1) What progress has the Program made toward each one of these objectives?
1. Reach national prominence (top 3 US Ph.D. planning programs).
2. Align the curriculum and structure with the program’s intellectual focus. [We did this]
3. Create and support quality mentorship and advising.
4. Develop an effective, accountable, and transparent governance structure.
5. Generate and sustain necessary resources for the long-term viability of the program.

Resources
We are a strong program but our resources are primarily external. In 2013 our faculty were PI’s in over $42 M in funding from diverse agencies of externally funded research projects. 22% of the total program’s resources come from the Graduate
School, and about 18% were from UDP and contributing departments.
We need to triplicate our resources to be able to recruit our top applicants and support our students and faculty productive research.

120
100
80
60
60
48
40 35
56
38
53
63
79
97
86
99
20
0

15 Dept .
11 Dept .

Faculty
 48 faculty in the Interdisciplinary Group from 15 departments;
 From 2010—Spring 2013 the interdisciplinary faculty group of this program published over 410 peer reviewed articles, with 35 more in press, forthcoming; 17 books, 6 forthcoming; and 67 book chapters, 20 forthcoming.


Current students in the last 3 years have published 13 peer reviewed papers, 8 reports and or conference proceedings, 1 book review, and 1 book chapter.
 Current students in the last 3 years have presented at national and international conferences 52 times.
 Current students in the last 3 years have received 20 awards, including the Bullitt Environmental Fellowship
($100,000), the Lincoln Land Institute Doctoral
Fellowship, the Palestinian American Research Center
Fellowship, Open Society/SOROS Foundation Fellowship,
Huckabay Teaching Fellowships.

Landscape Architecture
Statistics
Geography
ESS
Architecture
CEE
CSS
Anthropology
UDP
Ocean & Fish Sciences
Public Affairs
Forest Resources
Epidemiology
Pediatrics
Environmental Health



All of the graduates of the program continue to “be leaders in the international community of researchers, educators, and practitioners who focus on improving the quality of life and environment in metropolitan regions,” per our mission statement.
Graduates in the last four years occupy academic positions in North America at the University of
Pennsylvania; SUNY Buffalo; and University of
Vermont, Portland State University, and University of
Washington .
Internationally, our graduates hold positions at
Birzeit University, Palestine; Royal Institute of
Technology, Sweden; Yonsei University, Seoul
National University, Korea; University of Glasgow,
Scotland , and other universities in Abu Dhabi, United
Arab Emirates, Korea, and Thailand.

Program Resources: Student Support Distribution
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013
UW-other
External
URBDP/CBE
Grad School

• What challenges and opportunities do the current structural and financial changes at UW pose to fully achieve these objectives?
• What challenges and opportunities do the emerging changes in national and international trends in urban design and planning and doctoral education pose to achieve these objectives?
• What can we learn from other institutions and
PhD programs to address the challenges and make further progress towards these objectives?

• Define a blueprint for realigning the program to our renewed identity
• Identify synergies and tradeoffs in realigning course requirements (e.g., research methods)
• Develop a guide map for orienting students through the program

Our Identity: New Clusters



Urban Development Processes
Urban Ecology and Wellbeing
Urban Environment and Transportation
•
•
Pedagogy
Revised Curriculum to align with emerging challenges and new clusters
Provide a road map to help students navigate through program requirements and clusters

Emerging Definitions
Research Clusters
The intellectual focus of the Ph.D. program centers around three unique research clusters bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from the social and natural sciences, humanities, design, and planning
(1) Urban Ecology and Wellbeing plans and policies.
Urban Environment and Transportation
(2) Urban Environment and Transportation
This research cluster examines the connection between urban (built) environment and transportation at scales ranging from neighborhood to metropolitan region. Drawing from multiple disciplines including behavioral sciences, economics, geography, engineering, and public health, it explores ways to improve the spatial
(3) Urban Development Processes
Urban Ecology and Wellbeing
This research cluster focuses on the interactions between urban system dynamics, and ecosystem function, and human wellbeing across multiple spatial and time scales. It is grounded in the sciences of coupled human/natural systems and their interface with the theories and policies of planning and design. Human wellbeing is grounded in theories from preventive medicine and health promotion, which address both physical and mental health at the individual and the group levels.
Urban Development Processes
This research cluster inquires into the social, political and cultural norms and functions of planning and other forms of spatial collective and cumulative individual actions, manifest in the community, city and region. The cluster addresses core problems of how entities acting at these scales negotiate or contest access to urban space, and participate in economic, housing, real estate, and community development. Concerns include social and economic vitality of city regions; urban design as an expression of socio-political relationships; equity in benefits and access across economic groups and geography; gentrification pressures; addressing market failure; and assessing, apportioning, and reducing risk.

Urban Development Processes
Urban Ecology and Wellbeing
Urban Environment and Transportation planning policies/interventions (land value taxing, participatory planning) coupled human-natural systems
60
50 urban form
40
30 methods
20
10
0 transportation environment social environment economy sociopolitical processes information wellbeing

8
6
4
2
0
12
10
18
16
14
Urban Ecology & Wellbeing
Urban Development Processes Urban Environment & Transportation
Students
Faculty

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Faculty
Urban Environment & Transportation
Urban Development Processes
Urban Ecology & Wellbeing
# of Depts represented
Urban design & planning
Geography
Forest Resources
Landscape architecture
Public affairs
CEE
CSE
Anthropology
Statistics
Epidemiology
ESS & CEE
Oceanography & Fish Sciences
Pediatrics
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
3
3
9
5
3
Students

With the world becoming increasingly urban our field of knowledge and practice is becoming increasingly central to both academia and society.
 We are continuing to make important progress in making our program visible through our graduates, numerous publications, and participation in conferences.
 It is now critical that we strengthen our capacity to perform a leading role in bringing together diverse disciplines, integrate many points of observations, and linking research and practice.

• Acknowledge the centrality of urban challenge and its role beyond our field
• Build on synergies with the UW faculty to generate new opportunities for scholarship and education
• Partner with other programs/colleges to generate greater efficiencies

• Create a cluster of independent PhD
Programs in different Colleges who have a focus on urban issues
• Develop a set of shared courses, seminars, and resources to support students and faculty in these programs focusing on urban scholarship
• Create open forums for exchange and cross-fertilization in urban studies

Objective: explore the challenges and opportunities that a new centrality of "urban problems" pose to the study of cities.
Speakers from diverse disciplines will articulate a new definition of "urban" and identify existing and potential intellectual synergies among scholars of urban studies.

The symposium will be structured in three sessions and five panels.
A first session will define planetary-scale socioecological change and elaborate the challenges and opportunities for the study of the city.
A second session, three panels will explore the implications of such new definition for three research areas: 1) urban development processes, 2) urban ecology and wellbeing, and 3) transportation and the environment.
A third session will explore the implications for graduate education and opportunities for innovation in PhD Education.