EUGENE, Ore. -- (Jan. 3, 2011) - The University of Oregon's Sustainable Cities Initiative has hired Robert Liberty, former University of Oregon student body president and Rhodes Scholar, as the program's executive director.
Liberty currently serves as an elected member of the Metro Council, the Portland, Ore. regional government. Councilor Liberty has represented 240,000 residents in Northeast, Southeast and Southwest Portland since 2005. Liberty will resign his Metro position and begin full-time at UO Jan. 18.
Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) is one of five interdisciplinary themes, called "Big Ideas," that are shaping the future academic priorities at the UO. Started at the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts, SCI now extends across disciplines into other schools and colleges on campus. The program aims to transform higher education with community engagement, interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainability study to influence public policy.
The role of executive director is a new position for the three-year-old program. Duties will focus on building key relationships with state and federal policy makers and others to grow the program that integrates research, education, service and public outreach around issues of sustainable city design.
"Robert's expertise is a great fit for the leadership opportunity we envisioned with the role of executive director," said Marc Schlossberg, co-director of UO's Sustainable Cities Initiative and planning professor. "SCI will have greater impact on national policy, research and community change with his leadership."
Liberty has worked for 30 years at the neighborhood, city and county, state and federal levels of government as an elected official, as a staff attorney and executive director of the nonprofit organization 1000 Friends of Oregon, as Senior Counsel to Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), and as an attorney and consultant in the private sector. He brings experience with smart growth, sustainable planning and development, land use, transportation planning, and land conservation programs.
"This is great news for the University of Oregon. Robert Liberty will provide national and international leadership in research and policy for sustainable and livable cities and towns," said Blumenauer, founder of the Livable Cities Caucus in Congress. "I look forward to working with him in his new role in our common efforts to make the nation's cities more livable and more sustainable."
The UO's Sustainable Cities works at a variety of scales, from regions to individual buildings, actively seeking solutions to sustainable city design problems. SCI organizes a number of initiatives annually, including an expert-in-residence program and the Sustainable City Year (SCY) that teams students with city officials to plan for sustainable futures. For 2010-11, faculty and students are working with Salem, Oregon's capitol city. The SCI effort is notable for its integration of a variety of academic disciplines in service to creating more sustainable communities.
"I am looking forward to working with the dynamic faculty members at the University of Oregon to expand the impact of the Sustainable Cities Initiative across Oregon and the nation," said Liberty. "I look forward to building new partnerships with governments, business, nongovernmental organizations and other universities."
SCI was recently awarded the Bridge Builders award from the Partners for Livable Communities in recognition of the program's interdisciplinary engagement of scholars, community leaders and project partners. The award represents growing national attention for the innovative approach to sustainability at the center of SCI's work.
"Robert Liberty, like the Oregon planning system, has a national reputation for leadership in livability," said David Bragdon, director of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, City of New York. "As a former colleague of Robert's on the Metro Council I know he will boost the University of Oregon's ability to help cities across the nation become more sustainable and equitable."
SCI is part of a consortium that was recently awarded a Smart Growth grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to further the livability and sustainability agenda of the Eugene-Springfield region. This was the only grant awarded in the State of Oregon, and one of 45 grants awarded across the country.
Liberty is a graduate of the UO Clark Honors College, Oxford University, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and Harvard Law School. In 2002-03 he was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
For more information about Sustainable Cities, visit http://sci.uoregon.edu/.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 63 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Brown, UO media relations, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
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