Comprehensive Planning Studio

Citizen Interaction Design

Community Planning Workshop

Advanced Studio: The Alley Regeneration Project

Involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewal of the research university

What are some strategies for involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewal of the research university? At a time when citizens have “disengaged from democracy,” and universities have deemphasized their civic mission, this article examines ways in which these faculty members might join together and formulate strategies which complement their shared professional and public purposes on campus and in the community. Checkoway, B. (2008). Involving urban planning, social work, and public health faculty members in the civic renewal of the research university. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 27(4), 507-511.

The Urban Teacher Education Program

The Urban Teacher Education Program, where MCTC students enrolled in an AA degree program with a focus on urban education are given exposure in real classrooms at the elementary, middle and secondary school levels. These service-learning experiences occur in many urban schools across the Twin Cities area. Website

The Great River Greening Project: urban land restoration projects

The Great River Greening Project, a non-profit community-based organization, where biology students will participate in urban land restoration projects. This project is paired with the “”Race to Save the Planet”” learning community, an integration of the Environmental Science, Ethics, and Environment, Politics and Society courses into one interdisciplinary course. The Great River Greening Project

Urban Communities course

For two decades now, students at Augsburg College have known that Garry Hesser s courses were different. Students who took them weren t asked just to know the material, they were asked to study it in the community. By following a semester of one of Dr. Hesser s courses entitled, Urban Communities, we can draw a picture of a high-quality curricular service-learning experience. In order to learn about urban communities, Professor Hesser tells students on their first day of class, you will use the community as your laboratory. Students are pleased to hear this, many of them having enrolled because…

Office for the Community Agenda: a model of campus support for community engagement

One of the clearest signs that an idea is valued on campus is that it has its own office. Just a few years ago, campuses with designated offices for community service were the exception. Today, they are the rule, with the vast majority of Campus Compact member institutions reporting that they have a centralized office for community service-learning on campus. Some of these centers focus on providing support to student service projects. Others provide support to faculty service-learning efforts. Still others focus on their relationship with the community. The Office for the Community Agenda based at the Maricopa Community Colleges…

SEBRA South-East Brainerd Residents Association: becoming part of the neighborhood

Central Lakes Community College – MN, Minnesota In order for any organization, institution, or person to be a part of solving a community s problems, that group has to know, understand, and be a part of the community. Higher education is no exception. As illustrated in the story of Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, Minnesota, when an institution establishes genuine relationships with the members of its surrounding community, only then can it become an engaged campus. Since the day three years ago when Central Lakes first ventured into the South-East Brainerd community, the college has become an integral part…

Worcester Community Project Center

The Worcester Community Project Center brings together into a more productive synergy two long-term WPI initiatives: I) Improving service to the Worcester community through enhancing outreach from WPI faculty, graduates and students, specifically through locally-sponsored interactive projects relating science, technology and society (which is a unique nine-credit-hour reqiurement for graduation for all WPI students) II) Improving the academic quality of interactive projects performed locally, by adapting best practices developed at distant residential project sites to enrich learning in projects sponsored by local agencies and carried out by students living on campus. The mission of the group is to assist local…

Green Urbanism and Urban Gardening

Course Description and Goals: The block of courses is about doing something about the environmental issues we face – a task that, of course, will require research, analysis, organization, and writing, but that must also result in practical action.  The goals of the course are to encourage you to become an active citizen in your own educational process and our wider community; to learn about, analyze, critique, and apply some of the historical and contemporary interdisciplinary thinking regarding green urbanism and urban gardening to a particular community project; to immerse yourself in one local attempt to bring Cincinnati closer to…

The Politics of San Francisco

San Francisco Political Issues: Housing and Economic Development (Political Science 475.1) San Francisco Urban Institute San Francisco State University Instructors: Dr. Brian Murphy, Political Science, Urban Institute Mr. Hadley Roff, former Deputy Mayor, San Francisco Mr. Calvin Welch, San Francisco Information Clearing House Ms. Sharen Hewitt, San Francisco Housing Authority Mr. Gordon Chin, Chinatown Community Development Corp .Introduction: This course offers San Francisco State University undergraduates an opportunity to study the recent political history of San Francisco, with a particular focus on the economic and social context within which policy debates and political engagement have emerged. More critically, the course…

Regional Planning

Planning for Metropolitan RegionsThis course will focus on the regional scale management of the relationships between urban land use, transportation and environmental quality. Background will be provided on local and national trends, related research findings, existing legal and institutional contexts, contradictions in currently espoused solutions, and emerging policy options. Recent work on land use, transportation and environmental quality by community organizations like 1000 Friends of Oregon will be reviewed. Then the following three activities will be implemented in successive offerings of the course to constitute the course's service learning component. The first activity scheduled for this spring will be to…