Abstract
More than thirty-five undergraduate urban planning programs exist in relative obscurity. This article uses survey data to explore skills their faculty, and planning managers hiring entry-level planners, deem the most important. Planning practitioners and educators agree that generic skills are important for entry-level positions; however, planning educators place greater importance on specialized skills for entry-level positions than practitioners do. Planning practitioners also report that entry-level job applicants with no more than a bachelor’s degree in planning do not meet their proficiency expectations for the generic skills. These findings suggest that planning educators need to review their pedagogical approach to planning education.
Introduction
Undergraduate planning education in the United States generally remains terra incognita, even though undergraduate enrollment in planning programs increased at least 46 percent between 1986 and 2011. 1 These programs serve at least 2,270 students annually (Acey et al. 2013). The two-decade lag between the Niebanck Report (ACSP Commission on Undergraduate Education 1990) and the formation of a Task Force on Undergraduate Education by Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) President Cheryl Contant (Acey et al. 2013; ACSP 2010), and the limited literature addressing undergraduate planning programs, suggests that planning educators undervalue these programs vis-à-vis graduate programs. This lack of attention to undergraduate planning programs is unfortunate, and perhaps detrimental to the careers of planners and the planning profession. Planning managers surveyed here report that 30 to 54 percent of applicants with a bachelor’s degree in planning and no previous planning experience do not possess key skills required for entry-level positions. 2 One planning manager, after completing our survey, felt strongly enough about this discrepancy to contact me directly, writing that “the professional planning field is really lacking in the area of entry to mid-level planners who have the skills and abilities to work in a local government environment” (personal correspondence sent by survey respondent).
Although the vast majority of planning programs offer only graduate planning degrees, it is not clear if entry-level planning positions require skills that a graduate degree provides. The ACSP Guide to Undergraduate and Graduate Education in Urban and Regional Planning (2014, iv) claims “a bachelor’s degree can provide an entry into the profession.” Likewise, a review of position descriptions posted on the Jobs Search page of the American Planning Association’s (APA) website, and APA Chapter websites, reveals that a bachelor’s degree in planning, or a related field, will satisfy minimum educational qualifications for many entry-level planning positions.
Greenlee, Edwards, and Anthony (2015, 169) argue that “overall, the supply of planning skills more or less matches skills demanded by the planning profession.” We have found, however, this not to be the case for graduates of undergraduate planning programs; many graduates are not effectively prepared for the entry-level positions employers envision them filling. In this paper, we examine this mismatch by comparing the skills that planning faculty at institutions with undergraduate programs believe are the most important for their students to succeed in entry-level urban planning positions with the skills that planning managers believe are the most important. 3 Evaluating this mismatch is key to ensuring that undergraduate programs prepare students for the demands employers will place on them. Our findings suggest that planning programs would benefit from revising their pedagogical approach and curriculum.
To investigate the extent of this skills mismatch, we focus on two broad questions: what skills do faculty in undergraduate planning programs emphasize and what skills do employers in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors seeking to hire graduates of such programs expect successful candidates to possess? 4 Are faculty priorities and employer expectations in accord, or is there a disconnect between them? We followed up this set of questions with another set focusing on the extent to which the skill level of candidates for entry-level planning positions possess, as interpreted by the hiring managers during the hiring process, compares with the position requirements. 5
This research examines the supply and demand for generic and specialized skills. We begin by briefly reviewing existing research on the supply and demand for planning skills and then detail our research methodology. Next, we discuss the survey results and implications of our findings, and offer suggestions for improving the match between skills hiring managers identify as most important for entry-level practitioners and the supply of planning skills provided by undergraduate planning programs.
Background
Most research examining the supply and demand for planning skills focuses exclusively on graduate programs (Contant and Forkenbrock 1986; Dawkins 2016; Edwards and Bates 2011; Ozawa and Seltzer 1999; Ozawa, Seltzer, and Iroz-Elardo 2010; Schon et al. 1976; Seltzer and Ozawa 2002), fails to distinguish between graduate and undergraduate programs, students, and graduates (Dalton 2007; Greenlee, Edwards, and Anthony 2015), or focuses on graduate students and only mentions undergraduates in passing (Guzzetta and Bollens 2003). This study draws on methods used in these previous studies; however, it focuses exclusively on undergraduate planning programs and students.
