 PBS&J
Telephone: 803-806-8080
E-Mail: acmorris@pbsj.com
Years experience in current field: 33
Position/Title: Senior Project Manager
EDUCATION: Clemson University, Bachelor of Architecture 1971; Clemson University, Master of City and Regional Planning 1976; additional graduate studies Clemson University (Genoa, Italy) 1977 and George Washington University (Washington, DC) 1979 – 1981
EXPERTISE: Community Impacts, Environmental Justice and Public Involvement/Agency Coordination
RELATED TOPICS/EXPERIENCE: Ms. Morris is a hands-on practitioner who has tweaked existing tools and developed new techniques to engage the public. She understands that one size does not fit all, and far too often does not fit anyone. By identifying any public’s constraints and abilities to participation, she believes that they can be engaged, given ownership, and provide and receive meaningful input. She has developed and taught courses on Public Involvement, Community Impact Assessment, Environmental Justice, and Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1964) Compliance for state DOTs, and has been an invited speaker at international, national, state, and local conferences.
Ms. Morris is the principal author of FHWA’s 2006 publication How to Engage Low-Literacy and Limited-English-Proficiency Populations in Transportation Decisionmaking. This booklet documents “best practices” identified through a nationwide scan of national experts from Federal, state, county, and city governments, and their consultants. In addition, her SC 72 widening project was included as one of ten case studies in FHWA/FTA’s 2000 publication Transportation and Environmental Justice Case Studies. This case study provided examples of environmental justice in project development (NEPA), evaluating right-of-way, community impact assessment and public involvement. It illustrated how important it was to adapt public involvement to the unique conditions and characteristics of a particular community. The case study highlighted the essential connection between responsive public involvement and effective community impact assessment as well as the role that community impact assessment can play in meaningful alternatives analyses and the selection of alternatives to avoid significant social impacts and cumulative impacts. This project has been cited in the National Highway Institute’s Environmental Justice training course and in California DOT’s Desk Guide for Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning and Investments. Her “Reaching Communities through Schools” technique was included in FHWA/FTA’s 2002 CD Transportation and Environmental Justice Effective Practices as a way of using school students to reach their parents who were low literate or had limited English proficiency.
She is active in Transportation Research Board as a founding member of the Context Sensitive Solutions Taskforce and the Community Impact Assessment Subcommittee, a member of the Environmental Justice in Transportation Committee, and a friend of the Public Involvement in Transportation Committee. In addition, she is a friend of AASHTO’s Community and Cultural Concerns Committee. FHWA has invited Ms. Morris to serve as a Public Involvement expert in its Accelerated Construction Technology Transfer program.
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