Fall 2022
UST 393 Social Justice and the City
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The Urban Studies program is pleased to offer its first Social Justice and the City course! This participatory seminar examines social inequities of urbanized areas (spatial justice) in the United States as they relate to historical and contemporary structural developments in land use, housing, economic development, environment, transportation, schools, and public services. The seminar includes engaging discussions and guest speakers working towards equitable outcomes in urban areas. Course materials are free through the course Blackboard.
UST 476/576: Historic Preservation
Examines the roots of the preservation movement in American cities and its historical antecedents, and preservation policies at the federal, state, and local levels of government, emphasizing Cleveland's historic districts, buildings, and landmarks.
Throughout the semester, students work on a variety of homework assignments that feed into in-class discussions and small group activities. We cover a range of materials from the history and theory of preservation to federal/state/local policy to current programming around revitalization, sustainability, and underrepresented heritage.
This course meets on Monday evenings in the fall. It is designed as a hybrid course, meeting every other week in-person with online and field work during the alternate weeks. For fall 2022, the in-person meeting dates are: August 29, September 12, September 26, October 10, October 24, November 7, November 21, and December 5.
This course is open to all CSU students. Students can email Dr. Ryberg-Webster at s.ryberg@csuohio.edu for more information.
UST 494/594 Levin Chair Seminar: CLE Learning City Initiative
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The United Nation's Institute for Lifelong Learning assists cities and regions throughout the world to develop and implement community-driven strategic plans to increase lifelong learning among all adults. These Learning City Initiatives are becoming essential parts of city and regional plans to improve communities, pursue economic development, and address issues of reconciliation and social justice.
This project course will use the UN's framework to assess the feasibility of creating a Learning City Initiative customized for the social and economic challenges and opportunities in the Cleveland metro area. Students will learn about innovative policies for adult lifelong learning in the U.S. and around the world, and how those policies are being integrated into city and regional plans for neighborhood and community development, smart city infrastructure, citizen participation, economic competitiveness, job training, and social justice.
Students will be advised by an international panel of experts who have assisted communities to develop Learning City Initiatives in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, as well as elsewhere in the U.S. Students will present their recommendations to Cleveland-area leaders at the end of the semester.
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Spring 2022
UST 493/593 section 501 City of Cleveland: Students in Local Government
Syllabus
Students working with the City of Cleveland in the spring semester may enroll in a pilot program designed to enhance and support their Cleveland work experience. The program will include an analysis of the structure of Cleveland’s city government as set forth in the city charter and compare the municipal structure and charter in Cleveland with that in other cities. The historic strengths and weaknesses of Cleveland’s municipal and political system will also be discussed. In addition, students will hear from former Mayors Summers and Leiken about their experiences in their own communities and with Cleveland. There will be a discussion of the social, economic, and other challenges facing Cleveland and the Greater Cleveland Metropolitan region. The course will examine the legal and political relationship between Cleveland and its suburbs, Cuyahoga County, and the state government. There will be three required Zoom sessions, with the first on Saturday, January 15, 2022.
UST 473/ UST 573 Columbus Seminar
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This seminar gives students direct experience with the institutions and leaders of Ohio’s state government. Students will meet senior officials drawn from all three branches of government, an independent agency, the media, and non-governmental organizations. Students will also meet legislative leaders. Agency visits and briefings by cabinet officers are included in the Columbus field experience.
UST 493 Sec 50 Urban Issues: Transportation Policy and Planning / UST 593 Sec 50 Special Topics in UST: Transportation Policy and Planning
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Transportation is an essential feature of urban equality and access. The class explores all modes of transportation planning and policy in cities, including mass transportation, private automobiles, bicycle, pedestrian safety and micro-mobility like scooters and bike shares. The end of the course will evaluate future technologies such as autonomous vehicles.
UST 215 Human Systems and the Origins of Global Warming
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Global warming is disrupting the quality of urban life throughout the world. The scale and severity of problems is expected to increase steadily for the rest of the 21st century. Yet scientists from many disciplines advise that small reductions in greenhouse gas emissions today can help avoid many of the worst problems in the future. But what changes do we need to make? How difficult will it be to make those changes? Perhaps it would be easier to find solutions if we had a better understanding of the origins of this crisis.
This new 3-credit course introduces undergraduate students from all majors to the complex origins of today’s global warming crisis. The course helps students learn how today’s global warming crisis has evolved over time. It introduces students to systems thinking, and how they can use that approach to understand the human origins of global warming.
