PSU Motto: Let Knowledge Serve
We are not a typical ivory tower university. Instead, we are located right downtown, and we embody the university mission to "Let Knowledge Serve the City."
Our faculty
Our faculty are engaged in scholarship addressing a wide range of current issues: affordable housing, bicycling, food justice, gentrification and displacement, homelessness, urban heat islands, the maker movement, tiny homes (aka accessory dwelling units), carbon taxes, equity planning, autonomous vehicles, disaster recovery, food trucks and carts, and collaborative planning processes.
Our faculty are directly involved in planning and policy in Portland and beyond. We serve on many local boards like: A Home for Everyone, OPAL Environmental Justice, Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund Advisory Board, Portland Parks and Recreation, and the Transit Center. Our faculty, students, and alumni have been instrumental in Portland becoming an Age Friendly City.
Our faculty also engage in practical, applied research. As an example, Dr. Lisa K. Bates has worked with the City of Portland to assess the vulnerability of different neighborhoods to increased gentrification pressure. Dr. Jennifer Dill has worked with cities across the country to evaluate the effects of bicycle infrastructure, including the first study in the U.S. to comprehensively evaluate bike boxes (with civil engineering professor Dr. Christopher Monsere). The evidence from their study was used to support federal approval of this simple design that can improve safety. Dr. CNE Corbin collaborated on the report “Parks & Equity: The Promise of Oakland’s Parks a Survey of Oaklander’s Park Experiences and Perspectives” for the Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation.
Our students
Our students are highly engaged in the community in class projects, internships, and more. Our “classroom” extends beyond the walls of Portland State’s downtown campus. Our courses collaborate with outside partners in projects, starting with the first quarter in the course, Planning Methods I.
Experiential learning is an integral component of the MURP. The program requires 400 hours of internship experience. Internships in the Portland region are plentiful and varied, and include opportunities such as working with Metro's state-of-the-art transportation planning model, with a non-profit community development corporation to revitalize neighborhoods, or with a bi-state agency to implement the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area Act.
Every MURP finishes their program in the Planning Workshop, where students work in teams with community clients to address a real problem, develop and evaluate alternatives, engage the community directly, and develop a recommended course of action. In 8 of the past 12 years, a MURP Planning Workshop project has won a national award from the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), more than any other planning program in the United States.