Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences

Continuing education and technical assistance for community practitioners and leaders

Continuing education and technical assistance for community practitioners and leaders

The mission of the Urban Municipal Parks program is to develop and disseminate continuing education and technical assistance materials for community practitioners and leaders, supporting parks and park-like environments. We provide technical assistance and evidence based planning tools for local communities and county offices related to parks, open spaces, and trails.

Faculty

Jamie Rae Walker,

Associate Professor and Extension Specialist, Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

Initiatives

Small Community Park or Trail Master Plan Workshop

This workshop is designed to help practitioners, volunteers, and community leaders in communities with populations under 20,000 learn how to compile or update their Community’s Parks and Open Space or Trail Master Plan. We assist attendees in developing their project plans In addition to providing overviews and teaching instruction.

Dynamic Citizen Input Processes Boot Camp

This comprehensive offering provides practitioners the opportunity to learn and practice techniques for making citizen input processes for park, trail, and open space topics processes more dynamic. The workshop focuses on interactive processes that involve elements like mapping, brainstorming, and prioritizing.

Citizen Input Process Design Workshop

This workshop aims to help practitioners, volunteers, and community leaders learn how to design and plan a basic process for receiving citizen input.

Facilitator Boot Camp

The Facilitator Boot Camp provides practitioners the opportunity to improve their facilitation planning, delivery, and data analysis skills for conducting citizen input processes. The boot camp primarily focuses on developing or improving techniques for park department practitioners and volunteers.

Programs in development

• Crime Prevention through Environmental Design*
• Tactical Urbanism and Pop Ups*
• Painted Places*
• Wayfiding *
• Doing more with Less

Survey Design Workshop

Our survey design workshop helps practitioners, volunteers, and community leaders learn how to and practice designing basic surveys and data collection plans for citizen input.

Pop Up Play/ Playstreets*

This initiative provides practitioners and community leaders with an overview of successful programs. It reviews key steps used to plan and implement a program, and highlights how outcomes and impacts are measured. The workshop allows time for developing a basic evidence assessment and project plan for participants’ local communities.