The planners we want

On an academic planners listserve, there is currently a discussion over the increasing demands being placed on planning academics to get positions and tenure. In the midst of a critique of this approach, Peter Marcuse has suggested the following:

We want planners with imagination, with social values, with a desire to explore and investigate new frontiers and think of alternatives not already in the mainstream. We want planners who are personally sensitive to how others feel and act and are treated and affected by public and private policies with which they deal. That requires a life not confined to hours in libraries and in front of computers. If their career is to be in academia teaching, we want good teachers, teachers with empathy for their students, themselves engaged in doing what they preach, exciting teachers whose vision of good teaching goes beyond a sound syllabus and responses to specific assignments. We want planners who are excited about their work, dedicated to it as part of full and active personal as well as professional lives.