Mountain Retreat Welcomes New Students
August 14, 2009 - The PhD program welcomed seven students to the start of the 09-10 school year. The new students, returning students, as well as faculty gathered for an overnight retreat and welcome in the Rocky Mountains at the Mountain Research Station north of Nederland, Colorado (see photos below). On Saturday morning, the dean of the College, Mark Gelernter, welcomed all which was followed by an informal discussion between seven faculty and students about perspectives of PhD education in architecture and planning.
PhD Program and WRGP/WICHE
July 2009 - The PhD program was recently selected and approved as a Western Regional Graduate Program (WRGP) for 2009 and 2010 Enrollment due to the quality and uniqueness of its curriculum and program characteristics among western states. The WRGP program was established by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE); through WRGP, residents of Alaska, Arizona, California (effective 2010-11), Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming are eligible to enroll at resident rates of tuition in WRGP graduate programs in these 15 states.
Students enrolling through WRGP are not required to demonstrate financial need. We welcome and strongly encourage exceptional students from from these states to apply to our program and therefore qualify for Colorado resident tuition.
Manuscript Shares Valuable Experience
Summer 2009 - Professor Fahriye Sancar recently contributed an expose to remember the tenth anniversary of the passing of one of her PhD students. The contribution involved interviewing six senior PhD students and one who recently graduated from the PhD program in Design and Planning about doctoral studies and the meaning of this unique experience in their lives. Later as a group they also talked about what can be done to improve the experience. We share this contribution here because what they discovered through the interviews may have value for others who are in the program.
Darcy Varney wins P.E.O. Scholar Award
May 5, 2009-Darcy Varney has won a P.E.O. Scholar Award in the amount of $15,000 for the 2009-2010 school year. P.E.O. International, a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to helping women achieve their academic and personal potential, grants the Scholar Awards to women who are pursuing a doctoral degree or conducting post-doctoral research. The competitive, merit-based awards are given to a select group of women in the United States and Canada each year. Darcy will apply her award to her research upon returning from working with UN-HABITAT in Nairobi, Kenya, later this year.
Recent PhD Student Publications
Dec. 12, 2008-Anirban Pal (PhD, 2007) developed his dissertation into a recently published book, Planning from the Bottom Up: Democratic Decentralisation in Action (2008, Delft University Press), as well as an article, "Political space for the civil society: The work of two community-based organizations in Kolkata," pp. 424-436 in Habitat International, vol. 32, no. 4, December 2008.
Jennifer Steffel Johnson. 2008. Affordable Housing in New Urbanist Communities: A Survey of Developers. Housing Policy Debate. 19(4):583-613.
PhD Student Attends ACSP Workshop
Sept. 2, 2008-Yuseung Kim, PhD student in Design and Planning Program attended 2008 ACSP PhD Workshop (Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning PhD Workshop, Aug 14-16) hosted by the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. The three day intensive workshop covered essential PhD quality research skills and strategies such as how to choose, focus, and refine dissertation topics, how to select research methodology, how to conduct field works, how to write, publish dissertation, and how to understand academic job market. The highlight of the workshop was multiple presentation sessions of students’ dissertation topics and following discussions. After the each presentation students were supposed to revise their research design and dissertation outlines based on critiques from faculty members and peer students. “The lectures and workshops were very inspiring indeed, and I truly feel I learned a lot and I could refine my dissertation topic significantly. Also, it was great to meet my peers in planning field from all over the country and to be able to spend such a long time with such renowned scholars. I highly recommend to my colleagues to apply to the workshop during their PhD courses.” says Yuseung Kim. All faculty members including Prof. John Landis(UPenn), Prof. Clinton Andrew(Rutgers), Prof. Marie Howland(U of Maryland), Michael Larice(UPenn), and Prof. Rachel Weber(U of Illinois, Chicago) volunteered to participate in the workshop. PhD in Design and Planning Program at University of Colorado Denver sponsored Yuseung’s travel expenses.