WSU Urban Studies Blog

Even though it's still cold out there, the days are getting longer and they're slowly warming up.  At least, we hope they are.   But in the Department of Urban Studies, we're also making preparations for this year's growing season at the WSU Garden for All Ages.  Members of the garden team have been meeting all semester and now they're putting their plans into motion. They've installed small greenhouses in Chandler Magnet School and Bet Shalom Apartments, and they're working with students, teachers, and community members to stock them with seedlings in anticipation of the warmer days.   At left (or below depending on your browser), Urban Studies student Tyler Levine works with a Bet Shalom resident installing the first of the greenhouse seedlings.  We're anticipating a great year in the garden.  If you are interested in learning more or helping out, drop us a line at UrbanStudies@worcester.edu .  

Urban Studies students Dannielle Morrow and Nick Beaudoin (pictured at the right), along with Dr. Thomas Conroy, began their year-long fellowships with the National Science Foundation, Art of Science Learning this weekend.   The project has three national "incubator cities"  across the country,  each working on a separate civil problem. San Diego is working on water resources; Chicago is working on urban nutrition, and the Worcester incubator is working on transportation.  The first session was at the Ecotarium, a local NSF partner.  Other sessions will be held at Clark University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.   For more information, click for a Worcester Telegram article about it. 

New CityLab Report Urban Studies faculty and students have recently released a new CityLab report, Suspension in Worcester:  A Continuing Conversation .   Written by Dr. Thomas Conroy and Dr. Madeline Otis Campbell with Urban Studies students Dannielle Morrow and Jennifer Velez, the report explores the reasons behind a suspension disparity in Worcester Public Schools.  In that disparity, Latino students, who comprise 38% of the WPS population receive 53% of the total system suspensions.  The report solicited input from students, parents, teachers, and principals to better understand the story behind the statistics.  The Vincent "Jake" Powers CityLab is a research instiute and archives housed in and managed by the Department of Urban Studies.  Its mission is to engage in informative projects with and for the people, groups, and organizations of Central Massachusetts about topics of interest to their lives and the world around them.  ...

Congratulations to two alums on their recent endeavors:  Katie Donovan, a 1996 department graduate who works in the City of Worcester Inspectional Services Office, will be honored in March with one of the Worcester Regional Research Bureau's Thomas S. Green Public Service Awards .  Elizabeth Malone, Class of 2011, has been accepted into the graduate program in  Public Humanities  at Brown University for next fall.    If you have any updates or news we can share with the department, current students, and other grads, send a message to one of the faculty members or to urbanstudies@worcester.edu .     

The New (right foreground) and Old (back left) Union Stations in Washington Square.  CityLab has recently acquired a good number of research materials from a bulk purchase at an antiquarian book sale.  Among the new volumes are additional City Directories and House Directories, some institutional histories, and three years of the monthly Worcester Magazine (1912-1914). Of particular interest in the Worcester Magazines are the descriptive articles and images including the one on the right.  Below you can find a detailed list of the new materials.  You can also go to the developing CityLab webpage to explore an in-progress listing of the CityLab Collection. A Tribute to the Columbian Year by the City of Worcester, a graphic exhibit of a city of diversified industries Board of Trade Book 1893 Purchase, November 2013 Annual Report, No. 144, fiscal year ending June 30, 1990 City of Worcester Report 1990...

A group of Urban Studies students and Dr. Tom Conroy toured the inside of the Worcester Memorial Auditorium recently.  Traveling both deep and high into the building, they were able to explore many areas not generally seen by people even when the structure was open. How they got there has everything to do with the department capstone course.  One of the capstone students, Desiree Cunningham, has been researching the AUD's history and previous plans for its preservation as part of her project.  She is now putting together a preliminary study of the building and working on a proposal of her own.  But during one of the writing workshop days in which students commented on each other's draft papers, Desiree noted that she while she now knows all this information about the AUD, she has never been into the building.  At that point, we began to make some calls about gaining access. As befits the collaborative dynamic we like to build in the...

The department's ELL Tutoring programs are coming to an end as the semester winds down.  The participants and tutors received certificates this week for all their hard work.  Classes will resume again in February.  Have a good break!

Worcester's Abbie Hoffman was integral to the Civil Rights Movement beginning here. Urban Studies students in the Research Seminar/Capstone class continue to make their end-of-semester research presentations. Recently we heard about the following projects:    Christian Tsetsos is preparing an elementary-aged mentoring program proposal for Worcester schools based on a survey of best practices among national mentoring programs. . Katie Benoit is looking at the Civil Rights Movement in Worcester and how the city was racially, socially, and economically divided in the 1960s.  . Tia Spetaccino is exploring how foster children programs in the United States and what happens with the 20,000 children who annually "age out" of the system. Dannielle Morrow is examining transportation systems in Worcester and ways that mid-sized American cities can help their populations diminish their reliance on cars.  

Just before the weather turned cold, as the Urban Studies department was putting the WSU Community Garden to bed, students in the Research Seminar Capstone class joined the garden faithful from the IUI to plant 5 berry bushes.   The bushes were donated by Tree USA and the Worcester Tree Initiative, and students were helped by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.  Dividing into groups, students learned the proper techniques for planting and, of course, turned it into a contest to see which could most quickly and correctly complete the task.  A couple of weeks later, these same students began to make their end-of-semester research project presentations.  All projects are interesting and show real promise.  Here are the first four:  Andrea Buffone is working on youth gangs in Worcester and the importance of early intervention; Megan Dealey is examining the increased need for regulation in a variety of areas ...

A recent marketing piece for the university's Career Services office quite coincidentally featured a picture of last year's Urban Studies graduates.  Check it out!  Meanwhile, current department students (and soon to be grads) were featured on one of the new WSU homepage pictures.  Check this one out, too!