| What: Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs
Where: University of Minnesota Center for Urban and Regional Affairs
Who: John Adams, professor of geography, planning and public affairs
Contact: Mike Greco, Communications Coordinator, CURA, 612-625-7501, curaweb@umn.edu
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/12/2000) -- John Adams--professor of geography, planning and public affairs and chair of the department of geography at the University of Minnesota--has been named the first Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs. Adams’ appointment was made by Graduate School Dean and Vice President for Research Christine Maziar, based on recommendations from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA).
Tom Scott, director of CURA, called Adams “the logical and obvious choice to be the first holder of the Fesler-Lampert Chair. The quality and quantity of his contributions to our understanding of urban affairs--through his research, teaching and community outreach--are unmatched by anyone else at this or most other universities.”
The Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs is one of four endowed chairs and two named professorships made possible through a $1 million contribution to the University of Minnesota by David and Elizabeth Fesler in 1985, through the David R. Fesler Fund of the Saint Paul Foundation.
The gift was matched by a $1 million allocation from the Permanent University Fund, and the combined endowment and matching funds have now grown in value to more than $9.5 million. The endowment is intended to stimulate interdisciplinary research and teaching through the appointment of distinguished, broadly educated scholars to endowed faculty positions at the University of Minnesota.
Adams has been a professor of geography at the University of Minnesota for the last 30 years. In addition to his many teaching accomplishments, he served as the first director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs from 1976 to 1979 and directed the Urban Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts.
He has written, edited, or co-written more than 100 articles, books and reports on the American city, regional economic development, intra-urban migration, housing markets, urban transportation and urban development. His publications include the four-volume “Contemporary Metropolitan America, A Comparative Atlas of America’s Great Cities,” “Housing America in the 1980s” and “The Path of Urban Decline.”
Adams plans to use the resources provided by his appointment to revise and update “Minneapolis–St. Paul: People, Place and Public Life,” written with Barbara VanDrasek. The book will be revised based on population and housing data from the 2000 Census.
“Much has changed since the first edition of that book,” Adams explained. “Our earlier book helped many local citizens and leaders understand the way this area works. I hope that the revision will do the same.”
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