Department of Urban Studies
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Urban Studies Department News and Blog
Graduates and current students: send your news to UrbanStudies@worcester.edu to post.
New Book Chapter by Urban Studies Faculty Member, Associate Professor and Interim Chair, Dr. Timothy Murphy
Dr. Timothy Murphy contributed a chapter to an edited volume for Palgrave MacMillan's Urban Anthropology series, edited by Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato. The volume is entitled, Emergent Spaces: Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces, edited by Petra Kuppinger. Murphy's contribution to the volume is Chapter 10, which is entitled, "Belonging through Bohemia: Queer Timespace and Possibility in Teresina, Brazil."
Chapter 10 Abstract
"Teresina, the capital city of one of Brazil’s poorest states, is growing rapidly. When the city’s population growth is met with economic prosperity, practices of distinction proliferate among its large and expanding middle class in an effort to establish a sense of place and belonging. It is within this context that a community of bohemians creates an emergent timespace of possibility to challenge convention, to experiment with new perceptions, self-presentations, and relationships, and to build community. Forged around an ethos of queerness, Teresina’s bohemia manifests only at night and in shifting ordinary locations around the city that are undetectable by the local mainstream. This chapter focuses on possibilities and challenges that arise when outsiders with a fascination for unconventional ways of life attempt to claim a place for themselves in a provincial city undergoing acute social and cultural transformation."
CityLab Infographic, School Commiittee Addresses, Final.pdfNew WSU CityLab Infographic
MAPPING THE WORCESTER SCHOOL COMMITTEE
By WSU CityLab Researchers
This WSU CityLab Infographic maps the homes of Worcester School Committee members from 2012 to 2021. It is intended to show how representative the at-large School Committee is of the entire city over the last decade. Overlaying the basic addresses map on a state-created map of the social geography of the city highlights the disparities and prompts deeper questions about addressing the electoral imbalance.
The data on school committee members’ residences is publicly available on the city of Worcester websites; the basic address maps were created on Google Maps. Data from the map of environmental justice populations comes from OLIVER, MassGIS’ online mapping tool.
Urban Studies Professor on a Panel for "Implementing Diversity and Inclusion in Planning"
Dr. Thomas Conroy was a panelist for the third of a series of quarterly meeting regarding diversity, equity, systems of historical oppression, and solution-based planning practices hosted by the Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission. The panel, which discussed implementing inclusive planning practices and their community outreach efforts, included:
Khrystian King, Councilor-at-Large, City of Worcester
Dr. Conroy, Chair and Associate Professor or Urban Studies, and Director of CityLab
Sheila Cuddy, Executive Director, Quaboag Valley Community Development Corporation
Casey Starr, Main South Community Development Corporation
Attendees were CMRPC delegates and alternates that attend the meeting will receive an additional hour of Local Planning Assistance (LPA) for their community.
Students Train to Help Asylum Seekers in Partnership with Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice
December 21, 2020
By: Kristen O'Reilly
More than a dozen Worcester State students will be serving as trained advocates for local asylum seekers during the spring semester, helping to untangle the complex process intended to give sanctuary to immigrants fleeing from dangerous situations in their home countries. The training they received is a result of a new partnership between Worcester State and the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice (SCIJ), a Waltham-based non-profit organization.
Worcester State is only the second institution to partner with SCIJ, joining Brown University.
“This is an amazing opportunity for our undergraduate students interested in immigration law and advocacy to help with real cases in our community, the same way law students might in a law clinic,” says Assistant Professor Adam Saltsman, Ph.D., director of the Urban Action Institute, which is in the Urban Studies Department and hosting the partnership with the clinic. “Statistics show that asylum seekers are more successful when they have representation, but there aren’t enough lawyers out there to meet the need.”
Students Connect With Elders to Combat Social Isolation During Pandemic
December 8, 2020
By: Nancy Sheehan
"Students are not empty vessels to receive knowledge, but should be full participants in academic inquiry, according to Timothy Murphy, Ph.D., associate professor of Urban Studies, and Syamak Moattari, M.D., D.Phil., associate professor of health sciences. The two winners of the 2019 Alden Excellence in Teaching Award gave a joint talk on Friday, Nov. 13, via Zoom, discussing 'Community-Based Participatory Learning and Action.' "
Click here for the rest of the article.