An early study by Schon et al. (1976) categorized the five skills most frequently cited by respondents as very important: writing, synthesis, interaction, consultation, and research design, as a generic skill cluster; each individual skill in the cluster was identified as “very important” by more than half of their respondents. The authors categorized the remaining ten skills into four additional clusters. Information skills were identified as very important by less than 40 percent of their respondents, and physical skills, such as site planning, were identified as very important by no more than a third of respondents. Even less important were quantitative skills, deemed very important to less than a third of respondents, and teaching, which was identified as very important by 31 percent of their respondents. This approach suggests that skills can be divided into two categories: generic skills applicable to a wide range of occupations and a set of specialized skills applicable to planning and related occupations. Schon, Cremer, Osterman, and Perry also noted that academics were less likely than practitioners to value generic skills.
A decade later, Contant and Forkenbrock (1986) found that communication skills were still viewed as very important by nearly all their respondents. They also reported that other generic skills, such as the ability to formulate problems and design methods to answer them and the ability to synthesize large amounts of material, were identified as very important skills by more than 75 percent of their respondents. Specialized skills, such as economic techniques, were identified as very important by only about a third of respondents.
The importance of generic skills, especially the ability of planners to communicate with diverse groups and interact in a positive way, was also identified by Ozawa and Seltzer (1999; Seltzer and Ozawa 2002) as skills that senior planners value highly in entry-level planners. Guzzetta and Bollens (2003) report that 60 percent of planners with less than two years of experience indicated that communication skills were the most significant skill they had developed in their careers.
In one of the few studies on undergraduate planning programs, Dalton and Hankins (1993, 215) argue that “academic departments that offer undergraduate planning degrees clearly share a common sense of the mission of undergraduate planning education as a
Method
Previous research used survey responses provided by planning practitioners and educators to rank the relative importance of skills for entry-level planners (Greenlee, Edwards, and Anthony 2015; Schon et al. 1976; Seltzer and Ozawa 2002). Following that precedent, all respondents were sent surveys containing identical lists of skills. Respondents were asked to assess the skill sets that entry-level planners need to be successful as very important, somewhat important, occasionally important, or not very important. Additionally, respondents were also asked to rank the importance of specific skills that are components of the generic skill sets, or skills unique to planning and related professions, using the same categories. Unlike these previous studies, a follow-up survey, focusing on the extent to which the skill level of applicants with no more than a bachelor’s degree in planning matches the skill level required for entry-level planning positions, was sent to the planning practitioners.
Appendix D of the 2014 ACSP Guide to Undergraduate and Graduate Education in Urban and Regional Planning was used to initially identify universities offering baccalaureate degrees in planning in the United States. We solicited input from full-time (Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors) and Emeritus faculty; surveys were also sent to part-time faculty that did not appear, from their biographical sketch on departmental websites, to also be planning practitioners.
The planning practitioner versions of the surveys were sent to planning managers working at both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and governmental planning agencies and departments throughout the United States. We identified all private sector firms advertising on, or sponsoring, an APA Chapter website. We then assembled, from their public websites, a list containing the names and email addresses of all principals/owners, principal planners, and other senior staff with apparent managerial or supervisory responsibilities. In many cases, more than one person at a private sector firm was contacted. Not-for-profit planning organizations did not appear as APA Chapter sponsors. We therefore focused on identifying not-for-profit housing and community development organizations to survey. These fields are well recognized in planning, and therefore firms in this space are likely to hire planners. Surveys were sent to Executive Directors of 122 organizations nationwide. The response rate for planning managers working in not-for-profit agencies and private firms was low (twenty-four responses from private sector managers and eleven from not-for-profit sector managers, out of, respectively, 221 and 270 surveys sent) on the initial survey.
To address concerns that some planning skills surveys focus on only municipal planning, we surveyed planners employed by regional planning commissions (RPCs) or councils of government (COGs), counties, and municipalities (Greenlee et al. 2015). We randomly selected ten states from which to draw our RPC/COG sample. The population of the selected states ranged from under one million residents to more than twelve million. Two states contained cities with more than one million residents and six cities in five other states had between 450,000 and 700,000 residents in 2016. We identified RPCs or COGs for nine of the selected states using the state lists available on the National Association of Regional Councils’ (NARC) website (http://narc.org/about-narc/state-associations/) and by conducting an Internet search for RPCs and COGs in the tenth state. 6
From these ten states, we selected one state for more detailed investigation at the county and municipal levels. The state, which has more than seventy counties, has a mixture of urban and rural areas. The largest city in the state has more than five hundred thousand residents, and another million people reside in the remainder of the metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Two additional cities outside this MSA have more than hundred thousand residents. The state also has a comprehensive plan ordinance, requiring county and local zoning and subdivision ordinances to be consistent with the comprehensive plan adopted by the governmental body enacting or amending such ordinances (http://www.sewrpc.org/SEWRPCFiles/CommunityAssistance/Smartgrowth/summary_of_wisconsin_comp_plan.pdf). We identified all incorporated municipalities and unincorporated jurisdictions with populations of fifteen thousand or more in the state, and identified planning directors, managers, and principal planners with obvious supervisory responsibilities. When available, the email contact information for each of these planners was added to a database. In some instances, email contact information was not available; however, the website contained a form for submitting questions or comments. In these cases, the body of the introductory letter and a link to the survey was copied into the space provided.
