Director, Center for Community Planning and Development
Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

Office Location: UR 238A
Phone: 216.687.6941
Email: k.hexter@csuohio.edu

Kathryn Wertheim Hexter directs the Center for Community Planning and Development, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University. She joined the Levin College in 1986. A planner and public policy analyst, Ms. Hexter has over 25 years of experience managing and directing research projects and evaluating programs in the areas of community development, housing, mortgage foreclosure, neighborhood development, sustainable development, low-income energy assistance, city and regional planning and civic engagement. She has worked extensively with federal, state and local governmental, philanthropic and non-profit organizations.

She is the founding director of the Levin College Forum Program, recognized by Northern Ohio Live (2005) as "a springboard for economic and social progress throughout the region."

She is co-editor of the book The New American City Faces Its Regional Future, A Cleveland Perspective (Ohio University Press, 2000) and co-author of Public Utilities and the Poor: Rights and Responsibilities (Praeger Publishers, 1985). She has written numerous articles including, most recently, "The Role of the University in City Planning: A Case Study of Cleveland's Lakefront Redevelopment," Journal of Ekistics.

Ms. Hexter holds a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, 1976 and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University, 1978. She is a graduate of the 2003 Rockwood Leadership program and the Foundations and Frontiers in Appreciative Inquiry workshop at the Case Weatherhead School of Management, 2004.

Areas of Expertise:

• Best Practices and Benchmarking Studies
• Building Strategic Alliances Among Public, Private, and Nonprofit Sectors
• Civic Education
• Community and Neighborhood Development
• Community-University Partnerships
• Environment and Sustainability
• Focus Group Moderation and Analysis
• Housing Policy
• Land Use
• Philanthropy
• Planning and Zoning
• Program Evaluations Assessments & Development
• Public Policy Development and Analysis
• Public/Private Partnerships
• Race and Gender Issues
• State and Local Governance
• Strategic Planning
• Urban and regional planning