Honoring a legend, marking a milestone

“A lot of people had their lives changed by Stu.”

David Godschalk studied under F. Stuart Chapin as a UNC city and regional planning graduate student and later joined the department’s faculty. He was among the many admirers who gathered in April to mark the department’s 70th anniversary and celebrate Chapin’s 100th birthday. Chapin died just a month later.

“He was amazing personally,” said Godschalk, Stephen Baxter Professor Emeritus. “He was very modest and quiet, but underneath that modesty he had a very strong and curious mind that seemed to be working all the time.”

Chapin joined the city and regional planning faculty in 1949 as a founding member and retired in 1978. He wrote the pioneering textbook Urban Land Use Planning, now in its fifth edition, and is credited with leading the integration of social science into the field.

Read the complete Carolina Story at the Arts & Sciences Foundation website…

To commemorate Chapin’s centennial birthday, the Department of City and Regional Planning launched a campaign to raise $100,000 in Chapin’s honor to support department graduate students. Gifts can be made at planning.unc.edu/giving.

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