We then identified incorporated municipalities with at least fifteen thousand residents from the remaining forty-nine states and divided them into five categories (Table 1). After randomly selecting approximately 20 percent of the municipalities in each category, we identified all local planning managers. When a planning manager could not be identified, we contacted the city manager or mayor, or as a last resort, the general delivery email for the organization. Responses for planning practitioners were combined for the analysis (Table 2).
Local Units of Government by Size.
Survey Response Rate.
Results
Planning educators and practitioner managers agree that entry-level planners need a set of generic skills to succeed but differ on the relative importance of individual skills; these two groups generally disagree on how important technical skills are for entry-level planners.
Importance of Generic Skills
All respondents were provided with twenty-four defined generic skills (Table 3) and asked to indicate the importance of each skill for an entry-level planner on a scale from very important to not very important. Respondents were also asked to rate the importance of thirty-two more detailed skills, not all of which were defined for the respondent, using the same scale. The skills were based on those used in research by Greenlee, Edwards, and Anthony (2015), Seltzer and Ozawa (2002), and Ozawa, Seltzer, and Iroz-Elardo (2010) and in conversations with practitioners.
Percentage of Respondents Identifying Generic Skills as Most Important for an Undergraduate Student to Succeed and Between-Group Differences.
Note: The six shaded skill categories were ranked in the top eight most important skills by both planning educators and practitioners. The two categories with a single asterisk were ranked in the top eight most important skills by only planning educators; the two categories with two asterisks were ranked in the top eight most important skills by only planning practitioners. Negative between-group differences indicate that planning practitioners placed more importance on the skill than did planning educators.
We identified the eight most important generic skills selected by each respondent group (Table 3), instead of the five skill criteria used by Greenlee et al., because all planning educators ranked three skills as most important, and an additional five responses were identified as among the most important by 97.8 percent of responding educators. Although another five responses were identified as among the most important by 95.7 percent of planning educators, including these skills would (1) stretch the logic of a skill being “among the most important” by including more than half of generic skills in that grouping and (2) make comparing responses of practitioners and educators less meaningful by including skills practitioners identified as increasing less important.
Six of the top eight skills were common to both planning educators and planning practitioners. Three of these skills (writing, oral communication, and teamwork and collaboration) have been reported by several other researchers (Greenlee et al. 2015; Guzzetta and Bollens 2003; Ozawa and Seltzer 1999). Both groups also included attention to detail on work products and demonstrating a willingness to accept constructive criticism among the most important skills for an entry-level planner. These skills will help early career planners perfect their craft, and enhance the quality of their work products, under the tutelage of more experienced colleagues. Practitioners included time management and research in their top eight skills, whereas planning educators identified visual communication and synthesis among the eight most important skills for entry-level planners to possess. These generic skills enable entry-level staff to distill data into a format accessible to the public and help ensure that entry-level planners meet project deadlines.
There are three skills categories where there are at least 20-percentage point differences in the number of respondents rating the skill as one of the most important. Two-thirds of planning educators believe that social media savviness is one of the most important skills entry-level planners can possess; however; only 42.5 percent of planning managers agree. Similarly, 56.5 percent of planning educators believe that Internet skills (defined as the ability to design and maintain websites and web data interfaces) are among the most important for entry-level planners; however, less than 35.5 percent of planning managers concur. In fact, planning managers report that two of the few areas in which candidates for entry-level jobs possess skills that exceed the position requirements are in the social media and Internet categories. This suggests that either relatively few planning managers have embraced these public engagement techniques or, more likely, they have assigned these responsibilities to other staff.