UST 493 / UST 593 CSU in Israel: May 15- 25, 2022
Apply Now | Course Details | Introduction Video | Posters
“CSU in Israel,” a faculty-led study abroad program offered by the School of Urban Affairs, provides CSU students with the opportunity to learn about Middle Eastern cultures, global industries, and business practices. Student participants will travel to key business centers and universities of Israel, meet with academic and company leaders, and visit cultural centers representing the rich and complex history and development of Israel. Cultural excursions include visits to Jerusalem, the castle and market of Akko, the world-class Roman archeological site of Cesearea, the beaches of Haifa, historic Masada, the Dead Sea, and an exploration of the Bedouin nomad lifestyle in the Negev desert.
This course is intended to broaden a student’s awareness of a nation’s role in promoting international economic development, real estate markets, and regulatory climates.
UST 201 Building Cleveland: Architecture, Planning, and Society
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Online course
This course focuses on the history of architecture and urban form in Cleveland. Once one of the nation’s largest cities and industrial powerhouses, the built environment of Cleveland provides us with tangible evidence of the city’s settlement, growth, and ultimate decline. This survey course introduces students to major movements in U.S. architecture and urban form, as manifested in Cleveland and its environments.
Instructor: Dr. Stephanie Ryberg-Webster, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
Dr. Ryberg-Webster’s research explores the complex intersections of historic preservation and urban development, including preservation (and demolition) in legacy cities, synergies and tensions between preservation and community development, federal and state historic rehabilitation tax credits, and social inclusion in preservation, including the preservation of Cleveland's African American heritage. Dr. Ryberg-Webster's current work explores the history of historic preservation in Cleveland during the 1970s and early 1980s, as urban disinvestment escalated.
Spring 2021
BST 493 / UST 493 / PSY 393 Special Topics: Social Justice
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Instructors: Dr. Thomas L. Bynum, Dr. Tawanda Greer-Medley, Dr. Beth Nagy, and Dr. Karen Sotiropoulos
This new General Education course is open to all undergraduate students at CSU. This course examines structural inequities and systemic racism by exploring the historical connections and intersectionality of race, class, gender, and/or sexual orientation in the United States. Given the breadth and complexity of this subject matter, this course will be taught by four professors in three different colleges (i.e., Urban Affairs, Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and Education and Human Services) who have scholarly and professional expertise in this area.
This multidisciplinary course explores an array of topics, which include race and racism, social construction of race and identity, slavery, emancipation, Jim Crow segregation, social movements and activism, allies and comrades, LGBTQ+ rights, health disparities, urban development and renewal, environmental justice, housing, criminal justice reform and the police, voting rights, wealth disparities, reparations, media, pop culture, and issues of diversity and inclusion. An examination of each topic will also highlight the interconnectedness of historical oppressions and the challenges that underrepresented groups and their allies faced to eradicate these obstacles.
For questions, please contact Dr. Beth Nagy at b.a.nagy1@csuohio.edu.
UST 610 Urban Development Process / Market Analysis
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Instructor: Dr. Robert A. Simons
Remote synchronous sessions will be held on Wednesdays, 6:00-9:50pm
What do you do with a piece of dirt? This course is intended for graduate students with little or no background in the urban development process or market analysis of urban redevelopment projects, and serves as a first step toward understanding real estate development from the private sector perspective. Students will become familiarized with the real estate development process in an urban context, conduct highest and best use analysis, and learn market analysis techniques. In addition to a lecture component, this course draws on the expertise of several guest speakers who will provide further insight on real-world real estate development projects. The course concludes with a real estate tournament that includes prize money!
UST 293 Special Topics: The Human Origins of Global Warming
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Instructors: Dr. William Bowen and Dr. Bob Gleeson
Remote synchronous sessions will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:15pm
Global warming is disrupting the quality of urban life throughout the world. The scale and severity of problems is expected to increase steadily for the rest of the 21st century. Yet scientists from many disciplines advise that small reductions in greenhouse gas emissions today can help avoid many of the worst problems in the future. But what changes do we need to make? How difficult will it be to make those changes? Perhaps it would be easier to find solutions if we had a better understanding of the origins of this crisis.
This new 3-credit course introduces undergraduate students from all majors to the complex origins of today’s global warming crisis. The course helps students learn how today’s global warming crisis has evolved over time. It introduces students to systems thinking, and how they can use that approach to understand the human origins of global warming.
Students will be introduced to the relevant principles of meteorology and climatology so as to meaningfully distinguish natural from human origins of global warming. Emphasis will be placed throughout the course on the four core systems from which the human causes may be understood: these include our evolved (1) urban systems, (2) economic systems, (3) political systems, and (4) technology-energy systems. Each of these systems need to be taken into account as citizens identify solutions that can be implemented today and/or in the near future in order to reduce the long-term rate of global warming.
