Make a Gift
The College of Environmental Design and its departments rely on the generosity of alumni and friends to help us sustain our standards of excellence as a learn-by-doing institution. Your investment helps:
- Advance innovation and applied research within the design disciplines
- Create learning environments that foster student, faculty and industry collaboration
- Transform student training through cutting-edge instruction
We invite you to be a part of our future!
For more information, please visit the College of Environmental Design, which maintains a section with detailed information on how to make a gift.
For opportunities to directly support the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, please see the programs outlined in the sections below.
Born in New York to a German-American brewing dynasty, Margarita McCoy was a pioneer for women in the urban planning field.
Her 50-year career began in 1959 as an elected member of the planning board for the City of Sudbury in Massachusetts. She was one of the first in the nation to hold a tenure-track position in planning and the first female full professor of planning in the United States, teaching at Cal Poly Pomona and the University of Southern California. At the time McCoy accepted her professorship, she was the only female faculty. By the time of her retirement in 1989, CPP’s urban planning program had risen to national acclaim, and female professors were in close parity with their male colleagues. That diversity is reflected in the department’s current pool of tenured and affiliated faculty.
To honor McCoy's legacy and contributions to the urban planning profession and higher education, the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly Pomona established the Margarita P. McCoy Scholarship in Urban Planning.
There are two ways to support the Margarita P. McCoy Scholarship:
1. Visit the Margarita McCoy Scholarship giving page to make an online contribution, or
2. Make your check payable to:
Cal Poly Pomona Philanthropic Foundation
Memo line: Margarita McCoy Scholarship
Mailing Address:
Cal Poly Pomona
Cal Poly Pomona Gift Processing Office
PO Box 3121
Pomona, CA 91769
Working in partnership with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the URP Alumni Chapter is working to help raise more than $50,000 for the URP 50th Anniversary Endowed Scholarship Program. The annual award will grant $2,000 to a high-achieving undergraduate or graduate student enrolled in the program.
In hitting this auspicious milestone, the Alumni Chapter celebrates the department's tradition of excellence and forward-thinking. Its formative years were shaped by the late Margarita McCoy, a pioneer for women in the urban planning field who was the first to hold a tenure-track position in planning and the first female full professor of planning in the United States. Over the next five decades, the program has trained planning professionals who have gone on to serve as leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Others have shaped urban culture in careers outside the planning profession, as members of the news media and advocates of institutional arts.
As society changes more rapidly, our graduates’ skills become more critical. We hope you will join us by investing in the future of program and the profession.
Online donations can be made in support of:
- 50th Anniversary Endowed Scholarship
- Other areas of need in the department and college
Read the letter of support from URP Alumni Chapter President Manuel Munoz and Steve Preston('80, BS; '84, MS), former president of the American Planning Association - California Chapter and the Caliornia Planning Roundtable.