ANNOUNCEMENTS

September 2, 2005

I am pleased to announce the establishment of the Washington University Center on Urban Research and Policy (CURP), in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The Center’s Founding Director is Carol Camp Yeakey, Professor of Education, who also holds appointments in both American Culture Studies and International & Area Studies.

The Washington University Center on Urban Research & Policy is an interdisciplinary effort dedicated to promoting scholarship and debate on critical issues facing urban America. In addition to serving as a research center, it will develop plans for an undergraduate and graduate program in urban research and policy. The Center draws faculty collaborators from various academic units in Arts & Sciences, including but not limited to American Culture Studies, International & Area Studies, and Social Thought and Analysis, as well as from the Interdisciplinary Institute for Children and Youth, in the Washington University School of Law. The Washington University Center on Urban Research and Policy will be a key element of the emerging Center on Joint Projects in the Humanities and Social Sciences (see my June 30, 2005 announcement on this).

With the support of the entire Washington University in St. Louis community, the Center and its programs seek to draw serious examination to the profound issues confronting urban/metropolitan America, and to prepare our students, indeed the nation’s future leaders, for the challenge of solving these problems. While initially focusing on issues related to race and ethnicity in St. Louis and other major U.S. cities, given the impact of increasing immigration and globalization, the Center aspires to a more comparative and transnational framework. Central to the Center’s work is the recognition that class, race and gender are primary identities that critically intersect with urban living. The Center will prepare students to research and investigate issues concerned with: evolving patterns of metropolitanism and the necessity for central city reconstruction; problems associated with re-gentrification, urban sprawl and affordable housing; crises confronting newly emerging immigrant communities and the social cleavages of urban marginalized communities; underperforming urban schools; and, the in-migration and out-migration of the city and its schools. These are but a few of the issues that the Washington University Center on Urban Research and Public Policy will impact in its study of urban America.

Further, being an interdisciplinary program, scholars and students affiliated with the Center will utilize a wide range of research methods to investigate the material conditions, social processes and meaning of living in urban/metropolitan America. Understanding these issues is necessary to interpret the dynamics of communities and the neighborhoods they inhabit. Coming at this intellectual exploration from the vantage point of multiple disciplines and methodologies will allow us to make new discoveries and to understand urban complexities in meaningful ways that contribute to educating and empowering our students to play a greater role in improving our cities, indeed our country. Such interdisciplinary richness similarly serves to advance research and knowledge on pressing urban issues in powerful ways.

For the first year, the Center’s activities will include, but not be limited to, academic program and planning for the undergraduate and graduate program(s); establishing field based experiences to complement the academic preparation of students (on a local, national and international level); establishing collaborative relationships with other academic units in the Washington University in St. Louis community; and, planning for the inaugural conference to take place in September 2006, among other activities.

The idea for the Washington University Center on Urban Research and Policy grows from the vision of Professor Camp Yeakey and her colleagues in the Education Department, Professors William F. Tate IV and Garrett Albert Duncan. I am grateful for their leadership and look forward to the important work ahead as the Center engages its mission and contributes to our developing strength as a leader in inter- and multi-disciplinary research.

Edward S. Macias,
Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of Arts & Sciences,
Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences