09 November 2012 Appointment as Emeritus Professor crowns distinguished academic career in planning

Lincoln University’s recently retired Professor of Environmental Planning and Management, Dr Ali Memon, has been honoured with appointment to the rank of Emeritus Professor – acknowledging academic stature and leadership in his discipline area.

After 13 years on the staff of Lincoln University, Emeritus Professor Memon has retired and moved to Auckland, where he has a position as a Senior Researcher with Auckland Council.

A geographer by training, with a PhD in that field from the University of Western Ontario, Professor Memon came to Lincoln University in 1999 from an associate professorship and 21-year career in geography and planning at the University of Otago.

Originally from Kenya, Professor Memon taught urban and regional planning at the University of Nairobi for five years before coming to New Zealand in 1977.

At Lincoln University he became part of what Professor of Landscape Architecture Simon Swaffield described as the “honourable company of geographers” in the Faculty of Environment, Society and Design.

In his retirement speech Professor Memon said he had always enjoyed geography right from primary school days and he acknowledged the influence on his career of Professor Simeon Ominde, the first Professor of Geography at the University of Nairobi.

Professor Memon said that coming to New Zealand from Africa was a “very important” step in his life and that coming to Lincoln University after earlier posts had “rejuvenated” his interest in research.

Being an academic was a “seven-day-a-week job”, he said. “you never turn your life off.” He thanked his wife Farida for her support.

Professor Memon described Lincoln as a “people’s university” and said it was a very “open” institution.

In a career of more than 30 years Professor Memon has given outstanding service to the planning profession in New Zealand through his development of professional planning education at Lincoln and Otago Universities and through his multidisciplinary research.

Helping to expand the New Zealand planning profession beyond its traditional town planning roots to embrace regional and environmental dimensions has been one of his distinctive achievements.

He describes planning as a link between knowledge and action but says the process must be inclusive and adaptive.

Professor Memon has contributed extensively to the theory and practice of planning through his research and last year he was awarded the New Zealand Planning Institute’s prestigious Gold Medal for his exceptional contributions to the profession through service, theory and practice. He had already received the Institute’s other top prize, the Distinguished Service Award, presented in 1994.

At Lincoln Professor Memon was instrumental in obtaining New Zealand Planning Institute accreditation for the University’s academic programmes in planning. He placed accreditation high on his agenda, believing it would give students a significant advantage when moving from tertiary study into careers.

The Head of the Department of Environmental Management, Associate Professor Ton Buhrs, said the appointment of Professor Memon to the academic staff had been a real ‘coup for Lincoln University.

Professor Memon is the co-editor, with Professor Harvey Perkins, of two of the seminal books on planning in New Zealand – Environmental Planning and Management in New Zealand (2000) and Environmental Planning in New Zealand (1993).

Of his move to Auckland, the new Emeritus Professor said he would be an “ambassador” there for Lincoln University.