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Join as an Academic

Advance the Planning Profession — and Your Career

APA invites academic departments that are full members of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning to participate in a group membership program designed for planning educators.

Stay connected to practices and policies that shape planning through publications, events, and programs. Planning schools can offer this important opportunity to senior faculty at an affordable price.

Why Belong to APA?

  • Expand your network. We bring together more than 40,000 individuals from every state and 90 countries who share your passions and can help shape your future. Engage with planners from your local area and from disciplines you care about.
  • Connect with specialists. The National Planning Conference gathers thousands of planners under one roof. You can build a network that stretches across the country and around the world. Join one or more of APA's 25 divisions — communities of professionals with shared interests. Divisions contribute to APA's national policy work and offer online education and forums, publications, and specialized sessions at the National Planning Conference.
  • Connect locally. Join one of 48 chapters — the local source for networking and professional development — and conveniently connect with the area planning community through the chapter's annual conference, education and advocacy programs, and public information campaigns.
  • Free eJAPA subscription. APA academic members get a bonus benefit: a free subscription to the online edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association — the planning profession's journal of record since 1935 — and online access to the complete JAPA archives. JAPA publishes original, double-blind, peer-reviewed research, along with commentaries and book reviews, covering a range of social, environmental, economic, and policy issues.
  • Get AICP certified. Demonstrate your aptitude in and commitment to the highest level of planning practice by earning the certification by APA's professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners. Academic members receive a discount on registration for the AICP Certification Exam.

How Academic Membership Works

Participating schools are required to enroll all faculty members with the rank of assistant professor or above who devote at least half their time to the planning program. Schools may enroll certain other faculty as well. Schools pay an annual participation fee and APA national and chapter dues — both set significantly below regular member dues — for each member. Schools may choose to pay AICP dues, also at a reduced rate, for faculty who belong to the American Institute of Certified Planners.

The academic membership year is October 1-September 30.

Academic Membership Dues

 

Academic Membership Application

Not an Educator?

APA membership is open to everyone who is committed to applying the benefits of planning to create communities of lasting value.

  • Learn more if you're a planning or zoning board member or commissioner, or an elected or appointed official
  • Learn more if you're a practicing planner
  • Learn more if you live outside the United States
  • Learn more if you're a student
  • Learn more if your institution is not affiliated with ACSP if you work in an affiliated profession, or if you are an interested nonplanner

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