Alan and Nathalie P. Voorhees (front row middle and right) joined the staff, students, and community partners of the Voorhees Center for the Great Cities Gala in 1995.

Alan Voorhees, founder of CUPPA's Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, died at the age of 83 on Saturday, December 17, 2005.

Voorhees started the research center named after his wife, Nathalie, in 1979, when he served as dean of the UIC College of Architecture, Arts, and Urban Science. Though he left UIC shortly thereafter, Mr. Voorhees remained an active advisor to the center. Nathalie passed away in 2000.

In November of 2005, Voorhees had made another significant gift to the center to expand its programs. With the new funding, the

Voorhees Center will keep its focus on affordable housing and will expand into housing-related issues such as transportation, job access, and economic development in collaboration with other UIC entities.

The center's co-directors, Janet Smith and Yittayih Zelalem, also plan to upgrade technology within their office and eventually, the staff of faculty and graduate students will be expanded.

Pat Wright, former director of the Voorhees Center, and Alan Voorhees meet with John Robinson and his spouse, and Kimary Lee and Sarah Baum during the 25th anniversary Voorhees Center conference in 2003.

Voorhees said his support for the center has always stemmed from his concern about "economic colonization," which he defined as clusters of poor people in neighborhoods that have little access to adequate housing and transportation.

"It's a nationwide problem," Voorhees said. "I saw it around the university some time ago, and I felt UIC should get involved."

He noted the center's advantages in working with city government and credited a city professional for steering him toward the position of dean at UIC in the 1970s. Voorhees, who held a degree in city planning

from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was a successful consultant, investor, and a past president of the American Institute of Planners (now the American Planning Association) before serving as dean.

"Academia was a big step," he said. "I went into it because I loved Chicago, and my wife and I enjoyed it."

Janet Smith, co-director of the Voorhees Center, and Alan Voorhees talk during the 25th anniversary Voorhees Center conference in 2003.

Alan and Nathalie Voorhees were among those citizens who felt concern over the future of Chicago's neighborhoods. Mr. Voorhees envisioned a university research center driven by the needs of the people, a cooperative entity charged with providing support and guidance in a responsive and respectful way -- a center with an open-door policy and promise of on-going support, so that trust and continuity could be established — a center that could be a true partner with grass-roots organizations throughout the city.

Unbeknownst to the Voorheeses and others at that time, this center became one of the

premiere precursors to UIC’s current Great Cities Commitment.

Voorhees was a pioneer in many areas including transportation. He became one of the world's leading traffic forecasters. During his consulting career, he also created master plans for several major cities around the globe.

He was an avid map collector and most recently was a donor and advisor to the Library of Congress, where, according to the Association of American Geographers, he "led the effort to build a corporate support group for the Geography and Map Division that resulted in the largest freely accessible collection of scanned historical maps on the Web."

“Alan was a dear friend and adviser. He was a man whose vision for Chicago did not end when he left the city. Thankfully through our Voorhees Center and through the many other contributions he has made throughout his lifetime to improving civic life, Alan and Nathalie will live on,” Robin Hambleton, CUPPA dean, said.

For information about the Voorhees Center, see www.uic.edu/cuppa/voorheesctr/.

The George Krambles Transportation Scholarship Fund has contributed $50,000 for an endowed scholarship in CUPPA. The scholarship will replace the fund's 25-year-old national competition.

Beginning this fall, a scholarship of several thousand dollars will be awarded annually to an outstanding urban planning or transportation student planning a career in transportation. Four UIC students won

Krambles sholarships during the 25 years of the national competition, including a high-level PACE operations planner and a Rutgers University professor.

"We consider it an honor and privilege to carry on the work of the Krambles Fund board of directors," said Robin Hambleton, dean of the UIC College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. "Many students have benefited from the legacy of George Krambles, and we applaud the efforts of the board to continue to help more students."

George Krambles founded the scholarship fund when he retired as executive director of the Chicago Transit Authority. He had worked in Chicago-area transit since earning an engineering degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1937. He served as a public transit consultant and historian until his death in 1999.