Fonds F0699 - Barbara Rahder fonds

Barbara Rahder (née Sanford), a planner, activist, academic and educator, attended Portland State University, where she obtained a BSc in psychology in 1974. She then joined the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Toronto, completing a MSc in 1977 and a PhD in 1985. Her PhD dissertation is entitled "The Origins of Residential Differentiation: Capitalist Industrialization in Toronto, Ontario, 1851-1881". During her graduate studies, Rahder worked as a research assistant and teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, as a part-time instructor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and as a part-time assistant professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. She also taught in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University in 1986 before returning to join York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies as an assistant professor (1993-1998), later becoming associate professor (1998-2004), professor (2005-2016) and professor emeritus (2016). Rahder served as interim dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies in 2007-2008 and as dean from 2008 to 2012. In 2007, 2009 and 2012, Rahder was a visiting professor in the Department of Town and Country Planning at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka.

In addition to her academic and teaching work, Rahder worked as a planning consultant, first as a research coordinator for Simon Associates in Toronto (1986-1987) and then as a partner in Rahder, Doyle and Associates (formerly Sanford, Farge and Associates) (1989-1992) and finally as the principal in Rahder and Associates (formerly Sanford and Associates) (1998-1996).

Rahder has been a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners since 1994, a member of the Ontario Professional Planners Institute from 1994 to 2016, and a member of many other professional organizations and groups including Planners Network, Planning Action, the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto/Toronto Community Social Planning Council, International Network for Urban Research and Action, Women in Toronto Creating Housing, the Women and Environments Education and Development Fund, Women In/And Planning, and Women Plan Toronto.

She is the author of Housing Cooperatives as a New Life Style Option for Seniors (1989) (as Barbara Sanford), Strategies for Maintaining Professional Competence: A Manual for Professional Associations and Faculties (1989) (as Barbara Sanford), Comparison of Co-operative and Private Non-Profit Housing Options for Older Canadians (1990) (as Barbara Sanford), and the co-editor of Just Doing It: Popular Collective Action in the Americas (2002).