In a front-page business article in the May 23 edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reporter David Smith writes:
The University of Central Arkansas will begin offering community development consulting for cities June 1 through its new Strategic Growth Institute, the executive director of the program said Monday.
The institute will work with communities in Arkansas and other states to produce a strategic plan for development, said Robert Pittman, executive director of the Strategic Growth Institute and UCA?s Community Development Institute. Pittman also is senior managing director at the CH2M Hill-Lockwood Greene engineering and consulting firm in Atlanta.
Earlier this year representatives from Brinkley and Monroe County asked Pittman and the Community Development Institute to develop a strategic plan for the area. Two of Pittman?s graduate students went to Brinkley andmade a well-received assessment, Pittman said.
?Then [Brinkley officials] said they wanted to partner with UCA to help them move forward in community and economic development,? Pittman said. ?But we weren?t set up to do that kind of consulting work.?
It led UCA to accelerate its plans to add an entity that would work closely with cities to help determine their needs.
Baxter Sharp, a Brinkley lawyer, said the community assessment work UCA did was very thorough.
?We were very pleased with it, and now we?re waiting on information to see how we can take the next step,? Sharp said Tuesday.UCA hired Jennifer Tanner as managing director of both institutes.
Tanner previously was senior project manager with CH2M-Hill Lockwood Greene?s economic development andbusiness location practice.
?The basis of any community development is first doing a community assessment,? Tanner said.
There already are other entities similar to UCA?s Strategic Growth Institute at prominent universities such as Georgia Tech University and Carnegie Mellon.
But UCA?s program will differ from those programs, said Rhonda Phillips, director for the Center for Building Better Communities at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
?Within a university setting, you?ll find research centers, but they tend to focus on regional issues of community and economic development,? said Phillips, who has known Pittman for years. ?I see [UCA?s] Strategic Growth Institute as a departure from that traditional model by being much more inclusive. It has really a national focus.
?I see that they?ve positioned the Strategic Growth Institute as bigger than just a local center. This is going to bring in national-level people with research and practice and private-sector experience, matching that with public sector needs.?
The Strategic Growth Institute will be a community development arm of CH2M Hill-Lockwood Greene, Pittman said.
?We?ll be doing a lot of projects that might not be on Lockwood Greene?s radar screen,? Pittman said.
The Strategic Growth Institute is the third community-development program developed by UCA. The school opened the country?s first Community Development Institute in 1987 and expanded that with a master of science degree in community and economic development in2001.
More than 2,500 participants from more than 35 states have taken courses at UCA?s Community Development Institute. They become certified community developers after completing the institute?s three week-long seminars over three years and passing an exam. The institute is not only for economic developers but also for anyone interested in economic and community development.
?You can?t have successful economic development if you don?t have community development,? Pittman said. ?Everyone knows that you have to have an industrial park and infrastructure, but you also need qualityof-life things that will in the end attract companies or repel them.That?s what the Community Development Institute is about: making communities a better product for companies to buy.?
Joe Holmes, spokesman for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, said the agency is supportive ?of anything that would help communities be stronger.?
One executive at the state agency already is on the board of the Community Development Institute.
Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway, said the Strategic Growth Institute can assist depressed areas in Arkansas.
?UCA already has [the Community Development Institute] in place, which is innovative and original, as well as the master?s program,? Baker said. ?I think the Strategic Growth Institute is the third pillar to do great thingsrelated to community and economic development.?
Students with the Strategic Growth Institute and the Community Development Institute will work later this year in developing community assessment plans for Dumas and Lake Providence, La.
Copyright ? 2007, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