Moattari, Murphy Explore Participatory Learning in Annual Alden Teaching Award Lecture
December 8, 2020
By: Nancy Sheehan
"Students are not empty vessels to receive knowledge, but should be full participants in academic inquiry, according to Timothy Murphy, Ph.D., associate professor of Urban Studies, and Syamak Moattari, M.D., D.Phil., associate professor of health sciences. The two winners of the 2019 Alden Excellence in Teaching Award gave a joint talk on Friday, Nov. 13, via Zoom, discussing 'Community-Based Participatory Learning and Action.' "
Click here for the rest of the article.
New Article by Urban Studies Faculty Member, Professor Shiko Gathuo
by Shiko Gathuo, Ph.D.
Professor and Graduate Program Director of Urban Studies
Presidents, prime ministers, royalty, celebrities. These and other rich, powerful and famous people have contracted COVID-19. When the pandemic first took hold, it was easy to throw around phrases like “we are in this together,” “the pandemic does not discriminate,” and “united in the fight.” These warm and comforting sentiments quickly became hollow as it became apparent that, in fact, the pandemic does discriminate and it has negatively aected the poor and people of color disproportionately and in many different ways. People of color are experiencing the health aspect of COVID-19 including infection, testing and treatment differently. The virus has also exacerbated other already existing conditions such as economic deprivation, food insecurity, and the education achievement gap. COVID-19 has also had a significant negative effect on the social life and everyday survival of people of color. ...
New WSU CityLab Infographic
WPS and ADVANCED PLACEMENT EXAMS, AY 2018-19
By WSU CityLab Researchers
This WSU CityLab Infographic looks at participation and performance of Worcester Public Schools students in AP exams. Its charts show that white students take and earn higher scores in these exams than their non-white counterparts,. This has a larger ripple in the educational progress of the latter group because colleges and universities frequently grant credits for scoring high on AP exams. Further, the data show that students taking the exams do so in proportions that are completely out of alignment with their proportional populations in the school system.
Data for this infographic comes from public data on the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website.
CityLab Infographic, AP Results, AY 2018-19.pdf
New WSU CityLab Report
Affordable Housing in Worcester, Part 1: A Preliminary View of the American Community Survey and US Census Data
By Joshua Oliver, Thomas E. Conroy, Ph.D., and Mary Fowler, Ph.D.
Fall 2019
48 pages
New WSU CityLab Infographic
WPS and DE FACTO SUSPENSIONS
By WSU CityLab Researchers
This WSU CityLab Infographic uses a simple statistic — “Removed, not Suspended” — to illustrate how continued misuse of the Emergency Removal category by WPS administration effectively creates a way to remove students from school without technically suspending them. In this way, these unresolved Emergency Removals can be seen as De Facto Suspensions. Data for this infographic comes from public data on the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and from data released by Worcester Public Schools in 2019 as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request.
Hunger & Homelessness at Worcester State University
By Adam Saltsman, Ph.D; Mary Fowler, Ph.D; Matthew Dogali; Gail Johnston; and Owen Wetherell
March 2019
21 pages
This report, written collaboratively by WSU students and faculty, analyzes the prevalence of food and housing insecurity at Worcester State University. It is based on a survey completed by a random sample of 682 undergraduate and graduate students in 2017. The survey tool itself is derived from the model developed by the Wisconsin HOPE lab (now The Hope Center), which was recently used to gather data on food and housing insecurity in Massachusetts as well as across the United States. In the spirit of Engaged Citizenship, one of WSU’s core values, this project is a student-driven movement to address basic needs insecurity.
New WSU CityLab Infographic
2017 City Election Voter Turnout by Candidate
By WSU CityLab Researchers
This WSU CityLab Infographic presents public data from the 2017 Worcester Municipal Election and shows the comparative votes received by winning candidates against the number of registered voters from winners’ constituent areas. In all cases, turnout was so low that candidates needed to receive only a small portion (normally < 10%) of the overall registered voters’ ballots to win. All data is from the City of Worcester Election Results available from the Office of the City Clerk and posted on the City of Worcester website.
