WSU Urban Studies Blog

  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 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...

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)

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 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 ...

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. 

 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. 

On a chilly Tuesday in November, Dr. Murphy’s Public Policy and Cultural Diversity class met at Baystate Cafe and Market on Water Street in Worcester’s Canal District. The objective for the day was for students to wander around the neighborhood taking note of representations of different types of diversity in the built environment that have been discussed in the class - ethnicity, race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic status etc. They explored the neighborhood taking photos of store fronts, signs, murals, holiday decorations, advertisements, pavement, sidewalks, buildings, and architectural styles. Afterwards, the class reconvened at Baystate Cafe and Market for some Middle Eastern snacks and sweets as they reviewed their photos and engaged in a discussion of how diversity takes shape in the Canal District's built environment. The class considered which specific groups of Worcester’s residents are visibly represented, which groups appear to be l...

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...

  On Friday, October 17th, Urban Studies professors Dr. Thomas Conroy and Dr. Timothy Murphy moderated panels at the  PEAS Symposium: Meeting the Moment, Protecting Education Pathways for Latino students in MA schools , which was held at Worcester State.  This symposium convened educators, policymakers, youth, and community leaders to reflect on key themes from the newly published book Critical Perspectives on Latino Education in Massachusetts , to which Drs. Conroy and Murphy contributed a chapter along with Worcester State co-authors Professor of Sociology, Alex Briesacher and Mary Jo Marion, Associate Vice President of University and Community Engagement.  The symposium was a day of learning, dialogue, and collective action, featuring voices from practitioners, superintendents, college presidents, and experts who each offer unique perspectives aimed at fostering meaningful dialogue and impactful collaboration. Dr. Conroy’s panel explored how current and emerging f...

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...

The Department of Urban Studies and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences are pleased to announce that the Manhattan Short Film Festival is running THIS WEEK on campus! The festival will run every day from Monday, September 29 - Thursday, October 2, in the Eager Auditorium (S-146). Its 10 short films will run on a continuous loop from 9 am to 3 pm each day and from 6 pm to 9 pm on Tuesday night.  Catch the films all at once or in parts over multiple days. It is free for faculty and students. The Ten MANHATTAN SHORT Finalists hail from seven countries with films from Spain, Israel, United Kingdom, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Mexico, alongside three films from the USA.  The Final Ten are: Em & Selma Go Griffin Hunting (USA), Al Fresco (Spain), Chasing the Party (USA), Paradise Man (USA), We Have Sinned Before You (Israel), I Have My Reasons (United Kingdom), Ovary-Acting (Norway), Beyond Silence (The Netherlands), Zodiac (Belgium), Pass...

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!   

Between March 6-9, Urban Studies faculty, past and present, shared their research at this year's Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in downtown Boston. Dr. Timothy Murphy, Dr. Danielle Morales (now at UMass Boston), and Dr. Adam Saltsman were all at the conference. Dr. Murphy presented his paper, "At Home in Bohemia: Queer Belonging among Migrants in Amsterdam and São Paulo." Abstract Newcomers to cities often seek belonging with other urban residents along a variety of lines of identification, whether it be shared beliefs, ethnicity, regional identity, gender, race, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, profession, hobby etc. This paper examines how middle-class migrants in pursuit of greater freedom of self-expression and a better quality of life establish a queer sense of belonging through bohemian spaces and networks in two major cities that are rarely analyzed together: Amsterdam and São Paulo. Previous research has evidenced ...

 This December, Urban Studies Associate Professor Dr. Adam Saltsman congratulated three of our majors on completing their rigorous capstone research and writing work with a traditional lunch at the Boynton. Left to right: Skylar Adcock, Melody Byrne, Morgan Mercadante, Adam Saltsman Here are their titles and abstracts: Skylar Adcock Mental Health Resources for Transition-Aged Unhoused Youth: A Case Study of Worcester County, MA Access to mental health resources is a significant factor in supporting transition age homeless youth, a population which is affected by mental health concerns and challenges. There are potential barriers such as financial and language barriers, which may be difficult to get access to these resources. I will be researching what social barriers transition age homeless youth face in seeking and receiving mental health service. Interviews and surveys were conducted with professionals in the field in Worcester County and research from databases. The study reveal...

On November 12, the Urban Action Institute and the Urban Studies Department held our annual Empty Bowls fundraiser to raise awareness of food insecurity on our campus and in the broader Worcester community. The fundraiser is the culminating experience for students enrolled in the Urban Studies SNAP practicum, also known as the Hunger Outreach Team.  Our students worked so hard this year! They chose the theme: "Celebration of Fall", cooked desserts, chose playlists, and solicited prizes from businesses all over the greater Worcester area to raffle off at our event. Chartwells--the dining service provider at WSU--supplied delicious soups and Panera donated heaps of bread.  We raised over $1,100 from this year's fundraiser! And thanks to funds from the Student Government Association to help cover the costs of the event, we were able to donate the whole amount. Embodying the students' focus on the interconnections between hunger on our campus and hunger in the broader co...

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...

During his sabbatical last spring, Urban Studies Associate Professor Dr. Timothy Murphy, built a user-friendly website to help students develop their qualitative research skills. The site is called "Wonderful Ethnography" , because it emphasizes the importance of wondering when conducting ethnographic research. The site's three main sections - Wondering, Observing, and Asking - teach students how to stay open and curious about whatever arises during the research process and being slow to jump to conclusions, how to conduct observations, and how to engage people in interviews. The site's two additional sections - Examples and Resources - provide images, videos, field notes, and links to give students some real examples of what ethnographic research can look like as well as additional resources for students who want to learn more. Check it out!

The Urban Studies faculty is proud to present the department's 2024 Academic Achievement Award winners and newest inductees into Upsilon Sigma, the Urban Studies Honor Society.  UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS   The Jake Powers Award -- Skylar Adcock Urban Studies student who is an innovative, original thinker, whose time in the department has emboldened them to pursue personal and professional opportunities they may not have previously considered, and to achieve them with determination, grit, and courage. The Maureen Power Service Award -- Lamar Brown-Noguera Presented to students with an impressive track record of service and who can best articulate why service is significant to them and their academic/professional careers, and how it advances the mission of the department. Department Academic Award (Top GPA) -- Elizabeth Stone Given to the highest-ranking senior in Urban Studies who best represents the mission of the Foundation. Standard Bearer for Undergraduate Commencement -- ...

  As the warm breeze of spring ushers in a new season, the time to roll up our sleeves and lend a hand to nurture our environment has come. On Monday, April 22, 2024, Earth Day, from 1 pm to 3 pm, we gathered at the Worcester State University (WSU) Teaching Garden for a community event like no other. This Earth Day, volunteers from Bet Shalom, alongside students and faculty came to the garden and assisted in clearing away debris to prepare the soil for planting. The day did not end with just cleaning and clearing. As a special treat for the volunteers, succulent plants are given away, a small token of appreciation from the garden manager, Isabel Bartlett. Succulents, known for their resilience and beauty, are the perfect addition to any garden. Not only do they add aesthetic appeal, but they also symbolize the strength and endurance of our community as we come together to create positive change. More than just a gardening event, this is an opportunity for connection and collaborati...