How has COVID-19 Affected Your Life? Contribute Your Story to the CityLab COVID-19 Digital Archive!

TELL YOUR STORY by adding it to our new COVID-19 Digital Archives. We want to hear the stories of Central MA people from all walks of life. Complete a self-guided online oral history, record your own, request to be interviewed by project staff, or contribute a video diary or image on your own. You can get to the collector by following this link: worcester.edu/CityLab. Feel free to share it with your friends and family, too.

WHO WE ARE. We are a diverse group of WSU professors from 11 different academic departments and the WSU library working to document the local impact of the COVID-19 pandemic through Urban Studies’ CityLab. Participating professors are from: CJ, DEEP, Education, Health Sciences, History & Political Science, Nursing, Psychology, Sociology, Urban Studies, V+PA, and World Languages

If you have questions, contact CityLab@worcester.edu.

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Results of the 28th Manhattan Short Film Festival votes worldwide and at WSU

The results of the 2025 Manhattan Short Film Festival are in! Here's the word from the Manhattan Short website: " We Have Sinned Before You , written and directed by Ifat Nener Orgad (Israel), is the Gold Medal Winner of the 28th Annual Manhattan Short Film Festival. We Have Sinned Before You , a family drama set around a game designed to pass the time on Yom Kippur, resonated with viewers around the world." In second place worldwide and winning the silver medal was Passarinho , directed by Natalia García Agraz (Mexico). This film was "about two teenage girls who try to meet their favorite soccer player, but their plan is threatened when one of them gets a red card. The film is dedicated to all the Messi Mums in the world." Finally, winning the bronze medal was Beyond Silence , written and directed by Marnie Blok (The Netherlands). This film "tells the story of two women from two generations who experience a singular trauma. One retre...

Human Identity Class Wraps up the Semester with Creative Writing

Dr. Murphy’s Human Identity class wrapped up the semester with a party/creative writing workshop. With the knowledge gained from the course about the diversity and complexity of human experiences and identities, the students collaborated to write and present fictional stories about how a significant event can impact a person’s life and identity. Considering this stellar bunch of students who created such a warm and welcoming classroom environment, it was not surprising that the stories they produced were sophisticated, creative, serious, and playful. Congratulations on a terrific semester, Students!

November Fieldwork for the Metro Class

The year's Metro class -- for the uninitiated, "Metro" is Urban Studies-speak for UR 212 American Metropolitan Evolution -- did a little fieldwork in the Canal District today. Walking along Green Street to Kelley Square and about halfway up Water Street, the class took in the city on foot, catching glimpses of all the little things you cannot see when you are driving through the area. This was a practical approach to help them see how to approach the research and writing for their semester term papers, The Neighborhood Paper . At the corner of Green and Winter Streets, for instance, we all wondered, what's the story here? It was a scene in which the build-out of an older house gives the impression that it was just dropped into the middle of an international grocery. We'll have to investigate it more closely in the Worcester House Directories in CityLab. Sometimes we had an easier time making connections across decades as with the building at 97 Water Street. A...

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