WSU Urban Studies Blog

Urban Studies professors Dr. Tom Conroy and Dr. Tim Murphy, along with Dr. Alex Briesacher (Sociology) and associate vice president Mary Jo Marion (Civic Engagement) presented at the annual meeting of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities in October.  Their panel, The Devils in the Details: The Complexities of Early College Partnerships , focused on the wide-spectrum of Early College models in the US and other areas of complexities including demographic shifts and "unharmonized" visions of EC programs. Altogether, they argued, these different levels of complexities contribute to confusion and disarray in programs that negatively affect the missions of many programs and/or lead to confusion of objectives.   Well-received by attendees, the session made the case that the area most controlled by individual institutions was the "unharmonized" aspects, which is addressed when institutions create and communicate clear objectives for Early College Programs th...

 

On Wednesday, Oct. 4th, Dr. Adam Saltsman, Associate Professor of Urban Studies, spoke on a panel at Clark University. The panel explored the transnational nature of humanitarian aid in Myanmar two years after a coup ushered in military rule there. Along with the other panelists, Dr. Saltsman drew from his research and  recent book , speaking about the challenges, dilemmas, and everyday politics of aid and advocacy in Myanmar, including among a growing diaspora of Burmese activists abroad. Congratulations, Dr. Saltsman! 

CityLab has published a new Infographic  that presents a precinct by precinct breakdown of the political races in the 2023 preliminary municipal election.   There were five races. Four of the City Council district seats (Districts 1, 2, 4, and 5) and one in a new School Committee district (District E).  Each area had more than 2 candidates running, which triggered the preliminary runoffs.  Voter turnout for the election was typically low at 9.1% overall. At the district level, though, there was some variation:      District 1 -- 10.7%     District 2 -- 8.1%     District 4 -- 4.9%     District 5 -- 12.2%     District E --   9.1% Such an imbalance raises questions about the At-Large seats in the general election. In this election, the precinct with the highest vote total, which was in District 5, had as many voters as 10 of the lowest vote total precincts. Seven of the 10 lowest voting precincts were...

Professors Tom Conroy (Urban Studies) and Alex Briesacher (Sociology), along with students pictured at the right, Abigail Holden (Sociology) and Elizabeth Stone (Urban Studies/Environmental Science), received Summer Undergraduate Research Grants to continue their work on AP Participation and Performance in Worcester Public Schools.  Following the completion of a  quantitative study entitled AP & WPS, Part 1  in May, Conroy and Briesacher launched a qualitative study that looks at the impact of AP Exam-taking on student academic confidence and their college-going plans.  Their findings from the initial study raised many questions they wanted to ask and answer. For example, publicly-accessible data shows that  WPS’ failure rate is the highest among Massachusetts Gateway Cities with school districts of more than 10,000 students. This is in large part because WPS' testing rate is much higher than other districts.  In no year since 2007 have more WPS st...

   As we wrap up the semester, there is a term's worth of news, photos, and congratulations to share. 

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...

CityLab researchers have released a new infographic that provides a brief glimpse into continued race disparities among WPS disciplinary actions.   The same disparity has remained consistent for the last decade: Latino students are disciplined at a rate considerably higher than their White counterparts.  While this might be expected given that less than 30% of WPS students are White, the infographic focuses on proportionality of each group instead of student numbers. Looking at proportionality allows researchers to see that Latino students are regularly disciplined at at rate that is consistently 12 - 16% higher then their percent population of the district while their White counter-parts are disciplined at a rate that is consistently 8-13% lower than their percent of the district population.   Moreover, this is the only large urban pubic district in Massachusetts that sees this problem. See the infographic here .  

Jeffrey Mark Chusid, chair of Cornell's regional planning department, is zooming into Urban Economics and Land Use class on Friday Dec. 03 to teach on plan interpretation from a technical standpoint, specifically how do we interpret historic and current plans both for buildings and urban / public spaces, and how are they used to communicate among architects, planners and other industry partners.  Jeff Chusid is a preservation architect and planner, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. He has consulted on preservation policy, natural and cultural resource conservation, and urban design for communities including Shanghai; Sevastopol, Ukraine; Levuka, Fiji; and Bastrop, Texas, as well as museums in California, Texas, and New York. Chusid’s research, teaching, and writing have focused on the fate of historic resources in areas of cultural exchange and conflict, the conservation of modernist architecture and planni...

Please join the Department of Urban Studies Faculty for the   Fall 2021 Career Conversations with Grads  Featuring  Deborah Hall, Executive Director, YWCA of Central Mass -- MS Nonprofit Management Peter Peloquin, Assistant Project Manager, Stone and Lime Historical Restoration Services -- BS Urban Studies, 2017.  Naomi Miller, Social Worker, Massachusetts Department of Children and Families  -- BS Urban Studies, 2016.    This zoom event will be held on Monday, November 15 from 6:30-8:00 pm.  E mail urbanstudies@worcester.edu for zoom link.