New WSU CityLab Report
Discipline, Opportunity, and Equity: WPS Public Data in Academic Year 2017-2018, Executive Summary
By Alex Briesacher, Ph.D., Thomas E. Conroy, Ph.D., and Kirby Wycoff, Psy.D.
This executive summary uses publically available data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education in order to highlight the composition and trends among students and staff within the Worcester Public School District to the 2017-2018 Academic Year. It is intended to provide access to data in a more digestible, visual format to the community and relevant stakeholders. The intention in translating and disseminating this information is to help contextualize various issues that may be of interest to readers and to support the City of Worcester, the Worcester Public Schools and invested community members in exploring effective, collaborative, future-focused solutions.
Urban Studies Professor, Dr. Timothy E. Murphy, releases his new book: "Queerly Cosmopolitan: Bohemia and Belonging in a Brazilian City"
An ethnography of urban citizenship, global belonging, and queerness in a rapidly growing provincial city in the Global South, Queerly Cosmopolitan explores how people develop a sense of belonging in a city understood by many to be “unimportant” and “in the middle of nowhere.” In his exploration of the city of Teresina and its inhabitants’ attempts to establish a sense of belonging and self-worth, Timothy Eugene Murphy creatively employs queer theory to investigate a community of bohemians. As he follows the participants through different realms of life―nocturnal bohemia, work, family, and intimate friendships―Murphy demonstrates how widely circulating cultural forms, from music to sexuality, offer upwardly mobile communities ways to fashion cosmopolitan lives in even the most peripheral locations.
Individual chapters available on Palgrave.com
Urban Studies Professor, Dr. Timothy E. Murphy, and CityLab release a new report: "A Deeper Dive into Worcester"
Professor Timothy E. Murphy, Ph.D., Elliot A. Rivera, and Michael Allevato released "A Deeper Dive into Worcester," an in-depth look at a community called for in 2016's "In Search of Opportunity." That early study explored the educational pathways of Latinos in five Massachusetts cities. This deeper dive, the first of a series of local analyses on Worcester's educational pathways, provides an important qualitative context for all the studies.
Click here for more information.
Urban Studies and V+PA Professors publish book chapter: "Cities as Studios: An Interdiciplinary Approach to Community Engaged Theatre Through the CitySpeak Project. "
Professors Thomas Conroy, Sam O'Connell, and Adam Zahler published a chapter in New Directions in Teaching Threatre Arts, edited by Anne Fliotsos and Gail Medford. The chapter narrates the creation and continued development of the CitySpeak project, a research- and arts-based approach to urban planning and community development.
Click here for more information.
L to R: Dr. William Hansen (Earth, Environment, and Physics), Dr. Thomas Conroy (Urban Studies), and GIS Lab Technician, John Holbrook (Earth Environment, and Physics)
CityLab and the GIS Lab Team Up to Study Voting Trends
(by Nancy Sheehan, WSU)
A growing partnership between two labs at Worcester State University may someday help the city of Worcester increase voter turnout for all elections and combat the opioid crisis—all while helping students get into graduate school.
Click here to read more.
It comes down to being human together
Shiko Gathuo offers a perspective on understanding diversity, truly integrating classroom dicussions, and developing empathy in our divided times that should deepen at Amerca's universities. Printed on Sunday, December 17, 2017, in the Worcester Sunday Telegram.
Dr. Shiko Gathuo is a Professor of Urban Studies and Director of the department's MS in Nonprofit Management Program.
Voting Study Released
Tom Conroy, Bill Hansen, and John Holbrook recently released A Study of "Eligible" Voters in Worcester, Massachusetts. The first collaboration between WSU CityLab and the WSU Spatial Labs, the report integrates voting data and demographic data in Arc GIS maps.
An excerpt of a larger voter study, the report's major finding is that the method of counting voter turnout masks the actual number of qualified voters in the city. As such, the report provides a blueprint for ways to expand the franchise in Worcester.
