Bonner Family

Scholarship established in memory of Ernie Bonner

The Ernie Bonner Equity Planning Endowed Scholarship has been created in the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning. It was established from a gift by Ernie's wife, Lynn, and the Bonner family in honor of the late Ernie Bonner, director of the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and long-time civic activist.

The fund will provide scholarships for students pursuing a Master of Urban and Regional Planning or a Ph.D. in urban studies who have a stated interest in equity planning and/or the use of planning to advance conditions of social equity in our society. "Ernie's hope for planning and policymaking was always that public policy would increase equity and fairness in society," said Lynn. "He often wrote that planning should provide 'more choices for those who have fewest' that is the essence of equity planning. The family feels that this scholarship will keep Ernie's concept of equity planning alive in coming generations of planners. We also appreciated the pleasure and privilege of working with the faculty and staff of the College of Urban and Public Affairs."

This is a very significant donation to the Toulan School, and represents an important new opportunity for current and prospective students. "I am extremely proud that the Bonner family has chosen the Toulan School to be the home for the Ernie Bonner Scholarship," said Ethan Seltzer, director of the Toulan School. "Ernie's work was innovative and very important, two traits that I hope we can embody always in the work we do here."

The scholarship was announced at a reception at the College of Urban and Public Affairs with guest speaker Norman Krumholtz, a professor in the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Krumholtz worked with Bonner in Cleveland, where Krumholz served as planning director from 1969-1979. Ernie Bonner was the first person he hired, and he remained a life-long friend. The Cleveland Policy Plan that Krumholtz and Bonner wrote was recently declared a "Planning Landmark" by the American Institute of Certified Planners. Before announcing the scholarship fund, Lynn visited the PSU Library to view the digitized collection of her husband's urban planning papers, which she donated to the library in 2005.

The Ernie Bonner collection includes notes, clippings, and reports concerning housing, waterfront development, the downtown Park Blocks, the east bank of the Willamette River, city hall, Portland Development Commission projects, and other documents relevant to Portland planning policies and history. Ernie Bonner came to Portland in 1973 and left as the city's planning chief in 1978. He served as a METRO councilor, as president of Sunlight Energy Systems, as a distributor of solar equipment, and then as energy conservation manager for the Bonneville Power Administration. More recently, he served on the Portland Planning Commission. Prior to Portland, Bonner was chief planner for Cleveland, overseeing the creation of that city's comprehensive plan. Bonner died in 2004, at the age of 71, after a long battle with cancer.