2019 APA-NC Undergraduate Student Project Award
Published Sep 30, 2019 by
Nick Musarra’s planning practicum project, Movement Murfreesboro, has been selected as the recipient of the 2019 North Carolina Marvin Collins Planning Award for Undergraduate Student Project.
Nick’s project was part of a collaborative project through which undergraduate planning students teamed with the Mid-East Commission to work with rural communities in eastern North Carolina. Students were tasked with crafting community development vision plans for eight small towns, including Murfreesboro. Nick Musarra, a 2018 graduate of the ECU planning program, worked on the Murfreesboro vision plan project individually. Based on both quantitative and qualitative data and site condition analysis, he identified the most pressing needs in Murfreesboro and put forward a set of development goals and recommendations to address those needs.
“It was a pleasure to work on this vision plan for the Town of Murfreesboro, North Carolina as part of my Planning Practicum, and to speak with and begin to understand the residents of the community during the project. Movement Murfreesboro is a tool to be used by Murfreesboro, North Carolina. It is a call to action for the town and its residents to create a single vision from its many diverse backgrounds and experiences. The town is encouraged to use components from this plan to develop its vision. The vision may reflect the town’s past, and it may also reflect its aspirations for the future. In any case, the vision should incite movement among its residents and visitors. The project represented a culmination of research skills and the application of community development concepts developed throughout my career at East Carolina University (ECU), and I was able to add creative pieces of myself into this vision plan. I am honored to be recognized by the ECU Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment and by the North Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-NC) Awards Committee for this award.” – Nick Musarra
