in Leadership in Planning will draw lessons for leadership from the failures and successes in American planning, and learn key skills including the strategies and tactics of effective planning practice, how to move great planning ideas forward in complex environments, when to push a good idea and when to hold back, among other action strategies. In addition to lectures by Jeff Levine, the course also offers a series of video case studies with experienced planners who have founded prominent planning organizations and implemented important plans and policies.
Leadership in Planning is designed specifically for mid-career professionals and graduate student planners in public and non-profit organizations, as well as private-sector consultants working with public agencies. Sign up here.
DUSP Open Learning is a new DUSP initiative that aims to bring high quality MIT education in urban, environmental, community and international planning to global learning audiences. DUSP Open Learning features Massive Open Online Courses (such as Leadership in Planning), MIT OpenCourseWare courses, podcasts, and more. In the coming academic year, DUSP Open Learning will launch several new courses in urban design and development. Follow one of DUSP’s social channels to stay informed about new courses and content.