Dr. C. Aujean Lee, an Assistant Professor in the Regional + City Planning Division, recently published an article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research titled “Who Gets Hired at the Top?: The Academic Caste System Theory in the Planning Academy.” The article is the first to examine detailed faculty demographics and impacts of elite hiring networks among planning faculty, where nearly half of planning faculty graduated from five universities. The article was funded by the OU Inequities in the Academic Research and Creative Activity Enterprise Rapid Response Research Seed Grant program.
The abstract of the article explains, “Faculty are predominantly hired in similar or lower ranking programs with little upward mobility, after accounting for demographics and program factors. While race and gender did not have a significant relationship to placements, the findings demonstrate how status-based inequities are perpetuated through elite programs and constrain faculty representation.”
Associate Professors Lee Fithian, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Pober have published a chapter in the recently released New Perspectives in Indoor Air Quality, published by Elsevier. Their contribution, titled “Chapter 16 – Architecture and the Challenges of Indoor Air Quality,” examines the relationship between architecture and indoor air quality.
Dr. Ladan Mozaffarian, Assistant Professor of Regional and City Planning, has been selected to serve as Co-Chair of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG) for the 2025–2027 term.
The Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to recognize Tahsin Tabassum, a recent graduate of the college’s Master of Regional and City Planning program and current doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, for receiving the prestigious 2024–2025 American Planning Association (APA) Outstanding Student Award.
