Teaching
I teach classes on planning history and theory, qualitative methods, and reflective practice.
I carry a deep sense of responsibility to training the next generation of leaders in both planning and education. My intentionally cross-disciplinary and equity-driven research motivates—indeed obligates—me to approach teaching with the same sensibility. My goal is to help students gain confidence and competence in understanding core concepts, articulating their intellectual and professional goals, and amplifying their strengths for social change.
URSP605 Planning History and Theory (Fall 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023)
This course explores the broad conceptual developments of Anglo-American planning from the turn of the 20th century through today. We situate ideas in their historical contexts to appreciate how planning reflects societal values, collective definitions of problems, and normative visions of the future. We do not exhaustively cover all aspects of history, nor do we focus on detailed accounts of individuals or institutions (although we will look at some key players and organizations). Broadly, we examine the turn towards technocratic and professionalized practice that emphasizes quantitative data, top-down planning, and credentialed expertise. We then look at the responses that de-centered technical expertise and amplified issues of power and politics, social equity, racial justice, and human rights. The goal is less about facts, figures, and specific timelines, and more about building a critical and historical perspective of planning practice and theory as culturally and collectively constructed. We reflect how our contemporary challenges in and of place reflect cumulative and compounding efforts and impacts, and each week we identify the ways that the traces of historical thought are evident in contemporary practice. We engage with theory, not as an abstraction, but rather as a tool to make visible the otherwise-invisible expectations, assumptions, and judgments that shape our professional norms, decisions, and actions. In this way, the course offers foundational skills for “reflective practice” that is attentive to tacit theories of change we all carry and from which we operate. This course is a core course requirement for Master of Community Planning students.
URSP688x Planning, Policy and Public Education (Fall 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2024)
Public schools have served as a primary instrument to transmit, produce, and reproduce societal values and roles. Research has grappled with the role of schools vis-à-vis broader society, politics, and economy, and by extension, acknowledged the role that non-school institutions play in creating current educational conditions. This course explores the linkages between non-school institutions and public education. Students apply a spatial lens to the study of public education, grappling with the interrelated concepts of place and geography. Examining place focuses on locational specificities bound by jurisdictional lines and includes characteristics of the built environment; demographic attributes of residents in a particular location; and social, political, economic, and institutional relations of those locations. Analyses of geography generally encompass larger scales, mobility across jurisdictional boundaries, and are less contingent on the specificities of micro-level built environments and social relationships in a particular location. Using this spatial lens helps deepen understanding of public schools as not only educational, but also social, political, and physical infrastructure. This course also has a strong focus on practice, as we grapple with questions about how policy is made and what barriers or opportunities exist for cross-sector collaboration at all levels of government. The course challenges students to think about how the readings and concepts can inform and transform their own practice as a planner, educator, and scholar.
URSP600 Qualitative Research Design and Methods for Planners (Spring 2017, 2018, 2020)
To adequately manage the wicked problems of planning, we need to grapple not only with quantifiable factors, but also with contextual variation and nuanced human experience of our places. This course explores the common practices of design, planning and social science qualitative research. It pays close attention to the ways that qualitative research can generate meaningful knowledge for planning and policymaking, and to the specific research techniques that planners can use in their everyday work. The class is organized around a combination of lectures, discussion, and field exercises. Through this course, students become familiar with the theoretical underpinnings and techniques of qualitative research. This class also addresses the uses, limitations, and ethical issues of qualitative research. This course is a core course requirement for Master of Community Planning students.
URSP604 The Planning Process (Spring 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
What is planning? Who are planners? What do planners do? What do they know? Planning is inherently interdisciplinary, touching multiple domains in simultaneous, complex, and often-conflicting ways. What binds practice and thought is the primacy of place and a commitment to the public interest. But even these concepts are contested. At what scale should we plan? Is there a singular public interest? Facts are often elusive and truths are multiple. Ethical issues arise and evolve constantly. A planner’s personal history and values become central in managing professional processes, procedures, and practices. And all of this happens in the context of rapidly changing demographics in urban, suburban, and rural communities. This course takes on these big issues and conundrums. Students grapple with questions such as: How do political, economic, and institutional contexts matter to planning? How do planners meaningfully work with, plan for, and engage with others (especially those different from us)? What are the sets of tools to facilitate a productive, meaningful, and fair planning process, even in situations of conflict? Through readings, large- and small-group discussions, guest speakers, case examples, and assignments, students examine and engage with historical, political, and personal dimensions of planning practice. The course is less focused on actually doing planning and policy analysis. Rather, the course turns attention to the range of methods and tools available to planners, the tradeoffs inherent in choosing some over others, and the political and personal dynamics of professional practice. The course places planning in relationship to a broader set of political systems and structures, with attention to race and class power dynamics in the United States and to the breadth of career trajectories for an MCP graduate. This course is a core course requirement for Master of Community Planning students.
Mid-Career Doctoral Program
Placing Education in Metropolitan and Local Contexts (Spring 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
This module starts from the premise that schools are not only educational, but also social, political, and physical infrastructure. As such, they influence and are influenced by factors outside the traditional bounds of “education.” This course challenges Ed.D. students—all mid-career leader working full time as school and school district leaders—to use the frameworks, tools, and knowledge from planning and urban studies to turn a spatial lens on schools. Students grapple with the “place” of schooling within neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Substantively, the course is organized around 4 interrelated themes: Geographies of Opportunity, Schools as Centers of Community, Cross-Sector Collaboration, Place as Pedagogy. Students examine non-school arenas (i.e., housing, transportation, neighborhood development) and the ways these contextual factors set conditions for learning. They practice using specific tools and methods to make sense of schools in space and as place-based institutions. They explore strategies for cross-sector collaboration across organizations, agencies, and with community and student stakeholders. Discussions and analyses are anchored in students’ experiences and ongoing professional practice. Class meetings and course assignments offer multiple modes for students to think about how concepts and tools from outside education inform and transform educational leaders’ practice as an educator, administrator, and scholar and reflect on their roles as an educational and a public civic leader.
Department of Art + Architecture
Design within Reach: Introduction to Principles and Practices of Community Design (Spring 2015)
Community design as a professional field has a long history in architecture and its close relatives: landscape architecture, urban design, and urban planning. This course provides a foundation for understanding how places are made, using community design as a tool for transforming physical spaces; supporting healthy, vital communities; and fostering civic engagement. Through interactive class discussions, personal reflections, case studies, and field exercises we will grapple with the opportunities and tensions for design professionals working with diverse stakeholders. Specifically, we will explore the following questions from a range of perspectives: Why do places look the way they do? How did they get this way? What is the role of professional designers in creating just, inclusive, vibrant places? How do we define community? What is community design and how can it be helpful in managing multiple perspectives to design places?
