Where Do Planners belong? Assessing the Relationship between Planning and design in American Universities

This article assesses the performance of U.S. planning programs relative to their administrative location in design versus nondesign units. We use both archival data to compare program rankings between design and nondesign units and a survey of a random sample of faculty (108 at 61 accredited programs). The archival data show a higher publication performance of programs in nondesign units. The survey finds that faculty respondents from nondesign locations have more favorable evaluations of their programs than do respondents from design locations. Administrators and faculty differ: while faculty in design units score their programs dramatically lower, administrators have a moderate difference in the reverse direction.