Professor Fritz Wagner, a faculty member in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, gave a talk called “Urban Planning and the Politics of Decision Making: Insights into New Orleans and Aspects of Resilience” on January 26, 2019, to 14 graduate students of the Graduate School of Land Management and Regional Planning at Université Laval in Québec City, Canada. Students came from many countries, including France, Senegal, Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Haiti and Canada.
For more than two decades, Dr. Wagner has developed a close relationship with Université Laval that includes research collaboration and academic exchange programs, as well as frequent direct contributions to courses offered Laval, one of the largest French-speaking institutions in North America.
Dr. Régent Cabana has worked in close collaboration with Dr. Wagner to develop exchange programs among US, Canadian and Mexican universities, as well as a University of Washington course in Québec in the summer.
Dr. Cabana invited Dr. Wagner to talk to his students on urban resilience. Drawing on his wide-ranging experience, both professional and personal, Dr. Wagner engaged the students in lively discussions about planning for disasters in cities all over the world. Dr. Wagner is scheduled to meet with the students once more during the semester. He is also acting as an adviser to Dr. Cabana’s class. It is the sixth year that the course, “Villes en Reconstruction (Rebuilding Cities after a Disaster),” has been offered.