b'Time Future in Time Past - Notes on the MUDD ExperienceIn this 25th anniversary issue, I set aside my more theoretical work to ponder where we have come from and what has been achieved.To look back in this way is always to confront our place in time distilled in the peerless paradoxes of Eliots Four Quartets:Time present and time pastAre both perhaps present in time future,And time future contained in time past.Professor Alexander Cuthbert When I left Hong Kong in 1994, I had taught in four urban design programs.With my appointment as Chair Professor of Town Planning at the University of New South Wales, I had already been grilled by the appointment board as to what I might intend to do.One of my first thoughts was that the planning program as it stood was antiquated, buried in practice and at an academic level was seriously in deficit.The belief still prevailed that Planning was somehow an autonomous agent in urban development, not a reflection of state ideology and partisan politics.The name Town Planning also had a medieval ring even at that time and was taught at an undergraduate level over five years, the time in most institutions to get a Masters Degree.Overall there was little innovation in what I was to inherit.I resolved to change the name and at the same time inject a theoretical base for planning action, using my commitment to Political Economy from undertaking my PhD at the London School of Economics & Political Science.Contained in this idea was the inclusion of an urban design program which reflected my interest in substantial theory.So my focus was to create two Masters degrees, based in the idea that urban development was what drove the economy, not urban planning.The degrees would be called Master in Urban Development & Planning, the other Master in Urban Development & Design.The first still does not exist.My first call was to Dean Ray Toakley, to see if he would support the idea of an urban design program.He did, but at the same time he mentioned that the Faculty had already tried twice to start one and had failed both times. All I could say was third time lucky.My intention was to include the professors from every School (the Faculty structure was yet to evolve). I talked to each in turn, and Professor James Weirick, Professor Jon Lang, Professor Paul Reid, Dr Bruce Judd, Head of the Graduate School and myself made up the core team.While 7P1-20200229-FOLIO INTRO.indd 12 2020/3/8 11:19:02'