Skip to main content

Urban Studies' Newest Faculty Member Arrives on the 50th anniversary of its First Faculty Member

By


The Department of Urban Studies welcomes Dr. Danielle Xiaodan Morales to our faculty. A demographer, she was born in China and later earned her Baccalaureate degree at the Renmin University of China. Completing her graduate training at Texas A & M under Dr. Dudley Poston, her dissertation looked at residential segregation between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples in 100 metropolitan areas in the United States.  Dr. Morales comes to us from the University of Texas-El Paso where she was part of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.  We know she will be a good fit for our interdisciplinary department, and she is happy to have landed where she can continue to look at population issues and social issues in an urban context.

(She is pictured here in the desert near her previous job.  We look forward to posting a picture of her knee-deep in snow within 6 months.)  

Joining us officially on September 1, 2022, Dr. Morales takes up her position exactly 50 years after Worcester State’s first Urban Studies professor, Dr. Vincent Powers, arrived on campus. Jake, as he was widely known, was the founder of the department and was the chief architect of the major that was established two years later. Dr. Morales is only the 13th tenure track hire in the department's half-century history.  

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Morales!

Comments

  1. MariaSeptember 27, 2022 at 5:32 AM

    Great move Dr. Morales, from the desert to the green and colorful New England. Welcome to WSU. Welcome to the heart of the commonwealth of MA, the city of Worcester which is among the best cities in the U.S. to live in 2020, according to rankings released by U.S. News & World Report today.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fieldwork for "Worcester: A City & Its People"

By
Students in Dr. Conroy's  Worcester: A City & Its People class ( UR 312)  took to the city for a second time this semester to do some fieldwork. The first trip was to North Main Street --  this one was to Coes Pond and Webster Square. Here they are on the eastern edge of the pond along the boardwalk.  The student field packets contained old maps and images of city buildings and spaces at various historical points. For example, the packets contained plates from the 1896 and 1911 Worcester Real Estate Atlases as well as pictures of the "old" Webster Square Cinema when it was in operation, the "old" Stop'n Shop that's not the Asian Market, the Coes Wrench Factory, and the Roller Skating Arena that is now called Arena Plaza (where a Little Caesars is located). Students located the sites along the way and compared the old images and maps to what remains of them today. Then they were encouraged to speculate about the changes before they dug into source mat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Human Identity Class Wraps up the Semester with Creative Writing

By
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!   
Post a Comment
Read more