News and Events
2012
Urban Studies has moved to the Northwest Quadrant (formerly Columbia Hospital), 2025 E. Newport Ave. NWQ B, Room 5482.
Tues, Nov 29, 2011
Graduate Student Workshop Series: "Demystifying the Prelim." Join us for this USP workshop at noon in the Bolton 768 conference room.
Thurs, Nov 10, 2011 
Join us for the 6th Annual Henry W. Maier State of Milwaukee Summit: Milwaukee and the Great Recession. The Summit will be held at the Hefter Center, 3271 N. Lake Drive, Milwaukee, from 3:30 - 5 pm with the reception from 5-6 pm on Thursday, November 10, 2011. More information
Wed, Oct 26th, 5-6 pm
Fri, Nov 4th, 1-2 pm
Bolton 768B
Learn more about
Urban Studies Programs.
Join us for an info session about Urban Studies Programs: PhD, Master's, Undergraduate Major and Certificate. Get your questions answered about the application process, available funding support, and career opportunities in the field.
Events flier
Wed, Oct 19, 2011
Graduate Student Colloquium, 12 pm - 1 pm, Bolton 768B. Michelle Radi, Urban Studies PhD Program dissertator, will present: The Heart of a Community: Milwaukee's Jewish Population and their Hospital.
Newsletter
Giving to Urban Studies
Urban Studies Programs
Welcome to Urban Studies Programs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We are an interdisciplinary set of undergraduate and graduate programs housed in the College of Letters and Science and led by social-science faculty members from UWM’s Departments of Geography, History, Political Science, and Sociology. Our programs focus on the growth and development of urban communities and social institutions in order to understand urban processes and develop policies for the resolution of contemporary social problems.
USP offers an undergraduate certificate and major and graduate Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. The Urban Studies Program is one of the oldest graduate programs at UWM, with more than 500 Master’s degrees conferred since the program’s inception in the 1960s and over 100 doctoral degrees granted since the 1970s.
What is Urban Studies?
Broadly speaking, Urban Studies is any scholarly approach to understanding the city. UWM’s Urban Studies Programs focus on social science research methods. USP students and faculty use methodological approaches including ethnographic, archival, quantitative, GIS, and survey research. We take a metropolitan view of the “urban,” studying both cities and suburbs and regions. Much of the research conducted in Urban Studies is focused on the United States in general and the Milwaukee area in particular, but our faculty also includes international specialists.
For more information about the field of urban studies, see the recent discussion prompted by the Journal of Urban Affairs.
What can I do with an Urban Studies degree?
Like other degree programs housed in UWM’s College of Letters and Science, Urban Studies’ educational program nourishes students’ broad analytical skills, with an eye toward explaining cities. Urban Studies students learn to read urban scholarship, research and understand the urban world from a social science perspective, and write in an academic way. Students interested in purely professional program should look to UWM’s programs in the School of Education and the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Alumni of our programs take their skills into many professional arenas, including government, the non-profit sector, all levels of education, law, and the business world. The kind of critical analysis and writing skills taught in USP are transferrable to many interesting jobs where students can apply their passion for understanding metropolitan areas. See our annual Scott Greer Alumni Awards.