2023 Dale Prize Environmental Justice: Planning Lessons from the Past and Present to Move Forward
February 28, 2023
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The Dale Prize recognizes planning excellence, creates dialogue between scholars and practitioners, and enriches the education of planning students. The Dale Prize is awarded in pairs: a $5,000 award to a scholar and a $5,000 award to a practitioner. Awardees spend two days meeting with students in classes and participate in a colloquium and other events.
The 2023 theme is Environmental Justice: Planning Lessons from the Past & Present to Move Forward.
Environmental Justice focuses on the disproportionate impact of sources of pollution in racialized and working-class communities. After four decades, the Environmental Justice movement has achieved momentum in its work to challenge and undo theories and practices of racist governing bodies, agencies, planners and other actors that result in environmental harm to racialized and marginalized communities.
Unfortunately, in addition to government agencies redlining cities, where racialized communities are segregated in poor communities, urban planners and other leaders also facilitated environmental racism with racist zoning and land use practices, such as locating sources of pollution in these communities. Environmental Justice advocacy brings attention to place-based environmental racism and injustice, such as the water crises in Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, the wreckage wrought to air and water by concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in many rural areas of the South and Midwest, and the pollution of local air and soil by refining operations. To rectify these racist practices, we, as planners, must not only study our past racist practices, but also our current ones to build and imagine a world where everyone has access to clean water, air and land.
Place-based and local organizations are at the front lines of much of this advocacy. Hence, our goal in selecting the 2023 Dale Prize Practitioner is to learn about innovative practices from a leader in such an organization or grassroots movement. Moreover, environmental justice scholarship is often grounded in the intersections among advocacy and the study of racism and marginalized communities. Hence, our goal in selecting a 2023 Dale Prize Scholar is to learn from a leading researcher working in those intersections.
In this context, the 2023 Dale Prize aims to provide insight into Environmental Justice from the perspectives of a practitioner and scholar to inform urban and regional planners.
The Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona seeks nominations for the 2023 William R. and June Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning.
The Dale Prize seeks a scholar and a practitioner in environmental justice or a related area to explore these issues with the Urban and Regional Planning students and the rest of the Cal Poly Pomona community. Dale Prize events will be held February 28-March 2, 2023.
Nominations are due on December 5, 2022.
Nominations Procedure
The prize winners will be selected based on:
- Evidence of substantial knowledge contribution to the field. This includes but is not limited to the quality and quantity of research, research/practice collaborations, impact on the field, and peer recognition.
- Applicability to the theme, Environmental Justice: Planning Lessons from the Past & Present to Move Forward.
- Potential for linking research results to planning theory (scholar).
- Potential for linking practice results to planning practice (practitioner).
The package may be submitted in digital format by email or through a file sharing service. Self-nominations is accepted.
The package should include the following:
Nomination of Scholars
- Nominating Cover Letter
- Name and current affiliation and description of nominee’s contribution to the field
- Narrative justifying the nomination (3 page maximum)
- Nominee’s Curriculum Vitae
- Description and examples of research, publications and/or other contributions to the field. This can include links to internet sites where research or publications can be reviewed.
- Contact information for the nominator
- Contact information for the nominee
- Approval by nominee of the nomination, including a commitment to be available in person for the full days of February 28-March 2, 2023. The Colloquium on February 28 will be held virtually.
Nomination of Practitioners
- Nominating Cover Letter
- Name and current affiliation and description of nominee’s contribution to the field
- Narrative justifying the nomination (3 page maximum)
- Resume/Curriculum Vitae/Portfolio
- Description and examples of projects, programs, experience and other contributions to the field. This can include links top internet sites where research or publications can be reviewed.
- Contact information for the nominator
- Contact information for the nominee
- Approval by nominee of the nomination, including a commitment to be available in person for the full days of February 28-March 2, 2023. The Colloquium on February 28 will be held virtually.
Submittals should be electronically sent to: urpdept@cpp.edu. Please put 2023 Dale Prize Nomination in the subject line.
Contact
If you have additional questions, please contact:
Dr. Gwen Urey
gurey@cpp.edu
(909) 869-2725
The Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Cal Poly Pomona is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 William R. and June Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning. Michael Mendez, Ph.D., assistant professor of Environmental Policy and Planning at the University of California, Irvine, has won the Scholar Prize. Ms. Elizabeth Yeampierre, the co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and the executive director of UPROSE, has won the Practitioner Prize.
Practitioner Prize Winner
Ms. Elizabeth Yeampierre
Executive Director, UPROSE and
Co-Chair, Climate Justice Alliance
Elizabeth Yeampierre is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican environmental/climate justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry, born and raised in New York City. Elizabeth is co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national frontline led organization and Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization. Elizabeth was the 1st Latina Chair of the USEPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and opening speaker for the first White House Council on Environmental Quality Forum on Environmental Justice under Obama. Elizabeth has been featured in the NY Times as a visionary paving the path to Climate Justice. She was twice named by Apolitical as Climate 100: The World’s Most Influential People in Climate Policy , also featured in Vogue as one of 13 Climate Warriors in the world, Oprah’s list of Future Rising and a recipient of the Frederick Douglass Abolitionist Award FD200 and recently featured in PBS's Brief but Spectacular. This past year Elizabeth spoke at Oxford University, the Ethos Conference in Brazil and the Hague.
Scholar Prize Winner
Dr. Michael Mendez
PhD, MCP
Assistant Professor and Andrew Carnegie Fellow School of Social Ecology, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy University of California, Irvine
Dr. Michael Mendez is an assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and Visiting Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He previously was the inaugural James and Mary Pinchot Faculty Fellow in Sustainability Studies and Associate Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. Michael has more than a decade of senior-level experience in the public and private sectors, where he consulted and actively engaged in the policymaking process. This included working for the California State Legislature as a senior consultant, lobbyist, a member of the California State Mining & Geology Board, and as vice-chair of the Sacramento City Planning Commission. In 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Mendez to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. The board regulates water quality in a region of 11 million people.
During his time as a scholar, he has contributed to state and national research policy initiatives, including serving as an advisor to a California Air Resources Board member, and as a co-author of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s study on “Climate Vulnerability and Social Science Perspectives.” Michael is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Environmental Change and Society (BECS), a co-author of the forthcoming National Academies of Sciences’ consensus study, "Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions," and a co-author of the upcoming National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the U.S. Government's premier report on climate change impacts, risks, and adaptation across the Nation (a Congressionally mandated, interagency effort).
Dr. Mendez holds three degrees in environmental planning and policy, including a PhD from UC Berkeley's Department of City and Regional Planning, and a graduate degree from MIT. His research on the intersection of climate change and communities of color has been featured in national publications including National Geographic, Los Angeles Times, Politico, NPR, Bloomberg News, USA Today; and Fox Latino News. His new award-winning book “Climate Change from the Streets,” published through Yale University Press (2020), is an urgent and timely story of the contentious politics of incorporating environmental justice into global climate change policy. The book was the winner of the Harold and Margaret Sprout Award, sponsored by the International Studies Association (ISA) and the Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Award by the Association for Humanist Sociology; and a finalist for the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning’s John Friedmann Book Award.
Dr. Méndez's new research focuses on climate-induced disasters and social vulnerability. This research has been supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Early Career Faculty Award. In conjunction with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), this project explores the disparate impacts of extreme wildfire, heatwave, and drought events on undocumented Latino/a and Indigenous migrants.