University of Illinois at Chicago Office of Public Affairs (MC 288)
601 S. Morgan St., Chicago, IL 60607-7113, (312) 996-3456, www.uic.edu/depts/paff

August 24, 2000

Contact:Jeffron Boynés (312) 413-8702; jboynes@uic.edu

DAVID PERRY NAMED INTERIM DEAN OF UIC COLLEGE OF
URBAN PLANNING AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

David Perry, director of the Great Cities Institute, a university-wide urban affairs research center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has assumed duties as interim dean for the university's College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. The appointment is pending Board of Trustees approval at its September meeting. Perry succeeds Wim Wiewel, who last month was named dean of the College of Business Administration.

"Everyone on campus feels that David is the most dynamic advocate for the urban affairs and Great Cities agendas," said Provost Elizabeth Hoffman. "He will make a stellar interim dean."

"Since coming to Chicago two years ago, David has impressed everyone in his role as director of the Great Cities Institute," said Wiewel. "As associate dean for research at the college, he has fostered major collaboration among its research centers and will do a great job maintaining the college's momentum."

In assuming the interim deanship, Perry, who was both "pleased and honored," said he hopes to continue to "nurture UIC's unique process of joining new and innovative university research with programs and agendas of urban people and institutions" to better meet the demands of urban life.

"When it comes to engaged research and educational accomplishment, there are few colleges in the country that match the UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs' level and depth," added Perry, who continues his appointment as professor of urban planning in the college.

With new leadership in academic programs, strong peer evaluations and full research agendas in action at each of its seven research centers, Perry said the college is now well positioned to have "the most productive and active year in the college's history."

Perry has served on numerous public boards and commissions and authored more than 50 articles and book chapters, and more than 100 government reports, policy analyses and plans for state, local and national institutions. He founded and served as the first director of the Center for Regional Studies at SUNY Buffalo, where he was a professor of planning at the School of Planning and Architecture. He participated in a two-year assessment of 16 services provided by 123 governments in western New York, and his work has appeared in academic journals and the New York Times, The Nation and Metropolis magazine.

In addition to 15 years at SUNY Buffalo, where he served as chair of planning and environmental design, Perry spent two and one-half years as the Albert A. Levin Chair of Urban Studies and Public Services at Cleveland State University.

While in Cleveland, Perry co-authored "Managing Local Government." He is also the author of "Building the Public City" and the urban theory collection, "Spatial Practices," edited and co-authored with Helen Liggett.

Among his early books were "Police in the Metropolis" and "Violence as Politics." Perry and Alfred Watkins edited and co-wrote the highly influential book, "Rise of the Sunbelt Cities."

Perry is senior research fellow at the International Institute of Communications at San Diego State University. He is currently working on a reassessment of the politics of debt formation and public infrastructure policy in the United States, titled "Building the City Through the Backdoor: Debt Formation and the Public Realm."

After receiving his Ph.D. from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, Perry taught at the University of Texas in Austin where he published extensively in the areas of urban political economy, public administration and politics.

With 25,000 students, the University of Illinois at Chicago is the largest and most diverse university in the Chicago area and one of only 88 national Research I universities. Located just west of Chicago's Loop, UIC is a vital part of the educational, technological and cultural fabric of the entire metropolitan region.

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