I have mixed feelings about this class—I can both recommend it and not recommend it depending on what you are looking for. It is a very specific type of course, so your experience will depend on whether you value hands-on, community-based work or prefer a more structured, discussion-heavy class.

The class meets once a week on Mondays from 1:00–3:30 PM and is structured around weekly discussion posts, lectures, guest speakers, and eventually fieldwork in Fluvanna County . The course moves through several units, starting with foundations of rural planning and preservation, then topics like Black rural landscapes, governance, housing, and data ethics, before shifting in the second half of the semester into fieldwork, archival work, and a team project . In practice, the first ~10 weeks are mostly readings and speakers, while the latter half involves on-site work and collaboration with community members. Grading is based on participation and discussion posts, a smaller digital assignment, fieldwork, and a final team project .

Recommend: One of the strongest aspects of the class is the opportunity to work directly with a community stakeholder. Depending on your group, you may work with someone in Fluvanna County and even meet them in person, which is a rare experience for a planning class. Other groups meet online, but either way, the projects are grounded in real communities.

The work students produce is meaningful—for example, one group developed a plan to preserve a historically Black Rosenwald school, another created a booklet welcoming people back to a former freedom colony, and another produced a pamphlet with resources for clearing title on heirs’ properties. These projects align with the course’s goal of producing policy-relevant recommendations and give the class a strong applied focus.

The guest speakers are also a highlight, bringing in perspectives on rural planning and preservation that you would not typically get elsewhere, especially with the emphasis on ethics and Black descendant communities.

Not Recommended: At times, expectations can feel unclear. While the syllabus outlines the structure, some logistics—especially related to fieldwork—can feel last-minute. For example, the class requires multiple site visits to Fluvanna County, and roles for those visits were sometimes reassigned very close to the date, occasionally the night before. Although this did not cause major issues, it did require students to adjust quickly.

Another drawback is the limited in-class discussion of readings. The syllabus suggests discussion posts should inform class conversation , but in practice, readings are rarely discussed in depth during class. Instead, engagement with them mainly happens through the required 150–300 word weekly posts, which can make the readings feel somewhat disconnected from the rest of the course.

The first half of the semester especially can feel like reading, posting, and then listening to lectures or speakers without much synthesis tying everything together.

Overall, this is a class that stands out for its real-world engagement and community-based work. The fieldwork and final project are easily the most rewarding parts, but the earlier, reading-heavy portion can feel less integrated. Whether you recommend it depends on how much you value the hands-on experience versus a more structured and discussion-driven class.