Dr. Conroy, the Director of CityLab, is Chair and Associate Professor of Urban Studies; Dr. Hansen is a Professor of Geography and Chair of the Department of Earth, Environment, and Physics; John Holbrook is the Geoscience Lab Technician in the Department of Earth, Environment, and Physics.
New WSU CityLab Report Published
Dr. Thomas Conroy and recent graduate, Joseph G. Schlegel, in conjunction with Preservation Worcester, have completed a new report on the Webster Square area of Worcester. The report, a combination of data and GIS visualizations of the Webster Square node, aims at putting useful demographic information about the area into the hands of developers, planners, and local merchants. The hope is to show ways that future planning for the city can take into account all neighborhoods as well as the diverse populations that live in them at the outset of the planning processes.
Tom is Chair and Associate Professor of Urban Studies; Joe will begin his graduate studies at CUNY in landscape architecture and planning in September 2017.
New Faculty Hires
The department is pleased to welcome two dynamic young scholars to the permanent faculty this year:
Dr. Timothy Murphy, who has been teaching with us for a few years already, is a cultural anthropologist with a teaching and research focus on underrepresented communities in middle-sized cities of the Global South. He earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Davis in December of 2012 and has been teaching at WSU in the Department of Urban Studies ever since. Murphy's doctoral research and current book project focus on an intergenerational community of bohemians living in the Brazilian city of Teresina - a rapidly urbanizing city in Brazil's poorest region. There, he spent more than two years conducting ethnographic research on how this community of women and men negotiates multiple and shifting terrains of belonging in a context of acute socioeconomic and sociocultural transformation. Murphy was also a lead qualitative researcher on the project and co-author of the recently published report, "In Search of Opportunity: Latino Men's Paths to Post-Secondary Education in Urban Massachusetts."
Dr. Adam Saltsman, who also joins us as Executive Director of the Intergenerational Urban Institute, is a political sociologist who works on forced migration and displacement in urban spaces, borders, transnationalism, community development, and global political economy. He has conducted research for many years in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand with Burmese refugees, and his current projects focus on refugee resettlement in the United States and transnational linkages that tie people and places in the US and Southeast Asia together.
Dr. Conroy interviewed on NPR
Tom Conroy is interviewed by Edgar B. Herwick III of The Curiousity Desk for an NPR segment about the rise and demise of Worcester's Ku Klux Klan movement in the 1920s, which earned the city the moniker "Klan Kapital of the Kommonwealth."
image at left is a 1920s Klan Rally in Chicago.
CitySpeak Continues
Moving beyond the 2016 devised theater-based CitySpeak project at WSU, Profs. Tom Conroy (Urban Studies), Sam O'Connell, and Adam Zahler (Visual + Performing Arts) will launch another project in 2017. The latest chapter will see Urban Studies, VPA, and Public Health students doing community-based research in 5 Worcester neighborhoods. Plans for public art projects in each area will follow.
Follow the progress in the Current Projects page.
And click here to see last year's performance of CitySpeak.
Dr. Gathuo Publishes a New Article
The department's Graduate Program Coordinator, Dr. Shiko Gathuo, recently published "Kenyan Economy on the Run—and the Need to Take a Breath" in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. As noted in the article's opening, "A growing economy appears to contribute little to most Kenyans’ quality of life. Why the government and outside investors need to rethink Kenya's education system and development model."
photo credit: The middle-class life: Young Kenyans enjoy a day out at an outdoor café. (Photograph by Jackie Kairo)
Dr. Campbell's New Book
Dr. Madeline Campbell published her first book in 2016, Interpreters of Occupation: Gender and the Politics of Belonging in an Iraqi Refugee Network.
Dr. Murphy and Dr. Conroy Collaborate on a New Report
In Search of Opportunity: Latino Men's Paths to Post-Secondary Education in Urban Massachusetts is a new report co-authored by Dr. Conroy and Dr. Murphy (Urban Studies), Mary Jo Marion (WSU Latino Education Institute), and Elizabeth Setren (MIT), that explores the obstacles facing Latino men in Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Lawrence, and Holyoke as they pursue their educations.
486 Chandler Street
Worcester, MA 01602
Department of Urban Studies
Worcester State University
(508) 929-8940