Thursday Evening, June 7th, 2007
Billings North Lounge 5:00 to 9:00 P.M.

University of Vermont Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
A Reception & Dinner Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the 1st Graduating Class

The spring of 2007 marks the 30th anniversary of the first graduating class of the University of Vermont's Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. Those men and women joined a small but dedicated group of idealists who had completed formal study in a then-newly-emerging professional field, historic preservation. Succeeding generations of graduates have continued that laudable tradition, which evolved from a class in preservation first taught by Chester Liebs in Montpelier in 1972, into a graduate program in 1975. Today alumni of the University of Vermont's program are instrumental in advancing the cause of historic preservation throughout the country, and at all levels and reaches of the discipline, both public and private.

Please join fellow alumni, faculty, and friends for an evening commemorating the university's visionary commitment to historic preservation that began more than three decades ago. Presentations will be led by the program's founding director, Professor Emeritus Chester Liebs, who is currently Fulbright Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo.

Reflections and recollections will be offered by Professor Thomas Visser, Director of the University of Vermont Historic Preservation Program and graduate of the class of 1986; Neil Stout, Professor Emeritus of the UVM Historic Preservation Program; Gregory Paxton, graduate of the class of 1977 and today President and Chief Executive Officer of the Georgia Trust; and John Dumville, graduate of the class of 1977 and today Vermont Historic Sites Operations Chief. Their remarks will provide a retrospective on the program's origins, an introduction to the program's educational innovations currently underway, and a glimpse into the future of preservation education in America. The dialogue promises to be rich in memory, thoughtful in observation, powerful in sense of place, and farsighted in prophecy.

Friday, June 8, 2007
Visit http://www.uvm.edu/conferences/THP/ for symposium schedule, locations and times

Opening Plenary Session:
Timothy R. Neuman, PE , Vice President and Chief Highway Engineer,  CH2M HILL
Timothy Neuman is Vice President and Chief Highway Engineer for CH2M HILL and is nationally recognized as a leader in the Context Sensitive Design field, through both project work and research.  He served as co-principal investigator for NCHRP Project 15-19, “Application of Context Sensitive Design Principles,” which resulted in the publication of NCHRP Report 480, A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions. He assisted in development of CH2M Hill’s two-day training course on Context Sensitive Solutions, which has been taught to over 20 state DOTs and other agencies around the country on behalf of FHWA. He also was technical editor for AASHTO on development of a companion policy document to FHWA’s Flexibility in Highway Design, recently published as A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design, May 2004.  Mr. Neuman was appointed to AASHTO’s Thinking Beyond the Pavement/Context Sensitive Design Steering Committee. He has also served as a special highway technical advisor to Scenic America.

Closing Plenary Session:
Luisa M. Paiewonsky, Commissioner, Massachusetts Highway Department
Luisa Paiewonsky, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Highway Department (MassHighway) since June, 2005, has spent her entire career in public service.  Following a three-year tour in the US Peace Corps, she joined MassHighway in 1989 and has worked in a variety of staff and management roles. As commissioner, Ms. Paiewonsky has emphasized highway and employee safety, context sensitive design, and preservation of bridges and the Interstate Highway System. Under her leadership, MassHighway, in collaboration with an outside Task Force, developed the 2006 Project Development and Design Guide. The groundbreaking document, released in January 2006, won national and regional awards from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal Transit Administration, the American Planning Association, and the New England Chapter of the American Public Works Association. Ms. Paiewonsky holds a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and Spanish from Mount Holyoke College and a Master's degree in City Planning degree from Boston University.

Carol Murray, Former Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of Transportation
Carol Murray, a New Hampshire native, grew up in Littleton, a typical New England town that today retains its walkable, economically vital, sustainable Main Street.  Her intuitive understanding about the need to provide mobility for people, goods and services, all the while preserving a sense of community, has served her well in the field of transportation.  As Commissioner of New Hampshire’s Department of Transportation, she oversaw the development of a long range transportation plan prepared by people whose lives and businesses are affected by transportation, rather than by statisticians who study vehicle miles traveled (VMT).  She became a champion of the true reasons for the sea change known as Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) because she believes that mobility can be delivered without damaging our communities, urban neighborhoods, rural landscapes, and quality of life.

Chester H. Liebs
Chester Liebs is founding director and Professor Emeritus of the University of Vermont’s Graduate Program in Historic Preservation.  He was accorded the James Marston Fitch Preservation Education Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council for Preservation Education in 2004, and was nominated (by UVM preservation alumni) and received a “National Honor Award” from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for his contributions to preservation education in 1996; he is also an Advisor Emeritus for the National Trust.  The National Endowment for the Arts, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Preservation Trust of Vermont, and the Eva-Gebhard Gourgaud Foundation have all awarded him recognition for his contributions to historic preservation, as well.  Since leaving Vermont, he has served as Visiting Professor of Heritage Conservation at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and is now Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Certificate Program in Historic Preservation and Regionalism in the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning, where he founded the Southwest Summer Institute for Preservation and Regionalism. He is currently on leave serving as Fulbright Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of Urban Engineering at the University of Tokyo.  He continues to lecture and conduct research not only in the United States and Japan, but in Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, and Sweden.  Among his writings he is the author of many writings, including Main Street to Miracle Mile , a seminal work in the field of American cultural landscape history.

Sponsored by: The University of Vermont's National University Transportation Centerand Graduate Program in Historic Preservation  

Co-Sponsors: Vermont Agency of TransportationMassachusetts Highway DepartmentTransportation Research Board ADC50, Historic andArcheological Preservation in Transportation Committee