SCARP Associate Professor Mark Stevens receives Dean's Award for Service

Mark in blazer, and APSC graphic plaque for award

November 28, 2022

The School is delighted to share with you that SCARP Associate Professor Mark Stevens is be one of the recipients of the Dean’s Award for Service this year!

About this award

The Award for Excellence in Service is presented by the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science. It is designed to recognize faculty who through leadership, service and administrative activates make substantial positive high impact contributions to their Departments, Schools and the Faculty as a whole. It is through these efforts that we are able to provide our students with the highest quality educational experience.

About Mark Stevens

Mark, in blazer, outside building

Dr. Mark Stevens joined UBC in July 2009. He has professional experience as a natural resources planner for a city government and a regional planner for a council of governments in the state of Oregon.

Mark’s research interests center on evaluating the effectiveness of local and regional government land use planning efforts, with a goal of producing new knowledge that can help communities anticipate and adapt to changes according to the principles of sustainable development. He has particular interests in plan-making and implementation, growth management, natural hazard mitigation, and legal issues in planning.

As Program Chair of SCARP's Masters of Community and Regional Planning program, Mark was at the helm of its substantive curriculum redevelopment, as well as this year's accreditation projects. 

Full citation of Mark's award:

As Chair of the Masters of Community Regional Planning (MCRP), Mark has led a major program review from initiation through to Senate approval. This took a period of more than two years, also coinciding with the pandemic. He has worked closely with colleagues in the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, and has also sought to educate himself in current advanced education pedagogy, including concerns and approaches to decolonising the curriculum. He has used this knowledge to the benefit of the School’s curriculum, alongside engaging with students and professional colleagues in the regions, and working closely with faculty.

The work involved in this substantial curriculum review is significant in and of itself, but additionally in the last year Mark has led the drafting of the self‐study reports for two accreditation site visits. The first, in March 2022, was by the Planning Standards Board of Canada, and the second, a highly complex and extremely demanding process undergone in October, was by the Planning Accreditation Board of the USA. Throughout the review and the preparation for the accreditation visits Mark has shown an unflappable commitment to the furtherance of the quality and distinctiveness of planning education at SCARP. This in turn is reflected in the positive outcomes of the accreditation visits, and also in the encouraging responses from students and applicants to the program.

Our director Heather campbell shared a few words in celebration of Mark's achievement: 
Heather Campbell with trees

Individually and collectively we owe Mark a huge amount for his commitment to ensuring that the MCRP program lives up to our educational aspirations. The School, and more especially, our students, the planners of tomorrow, are benefitting hugely from this dedication. Mark has also shown immense stoicism in the face of the School's age of growth and development. I see this as an especially significant award, given as it is for service, and hence the activities which so often go unnoticed, and certainly without acclaim, yet underpin the success of any academic unit.

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