UI students are journeying to small Iowa towns this year, bringing big ideas of sustainability.

Field Problems, a course in the graduate program of urban and regional planning, offers second-year graduate students a chance to gain hands-on experience before they enter the job market.

“We want them to apply what they know to real-life projects,” said Associate Professor Paul Hanley, the course’s instructor.

The 28 students in the class have been working since August with the towns of Anamosa, Columbus Junction, Decorah, and Wellman to promote sustainability. They hold meetings with city officials to create a plan that can be implemented in one to two years.

Lucy Joseph, one of seven members working with Anamosa, said she knows how important this training will be after graduation.

“It’s giving us a little taste of what to expect in the real world,” she said.

Though the class has been a staple in the program since 1986, this is the first year students are working toward sustainability in a broad sense, not just one smaller project.

Working in four groups of seven students, Hanley said, allows the panels to make a comprehensive evaluation of four sustainability issues in small Iowa towns: social equity, environment, economics, and energy.

Students are learning what it means to have a professional job in urban planning, and they are also learning to work with a diverse group of people toward one goal.

Class member Dan Fox said working with six other people on the project has been one of the more challenging aspects. Coming from three different countries and various parts of the United States, most in the Anamosa group are unfamiliar with small-town life.

“We don’t want seven little plans,” Fox said. “We want one big plan.”

Fellow group member Robert Laroco said the group’s diversity gives it an advantage.

“It allows us to be extremely multifunctional,” he said.

Charles Connerly, the director of the urban and regional planning program, said students teaming up with city officials can bring new ideas to a city that may need to consider a new approach to sustainability.

“Students are full of ideas,” he said. “They bring a fresh perspective.”

Officials from the city of Anamosa agreed.

Anamosa City Administrator Patrick Callahan said the students give the city all the advantages of hiring a consulting firm for the same job at a high cost.

“One of the areas that really impressed me was the diversity of knowledge they bring to the table,” he said.

Many eastern Iowa towns have benefited from the students’ work, and Hanley said the program is in no danger of dying out.

“We’ll never run out of small towns,” he said. “Not in Iowa anyway.”