Sustainable Community Development major Jaclynn Findlay ’21 has been hired to manage Ashland’s Main Street Program, a downtown revitalization initiative administered through the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. She will be coordinating downtown projects related to economic development, historic preservation, placemaking, and other initiatives that advance Ashland’s downtown goals and objectives.
“My internships with the City of Ashland were an amazing opportunity to learn how a Planning and Development Department functions—I was able to decipher what kind of projects I liked and didn’t like, which helped me understand what to look for in a position for post-graduation,” she said. “There are lots of things you can do with an SCD degree, but city planning felt like a natural fit for me. Working for the City of Ashland cemented that.”
As an administrator of the Main Street Board, she’ll also be planning and implementing downtown events and programming, assisting with grant writing and administration, and managing Ashland Main Street’s social media accounts. So look for her at Downtown Days.
Jaclynn has a few bits of advice for incoming students.
1. Get involved with the Northland College Student Association. Joining NCSA is a great way to get to know the Northland community in an intimate way.
2. Take Ecofeminism and Queer Ecologies if you can. My Gender & Women’s Studies courses were life-changing! They not only helped me focus my area of academic interest but also just changed how I view the world. I even ended up writing my capstone on Ecofeminist Planning Theory.
3. Find professor Brian Tochterman and Nicole Foster. They continue to advise me, both academically and professionally and I don’t know where I’d be without them.
