ACSP Distinguished Educator, 1998: Michael B. Teitz

Perhaps a little prematurely, Michael B. Teitz won the ACSP Distinguished Planning Educator Award in 1998. He simultaneously received the Jay Chatterjee Award for Distinguished Service to the ACSP Award, the third person to receive the award. Only Mike and Genie Birch have received both of ACSP’s highest awards. The awards came on the occasion of his retirement, a couple years prior to his sixty-fifth birthday. But he actually wasn’t retiring; he was taking a new position at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) as Director of Research and Senior Fellow, invited, unsurprisingly, by his former student David Lyon. This moment of transition aptly epitomizes his life: recognition by one institution as an institution-builder as he peripatetically moves on, drawing on his social network, to an opportunity to build another. My first meeting with Mike was nearly by chance. The Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP) at the University of California, Berkeley, had told me I was their top admit to the PhD program, so I flew out from New York quite spontaneously to visit. Of course, none of the faculty had time to meet—except Mike. I still remember the moment I introduced myself, when he exclaimed, “Of course we must talk!” and invited me into his office for an hour. Mike’s penchant for welcoming new, stranded, or orphaned students was seemingly limitless. At DCRP, where most of the faculty ranged from self-aggrandizing to workaholic, he brought deep and abiding respect and empathy for students, singlehandedly creating a climate of civility. Born in London just a few years before World War II began, Mike learned early to stay open to new opportunities, embrace chance, and to keep going. In a recent oral history conducted by the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, he reflected: