Five Jackson State University Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) doctoral candidates and two faculty members will be traveling to the University of California in Berkeley for the department\u2019s first exchange program.\u00a0Berneece Herbert, Ph.D.,\u00a0<\/b>professor and chair for DURP, collaborated with UC Berkeley professor,\u00a0Matt Kondalf, Ph.D.,<\/b>\u00a0to make this opportunity possible. During their time in Berkeley, the exchange students will study the revitalization of various cities\u2019 riverfronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see how cities can revive their riverfronts and make them economically sustainable, but environmentally friendly,\u201d says Herbert. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of issues with riverfronts and riverfront access. The government used to use rivers mostly for transportation of resources, but they realized people are attracted to water, so the idea is to figure out how to make it economically feasible for people to move there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The JSU scholars are set to travel to California on May 19th<\/sup>\u00a0to study the ports and socioeconomic status of waterfronts in California. After two years of planning, Herbert and Kondalf were able to earn grants to fund the exchange program. Not only will the students study the economic impact of riverfronts, but also the ecological effects on the area following land development.<\/p>\n \u201cAs human beings we tend to not think about the ecological consequences of what we do and sometimes when building homes, we push every tree down and clear everything when the natural environment has so many functions. The students will understand the dynamics between the urban part of planning and the ecological part of planning along with understanding the benefits of waterways,\u201d Herbert explains.<\/p>\n JSU and UC Berkeley students will work in tandem while studying abroad, both in California and in Mississippi, to gain perspective on what waterfronts are like in two vastly different regions of the country. In recent years, Mississippi has endured historical flooding as opposed to California experiencing widespread droughts and water shortage. Another goal of the exchange program is for the students and universities to establish more diverse connections.<\/p>\n \u201cThe name Berkeley is a big deal for us and working with an HBCU is a big deal for them as well, and we want to show them we have good students here at Jackson State,\u201d says Herbert.<\/p>\n The five\u00a0Jackson State doctoral candidates traveling to UC Berkley are\u00a0Tanisha Hinton<\/b>,\u00a0Ras Tafari Cannady II, AICP, PMP, Jon-Vincent S. Holden, Lakesha Stewart, MURP,\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0BriAnna Baber<\/b>. Both Hinton and Cannady are DURP students with a concentration in environmental and land usage who are familiar with what it\u2019s like to live in or near a city with a riverfront. The students are eager to use this experience to acquire knowledge to improve some afflictions they\u2019ve witnessed in their hometown communities.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a native of Los Angeles, California, I am very familiar with the rivers in California. I would love to successfully conceptualize a proposal that improves public access in light of current land use, flood control constraints, and evolving opportunities, says Cannady, \u201cin turn, this would allow me to explore my passion which lies in the intersection of place making and blue ways.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLiving in Vicksburg,\u00a0Mississippi there are several flooding issues regarding levees failure or not working to their full extent,\u201d Hinton explains, \u201cAlthough these areas are progressively esteemed as open space along large waterways, urban communities and towns are cut off from their streams by flood control levees.\u201d<\/p>\n During the 2022 fall semester, exchange students from UC Berkeley\u00a0will travel here to research riverfronts along the Mississippi River. Professor Herbert will facilitate the study of marine transportation issues along the river ports. Through the grant awarded to JSU\u2019s Department of Urban Research and Planning, she plans to explore the infrastructure of ports along the river and how they can adapt to climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll be looking at issues in terms of climate change that results in flooding and how it impacts the coarse land of these rivers. Ninety-nine percent of goods imported into this country comes through barges and through the Mississippi River,\u201d shares Herbert. \u201cWhen you have climate change and flooding, it impacts these rivers, which impacts everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Jackson State University is one of four HBCUs with a Department and Urban and Regional Planning program. Herbert hopes programs like this will create a broader interest in the field of studies. JSU exchange student,\u00a0<\/b>Stewart, who also has a concentration in Environment and Land Use, is grateful for the opportunity and recognizes the need for the work done by urban and regional planners.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u00a0thank Dr. Herbert, Professor Kondolf, and others who have created such opportunities for JSU and the UC Berkeley students,\u201d says Stewart, \u201cThis innovative collaboration will help change the students\u2019 lives and the communities we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Five Jackson State University Department of Urban and Regional Planning (DURP) doctoral candidates and two faculty members will be traveling to the University of California in Berkeley for the department\u2019s first exchange program.\u00a0Berneece Herbert, Ph.D.,\u00a0professor and chair for DURP, collaborated with UC Berkeley professor,\u00a0Matt Kondalf, Ph.D.,\u00a0to make this opportunity possible. During their time in Berkeley, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[4,8,6,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jsums.edu\/strategicplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}