UST 102 Professional Writing
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Instructor: Dr. Michael Wells
Remote synchronous sessions
Enroll for UST 102 taught online. UST 102 continues to cultivate and hone the skills acquired in ENG 101, but also incorporates research and information literacy skills. You will practice your research and writing skills with the help of clear rubrics and an instructor who provides feedback without punishment. Rewrites and gentle hints about grammar, spelling, and organizational challenges. Drafts and rewrites allowed. Online asynchronous for your convenience but assumes your diligence.
Fall 2020
UST 493, Legal Aspects of Justice, Equity and Diversity
LAW 522, Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (JEDI) (2 credit hours)
Instructor of Record: Dean Lee Fisher
Remote class sessions will be held on Tuesdays, 5:00-6:40pm.
This new unique interdisciplinary course, open to both law students and CSU graduate and undergraduate students, examines the historical and contemporary treatment of race in American law and society with lectures from and discussions with 23 faculty from the College of Law and CSU faculty from Black Studies, Criminology, History, Communications, Health Sciences, Nursing, and Urban Studies.
The course will explore a variety of topics through a racial and equal justice lens: systemic racism and classism, segregation, implicit bias, diversity, equity, and inclusion, the history of slavery, police reform, search and seizure, voting rights, hate crimes, employment discrimination, workplace diversity, health equity and disparities, segregation, housing, environmental justice, civil disobedience, human rights, gender inequity, and LGBT rights.
UST 623 Urban Development Finance (4 credit hours)
Flyer | Syllabus
Instructor: Dr. Robert Simons
Remote class sessions meet on Wednesdays, 6:00-9:50pm.
This graduate course is intended for graduate students with a general introduction to urban development finance and market analysis. The goals of the course are fourfold: 1) familiarize the student with the issues which make the public sector a partner in urban real estate development in the public interest; 2) train the student in the financial analysis of urban development projects, and 3) evaluate the cost of subsidy to the public sector. The fourth objective (met in the second part of the course) is to prepare a comprehensive urban development case study, to include site, market, financial and public subsidy analyses. The students will select their own real estate project. Throughout the course, issues related to public interest in real estate development will receive special emphasis.
UST 493/593 Project Leadership and Management (3 credit hours)
Flyer | Syllabus | Synopsis
Instructors: President Ronald Berkman (President Emeritus, CSU) and School of Urban Affairs Dean Roland Anglin
Remote class sessions meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:30pm; in lieu of some sessions, a portion of the course content will be delivered online and via separate collaborative group sessions.
The goal of this course is to provide students the opportunity to learn and apply Project Leadership and Management skills in a real time environment. Groups of students will work collaboratively on projects with direct applicability to important issues and challenges within Metropolitan Cleveland. All or most of these projects will be identified by partner public and non-profit agencies. For example, a project sponsored by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) might seek to identify the routes that are most important in getting residents from neighborhoods to jobs. For all projects, we will engage individuals within the organization to provide support, direction and collaboration with students working on the project. There may be projects that are generated by administration or faculty at CSU which address key issues within the University. Students will also be given an opportunity to suggest projects that match their interest and passion.
Open to undergraduate and graduate students in all CSU programs.
Summer 2020
UST 440/540 Environment & Human Affairs
Instructor: Dr. Sanda Kaufman
Second 6-week Summer Session: June 27-August 7, 2020
Remote class sessions meet Mondays and Wednesdays at 6pm; in lieu of some sessions, a portion of the course content will be delivered online.
Open to undergraduate and graduate students in all CSU programs.
Our natural environment, a key limited resource, often generates heated debate among concerned individuals, communities, businesses, nonprofits and government agencies formulating policies, regulations and permits. Environmental decisions are often fraught with conflict that delays or prevents any action.
Decisions that affect the environment have to take into account conflicting values, information with heavy scientific content, and the possibility that consequences will affect numerous people for extended periods of time. One measure of the quality of decisions is their implementability. It can be hampered by decision processes geared to the interests of some of the parties to the near exclusion of others. Such processes predictably foil implementation by failing to ensure the participation of those who can assist or prevent it.
Environmental decision processes can also reach impasse when interest groups successfully block each other's initiatives. What processes are most likely to yield decisions and policies that can be implemented?
Environment and Human Affairs addresses this question. It introduces students to principles, techniques and examples of decision making in environmental contexts. The course develops students’ ability to assess decision situations affecting the environment, and to devise decisions and implementation strategies
Questions? Contact Dr. Sanda Kaufman at s.kaufman@csuohio.edu.
