My approach to teaching fosters inclusive excellence for tomorrow’s planning leaders with diverse theoretical perspectives and emerging planning techniques. I orient classwork toward pragmatic sustainability and justice, and value learning new perspectives from students and graduate advisees. Learn more about the M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning at UTSA.
I am a faculty advisor for students pursuing a Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship through USDOT. The nationally competitive Graduate Fellowship is typically due in March. The Local Competition (within UTSA) is typically due in June. My Graduate Fellowship materials from 2017 are available for students to review (Personal Statement and Research Plan, Resume). Students applying for our MSURP program interested in transportation should contact me directly even before receiving an admission decision to coordinate application for this fellowship: greg.griffin@utsa.edu.
Syllabi and student evaluations of my teaching and courses are available on Bluebook.
Guest lecturing at Trinity University, 2019. Photo by A. Christina Wirsching, PhD.
Public Participation and Qualitative Analysis
Fall 2023: This course involves methods of facilitating public input and analyzing textual data. Topics include: Online and in-person involvement, integrating input to plans, co-production, and evaluation with case study, observational, and content analysis techniques. syllabus link
Examples of final projects include:
SA Tomorrow pubic engagement, City of San Antonio.
History and Theory of Urban and Regional Planning
Fall 2022: Indigenous and Latino/a perspectives formed a basis for critically applying history and theory to address systemic inequalities through the case study
method. syllabus link StoryMap link
method. syllabus link StoryMap link
Fall 2021: What can cities learn about infill development policies from others? History and Theory of Urban and Regional Planning students in fall 2021 build nearly 20 great cases informed by history and theory.
Fall 2020: This semester emphasized the interrelationship between urban and regional planning processes and resulting urban forms, including Latino Urbanism.
StoryMap of Infill Development Plans & Policy case studies by students in the Fall 2021 class.
Planning Practice and Ethics
Fall 2020: This semester, we collaborated with the City of San Antonio Planning Department on engagement coordination for SA Tomorrow Sub-Area Planning. syllabus link
Transportation Planning
Spring 2022: This course included field assessments, serious thinking about justice, exploration of the latest analysis methods, envisioning likely (and good) transport futures, and introducing design skills necessary in the workplace. syllabus link
Fall 2019: Students created a New Mobility Study: Considerations for the UTSA Downtown Campus and Community (PDF download). The study recommends prioritizing existing public transit services, rapidly building bicycle infrastructure, reconsidering curb utilization for a more shared, autonomous future, and urgent e-scooter and pedestrian improvements.
Proposed street design by Shelby Hardt
Planning Workshop
Summer 2021: I co-led an Online Workshop on Sustainable Tourism in The Gambia. We are working with partners at the University of the Gambia to co-produce an update and guide for sustainable tourism planning. syllabus link
This class web page connected students at the University of the Gambia and UTSA.
Intro to Health Planning
Spring 2020: My Plan Evaluation for Health assignment (free download in Word format) is available for free use by others. Basically, it requires students to analyze health-related content of comprehensive plans. The exercise requires students to explore a real plan in some depth, getting to know the good, bad, and ugly, pertaining to how a city is (or not) planning for health. The assignment also results in a dataset that may ultimately be useful as a study on its own. If this is something you incorporate in class to produce data, perhaps you might be interested in publishing results with me too. The first step is validating the instrument, however. Let me know if you want more info on this, including a random selection of cities to review. syllabus link
Plan Evaluation for Health assignment introduced students to planning for health using a structured, qualitative process.
Community and Regional Planning
Spring 2021: This semester emphasized interrogating planning governance as an approach to build power for achieving climate equity goals for regions and borders. syllabus link
Spring 2020: This section emphasized regional approaches to planning, building understanding through the study of regions with varying governance approaches, and practical exercises to build critical skills. syllabus link
