What is your name? Elizabeth Miller
Where were you born and where do you call home? I was born in Washington, but I call Kalispell, Montana my home.
Something fun you like to do. I love running, and I’ve recently taken up triathlons.
What’s your favorite pig-out food? Tacos. I have a serious love for tacos especially when they come with guacamole.
In which graduate program are you enrolled? Area of concentration? I am enrolled in the Master of Community and Regional Planning program, and I am also working on a certificate in Nonprofit Management.
Describe the CPW- Community Planning Workshop project you worked on during the academic year. Madras Natural Hazard Mitigation Plan Integration – our team created a revised natural hazards chapter for the City of Madras’ comprehensive plan, integrating their Natural Hazards Mitigation Plan into the chapter. We also created educational material for public disbursement relating to hazard mitigation planning. As part of the team I conducted research through case studies, stakeholders interviews, and a general public survey to evaluate public knowledge and support. I organized and prepared a public forum in Madras, Oregon to promote public support for project, where I engaged community members in conversation about regulatory versus voluntary hazard mitigation policies.
What is the most critical skill you learned from being engaged in CPW this past year? I’ve learned a lot about meeting facilitation, techniques to help engage the community in public participation (on a topic that is particularly difficult to rally public engagement), and most notably I had the opportunity to work on my professional writing skills for drafting public documents.
What about CPW made you smile? There were many small victories along the way, both on a personal level and as a team, professionally and personally, which kept us motivated even when there were frustrations in the project.
Name of the last movie you saw and give it a rating. I just watched the BBC version of Jane Austin’s Persuasion. I’ve seen it several times and love it every time. A solid ‘A.’
What would you do differently if there were 30 hours in a day? I would take that time to paint. I could use more art in my life!
If you had a list of ‘best-kept secrets’ you’d recommend, list one thing you would include and why? Sitka, Alaska is a place worth visiting in your lifetime. The place is beautiful, temperate weather year round, small, bike-friendly, and has a lot of totem poles and an interesting history, which I think is pretty cool.