Undergraduate planning faculty also place more emphasis on grantsmanship than do planning practitioners. Almost two-thirds of planning educators deem this to be one of the most important skills an entry-level planner needs, but less than 40 percent of practitioners agree. It is likely that more experienced senior staff are assigned this complex task. Likewise, although 73.9 percent of planning educators rank evaluation as one of the most important skills, less than 50 percent of all public-sector planning managers do so. Community organizing and recording are deemed to be among the most important skills by at least 10 percent more planning educators than planning managers. Planning educators also place more emphasis on information gathering than do planning managers.
One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) results suggest that planning educators and practitioner managers share the belief that a set of generic skills, including communications and time management, are the most important for entry-level planners (Table 4). This is not the case for three technical areas: social media, Internet, and evaluation; in each of these instances, there was between a 16- to 22-percentage point difference, significant at the .05 level, between planning faculty and practitioners. In addition, there were significant differences between planning educators and managers in seven skill areas: research (7.1%, p = .012); information retrieval (8.5%, p = .007); original information gathering (8.3%, p = .024); recording (14%, p = .016); grantsmanship (14.9%, p = .005); community organizing (8.0%, p = .044); and visual communication (8.3%, p = .004). These findings further support the argument that planning educators overemphasize technical skills that planning managers do not find as important as generic skills for their entry-level staff; conversely, practitioners emphasize the importance of research skills more than planning educators. These differences come into even sharper contrast for more narrowly defined skills.
One-Way ANOVA Results of Between-Group Differences of Respondents Identifying Generic Skills as Most Important for an Undergraduate Student to Succeed.
Note: Gray-shaded cells represent differences that are statistically significant at the .05 level. ANOVA = analysis of variance.
Specialized Skills Follow the Pattern
The most interesting finding was the level of disagreement between planning educators and managers over the importance of specialized or detailed skills entry-level planners need to succeed (Table 5). The largest difference, 39.8 percentage points, is between the importance planning educators and planning managers place on budgeting skills. 7 Although 78.3 percent of the educators believe it is among the most important skills, only 38.5 percent of managers agree. There are four other skills, including knowledge of TIFs, the ability to create graphs using spreadsheet software, and the ability to generate, and analyze, descriptive statistics, for which the importance given by planning educators and practitioners differs by more than 30 percentage points. There are another nine skills, including knowledge of SPSS, Google SketchUp, knowledge or an understanding of environmental planning concepts, ability to generate and understand inferential statistics, and physical planning/design, where the difference between planning managers and educators is more than 20 percentage points. In all of these cases, planning educators placed greater importance on technical skills than planning practitioners did.
Percentage of Respondents Identifying Specialized or Detailed Skills as Most Important for an Undergraduate Student to Succeed and Between-Group Differences.
Planning educators and managers agree on the importance of writing reports and ordinances, and communicating verbally with individuals or small groups, differing by less than 5 percentage points on these skills; however, a larger proportion of planning managers than educators emphasized the ability to draft ordinances as an important skill for entry-level planners. Planning educators and planning managers differed by fewer than 10 percentage points on other skills. Planning educators were more likely to emphasize the importance of writing memos than were practitioners; however, practitioners were more likely to emphasize the importance of drafting letters than were planning educators. Planning educators were also more likely to emphasize the importance of knowing land use terms, regulations, and laws than were practitioners. These findings suggest that planning faculty assign greater importance to detailed technical skills than do planning managers.
The one-way ANOVA results confirm this (Table 6). There is a statistically significant difference, at the .05 level, between the level of importance planning managers and educators assign to twenty-four of the thirty-three specialized skills that respondents were asked to rate. These twenty-four skills focused on technical areas, either on quantitative data analysis or tasks specific to the planning field. The responses of planning faculty and managers were not significantly different on writing reports, memos, letters, and ordinances, oral communications with customers, knowledge of land use regulations and laws or land use terms, GIS data editing, and detailed understanding of community development practices. Most of these skills focus on communicating, either with internal staff or with external customers. For example, entry-level planners’ knowledge of land use terms and regulations is important because they are likely to be assigned responsibility for staffing the customer service desk and responding to questions pertaining to the local zoning ordinance and requests for variances.
One-Way ANOVA Results of Between-Group Differences of Respondents Identifying Specialized or Detailed Skills as Most Important for an Undergraduate Student to Succeed.
Note: Gray-shaded cells represent differences that are statistically significant at the .05 level. ANOVA = analysis of variance.
