UW Announces 2017 Scholarship Recipient Rose Atkinson 

By: Kirk Rappe, APA-WA Scholarship Committee Co-Chair

The University of Washington Urban Design and Planning program chose Rose Atkinson to be the 2017 student recipient of the Washington Chapter APA Scholarship. As co-chair of the APA-Washington scholarship committee I am pleased to hear about Rose receiving the scholarship due to her many accomplishments and dedication to the American Planning Association.

Rose grew up and went to university on the East Coast—Long Island, New York, then western Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree, like many planners, was only tangentially related to urban planning. She majored in Economics and Development Studies and then moved to the Mississippi Delta region to teach mathematics and a class called Diversity and Social Justice for a few years.

It was when she was teaching the class on diversity that she learned about urban planning and the positive impact great planning can have on communities. In her words, she learned urban planning was more than just the physical design of a city. 

Her graduate studies at UW focus on urban planning and real estate and she is pursuing both her Masters of Urban Planning and Masters in Real Estate in the College of Built Environments. Her professional goals are to connect urban planning theory with real estate practice and she is considering working in the field of affordable housing—bringing new insights and practical applications to helping community housing challenges.

Since moving to Seattle, Rose has become involved in the APA Washington Youth in Planning Task Force, teaching youth about planning issues, especially in underrepresented communities.

She thanks the Urban Design and Planning Program’s scholarship selection committee and APA Washington for selecting her for this honor.

Return to the September/October issue of The Washington Planner