WSU Urban Studies Blog

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History & Political Science, Urban Studies, and "The Work of Revolution"

Worcester State University faculty, students, and staff attended the recent joint NCPH/AASLH Conference in Providence, RI, which ran from September 16 - 19, 2026. Entitled "The Work of Revolution," the National Council of Public History (NCPH) and the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) held the joint conference in honor of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Dr. Erika Briesacher (History & Political Science), Dr. Thomas Conroy (Urban Studies), and Dr. Megan Moran (Binienda Center for Civic Engagement) led students from their departments to various workshops and seminars at the conference, and they also met with public history professionals and WSU alums while they were there.

Urban Studies Professor Dr. Shiko Gathuo Receives the Katharine F. Erskine Award

Dr. Shiko Gathuo, Professor of Urban Studies and Graduate Program Director, has been named a 2026 recipient of the Katharine F. Erskine Award. The Katharine F. Erskine Award recognizes women who have demonstrated leadership and reached exemplary levels of achievement in their professions and communities. Award recipients show a commitment to the YWCA of Central Massachusetts’ mission to eliminate racism, empower women, and promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. Those who know Dr. Gathuo know just how much she is truly deserving of this award for her teaching and mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students, her collaborations with university faculty and alumni, her scholarly and creative work on Kenya and the U.S., and her various contributions to the Worcester community. Dr. Gathuo will be recognized at the YWCA Central Massachusetts Tribute to Women ceremony on September 29th at the AC Hotel Worcester. Congratulations to Dr. Gathuo for this well deserved hono...

Urban Art Class -- Salsa Dancing

This week in the Urban Art class, we learned to salsa dance. Well, all of us except for Sal, who jacked up his knee recently. As the pictures below suggest, it seems that everyone had a good time and learned a little bit about Latin dance and music. The Department of Urban Studies will likely run Urban Art again in Spring 2027.

The 2026 Urban Studies Commencements Round Up

The faculty and staff of the Department of Urban Studies congratulates all of our 2026 graduates. IN all, 11 Urban Studies majors, 12 Urban Studies or Social WOrk & Social Policy minors, and 11 graduate students graduated in two different ceremonies. The following students received their their Baccalaureate degrees at the undergraduate commencement on Saturday, May 16, 2026 at the DCU Center in Worcester. B.S. in Urban Studies Benjamin Barter Amanda Blouin Lamar Brown-Noguera Hunter Chilton David Clark Matthew Rabeuf Abby Rickert Hira Rizvi David Simpson Casey Thomas Mary Thulare Minor in Urban Studies Amanda Adamuska Olivia Muscatell Izaiah Njuguna Keeshauna Santouse Aleisha Toussaint Ava Vasquez Minor in Social Work & Social Policy Lainey Bassett Felicia El Karim Victoria Nascimento Wilianny Ovalle Torrey Provost (we're happy to note that Torrey chose to walk with her classmates in the Urban Studies major at com...

Urban Art -- Sculpture Day

Students in the Spring 2026 Urban Art class tried their hands at sculpture this week. During an in-class activity, they created forms of their own choosing including a butterfly, a minion, a blue mermaid, and a fish out of water. One Urban Studies major, Salvatore Smarra, decided to sculpt the professor. (That's Helena in the background photobombing the pic.) Here's a close-up of the "artwork." And just like that, Sal failed the class. 😉 (JK)

Urban Studies at a Jeff Speck Lecture

Dr. Conroy and Urban Studies students Abby Rickert, Ben Barter, and Alexa James attended a Central Mass Regional Planning Commission event this week entitled, "Walking Through the Past, Present, and Future with [Urban Planner] Jeff Speck." The event was to present recent developments associated with the Vernon Connected Project, and Speck was the keynote. While he presented conclusions from his writing -- the 4 core rules of creating walkable places -- he also talked about these principles might be used in Worcester. The Vernon Connected Project, in fact, which is being done by Speck's firm (Speck-Dempsey), seeks to apply principles of a walkable city to the Vernon Sr. corridor and bridge that leads into Kelley Square. As it notes on a website, it is pursuing a " reimagined interchange designed for connecting; where a dividing highway is now transformed into a unifying corridor; where community art, reduced noise pollution, and sustainabl...

Urban Studies Graduate Students Present on Worcester State's Community Partner located in Rio de Janeiro

Urban Studies graduate students enrolled in Professor Timothy Murphy’s course, NM-901 The Nonprofit World, collaborated on group presentations that focused on initiatives of one of WSU's community partners - a Rio de Janeiro based nonprofit called Catalytic Communities (CatComm). The students considered how CatComm’s four initiatives - Favala 101 , Narrative Shifting , Sustainable Favelas , and Land Rights - relate to the organization’s mission, which is to "generate models for effective community-led and people-centered development of informal settlements in cities across the globe, based on the experience of Rio de Janeiro, with the city’s favelas achieving recognition of their heritage status and residents being served as equal citizens. This is done through a combination of education, research, training, networking exchanges, strategic communications, technology, mapping, advocacy, and participatory planning." A major takeaway from the presentations was the degree ...

Urban Art Students Visit the Worcester Art Museum

On February 5, Dr. Conroy's Urban Art class (UR 275) visited the Worcester Art Museum. Armed with field journals, their job was to enjoy themselves but also to observe the pieces, people, and places in the museum. After our visit, we wondered why people visit the museum and spent a class divided into focus groups to determine what sorts of things could be done in the museum to improve attendance and broaden its appeal to a younger and more diverse audience.

Hands-on Art for Urban Social Movements

In the course Power, Politics, and Decision-making, students studied the relationship between art and urban social movements, including as a tool to mobilize people for a cause and as a means to communicate with a broad audience and share information. Students chose social issues that were important to them and spent a class period learning the art of protest printmaking, using found materials, wood blocks, glue, and ink. Students used stencils to craft messages that they came up with to help communicate the struggle for social justice underlying the issues on which they were focusing.