Impact on Hiring
The disconnect between skills planning managers and educators deemed to be the most important for success in an entry-level position raises several questions. To investigate these questions, a follow-up survey asked practitioners to indicate which skills were required for entry-level staff and to characterize, in general terms, the level of preparedness of applicants for entry-level positions with no more than a bachelor’s degree in planning. The responses enable us to examine two sets of questions, the first examining how well prepared applicants with no experience and only an undergraduate degree are for their initial planning position, and the second focusing on the skills planning managers require entry-level applicants to possess.
The results suggest four things. First, a larger survey should be undertaken to confirm or refute these findings. Second, at least some planning practitioner managers believe undergraduate planning students are not prepared upon graduation for the entry-level planning positions they have available. 8 Third, these findings reinforce the argument that managers place more emphasis on generic skills than on technical skills in hiring entry-level candidates. Finally, planning managers report that recent graduates are well prepared in some areas. For example, more than 90 percent report that applicants meet position requirements for teamwork and collaboration; however, they are less well prepared in other areas.
Given the importance planning managers assigned to generic skills, we focused on those in terms of candidate preparation for entry-level positions (Table 7). Most managers indicated that candidates did not meet entry-level position requirements for holistic thinking. 9 More than 40 percent of respondents indicated that candidates did not meet the position requirements for attention to detail on work products, initiative, time management, or knowledge of land use regulations and laws. More than 30 percent of respondents indicated that entry-level candidates did not meet the position requirements for writing; problem solving, the ability to work independently; synthesizing material; and spatial and urban design, site planning.
At Least 30 Percent of Hiring Managers Indicate that Candidates for Entry-Level Planning Positions Do Not Meet Position Requirements for These Skills.
Note: The table includes only the skills at least 90 percent of respondents indicated were required for entry-level positions.
Less than half of planning managers indicated that eight technical or specialized skills, including basic or detailed knowledge of TIFs, the ability to generate and analyze inferential statistics, or using software such as SPSS, Tableau, or SketchUp, were required for entry-level planners (Table 8).
At Least 50 Percent of Hiring Managers Indicate that Entry-Level Planning Positions Do Not Require These Skills.
The data suggest that between 30 and 50 percent of students graduating from undergraduate planning programs are ill prepared for many of the generic tasks their managers will assign them, and they have learned a number of technical skills their managers value less than generic skills.
Discussion
There is market demand for planners with only an undergraduate degree in planning. More than half (50.3%) of planning managers indicated a willingness to hire applicants with a bachelor’s degree in planning for entry-level positions; another 43.3 percent would consider these applicants but would give preference to applicants with master’s degrees. Only 6.43 percent of respondents indicated that they would only consider applicants with a master’s degree for an entry-level position. 10
This demand for planners with only a bachelor’s degree suggests that planning departments without undergraduate planning programs should consider developing them. Departments that do have undergraduate programs should strengthen them because planning managers are divided on the question of how well current undergraduate planning programs prepare their graduates for entry-level planning positions. On one hand, an overwhelming percentage of planning managers and senior practitioners identified generic skills, such as good written and verbal communication skills, attention to detail, time management, and teamwork as the most important skills an entry-level planner can possess. Planning educators also indicate that undergraduate students need this set of generic skills to succeed. On the other hand, planning managers and educators are not communicating very effectively about the relative importance of specialized planning skills for the success of entry-level planners, especially in terms of the supply and demand for entry-level planning skills needed for planners with only a bachelor’s degree. Planning educators place much greater importance on economic development techniques and data presentation skills than planning managers do.
Undergraduate faculty place greater emphasis on technical skills than on generic skills. They ranked only four generic skills (synthesis, attention to detail, problem solving, and report writing) in the top 25 percent of the most important skills for undergraduates to master to succeed in entry-level positions. Faculty ranked four other generic skills (time management, holistic thinking, the ability to work independently, and taking initiative) in the top half of most important skills. The relatively low priority accorded generic skills are reflected in student outcomes.
Planning educators and practitioners agree that, to be effective, entry-level planners need some specialized knowledge of land use terms and regulations. Undergraduate degrees should provide stronger grounding in generic skills, such as writing, oral communication, and time management, that are applicable to a wide range of careers. Undergraduate programs should introduce basic planning concepts and skills but focus on generic skills that prepare students for entry-level positions in planning or other career fields. The relative dearth of undergraduate planning programs compared with the number of graduate programs suggests that most graduate planning students do not have undergraduate degrees in planning. The ACSP’s Guide reports more than 5,850 master’s students were enrolled in a planning program in the 2012–2013 academic year, giving further weight to the idea that many graduate planning students earned their undergraduate degrees in fields other than planning. These students would not have been exposed to many of the technical skills planning educators deem among the most important for entry-level planners and will have to learn them in graduate school. Fortunately, graduate planning programs can be more focused than undergraduate programs, guiding graduate students along a clearly defined track, such as physical planning/design, environmental planning, or transportation planning and help students develop technical skills, thereby preparing them for more specialized roles.
