2015-18 RiverFirst Concentration >>

Possibly more than any other city in America, Minneapolis is shaped by its park system. For more than a century, parks and greenways have been both our city’s framework and connective tissue, shaping how we developed and securing our identity as a city of enviable urban natural resources.

In recognition the meaningful role that parks play in our quality of life, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation created the multi-year Minneapolis Parks Fellow to elevate our expertise in design and city-building and expand our commitment to ensuring the long-term vitality of our park system.

The Parks Fellow is an adjunct position of the Minneapolis Parks Foundation that leverages expertise in park design and planning to address significant opportunities and issues facing our park system today and in the future.

Parks Fellows will have expertise in essential skills, such as design, planning, recreation, or operations. In addition, Parks Fellows will provide visionary and strategic guidance to timely projects involving public and private partners, especially the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the City of Minneapolis, and other public and private interests.

Through this multi-year program, Parks Fellows will:

• Guide transformative park projects and initiatives from vision to implementation, elevating Minneapolis as an international model of park innovation;
• Identify implementation pathways for innovative ideas, spending time embedded in the Minneapolis Park Board;
• Lead research and design projects in collaboration with organizational partners, such as the University of Minnesota College of Design;
• Serve as an ambassador of design and implementation to multiple and diverse constituencies seeking to better understand the intricacies of the intersection between design and implementation.

In 2015-18, the first Parks Fellow – Bruce Chamberlain – is concentrating on RiverFirst and two of its signature projects. Read More >>