Undergraduate planning students interested in advancing their careers have two non-mutually exclusive options: they can enroll in a graduate program or gain experience on the job. The American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) recognizes the latter option by allowing students with undergraduate degrees from Planning Accreditation Program (PAB)-accredited programs to sit for the AICP certification examination after three-year planning experience and those graduating from programs not accredited by the PAB to sit for the exam with four years (American Planning Association, n.d.). Graduates from PAB-accredited graduate programs are eligible to sit for the AICP examination with only two years of planning experience. The AICP has, in effect, equated the two years required to complete a master’s degree in planning with two years of work experience for students graduating from a program not accreted by PAB or one year for those graduating from a PAB-accredited undergraduate program.
Planning managers indicated that more than half of all entry-level applicants with undergraduate degrees in planning did not meet the position requirements for holistic thinking, that is, to see the big picture and understand the interaction between disparate elements within a community or region. This is a key element of planning: the bedrock of a vision for the future. Managers also reported that, during the hiring process, more than 40 percent of applicants did not demonstrate an ability to meet the requirements for attention to detail on work products, initiative, and time management. These are basic career-ready skills that undergraduates should master prior to graduation. Report writing and problem solving are two more areas where undergraduates should be competent, but planning managers indicate that more than a third of applicants failed to demonstrate their ability to meet the position requirements in these areas. This deficiency suggests that undergraduate planning students would be better served by faculty if the latter increased their emphasis on enhancing their students’ writing and problem-solving skills. Changing the status quo is difficult; however, in doing so, we can enhance the skills planning managers value the most in entry-level planners. The way forward is to rethink the structure of planning education, and it is to that we now turn.
Conclusion and Recommendations
This research has demonstrated that undergraduate faculty teaching priorities do not align well with employer expectations for entry-level applicants. Although planning managers are willing to hire applicants with bachelor’s degrees for entry-level positions, these managers have determined that many applicants do not meet position requirements in generic, nontechnical skills. To meet the demand for entry-level planners, undergraduate planning programs should increase their emphasis on the core skills planning managers identify as critical for entry-level planners.
Planning departments with undergraduate and graduate programs should consider establishing a departmental committee to review their program goals, the focus of each degree, and the extent to which the programs complement each other. Planning departments with only undergraduate programs should identify which graduate programs their students are most likely to enroll in and work with graduate faculty at those institutions to align their curriculum. Undergraduate and graduate degrees in planning should be complementary, not duplicative. Any program revisions should reward faculty for ensuring that undergraduate students become accomplished in the broad-based planning and core generic skills planning that managers expect entry-level applicants to have mastered upon graduation.
Faculty in planning departments with undergraduate programs should reach out to planning managers across the spectrum of local and regional governmental and nongovernmental agencies that employ planners to determine, or verify, the skill requirements for entry-level planners, the extent to which recent graduates have met these requirements, and how amenable planning managers are to hiring entry-level staff with only a bachelor’s degree in planning. The ACSP and APA should facilitate the growth and expansion of undergraduate planning programs within departments that closely align their degree requirements with identified needs. This will likely result in faculty in undergraduate planning programs deemphasizing technical skills and concentrating on ensuring that planning students graduate with an ability to view planning or other problems from a holistic perspective, possess stronger written and verbal communication skills, and are able to accurately complete assignments within the allotted time.
More research on undergraduate planning education is needed. Future research should compare the types and, when feasible, the content of required core courses in undergraduate planning programs to understand the emphasis faculty place on generic and specialized skills across the curriculum. Recent undergraduate alumni could be surveyed to determine the extent to which they agree with the impressions of planning managers about the relative importance of generic skills for entry-level planners. An extensive review of entry-level positions posted on the APA website, and those of APA Chapters, should be undertaken to compare the results of this survey with the skills and expectations employers release for public consumption. Greater understanding of the types of organizations recent undergraduates work in, and the type of career tracks available to them, should also be studied. These projects are vital as planning faculty strive to ensure that planning managers do not deem entry-level planners, especially those with only a bachelor’s degree, as lacking the skills or ability needed to succeed. If our students are so deemed, we are failing them, and we need to work diligently to correct this outcome.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
