Phase II: Area of Study

Once a student is admitted to Phase II, they form a Supervisory Committee to oversee their progress through the rest of their academic program.  The committee must consist of at least three faculty members in the Interdisciplinary Group representing at least two academic departments; one member must be from the Urban Design and Planning Department.  Students requiring a committee of a different composition should submit a request to the Steering Committee.  The Steering Committee recommends (but does not require ) that students have at least four faculty members on their committee and that two of these be from the Urban Design and Planning Department.  Students will develop with their supervisory committee a description of their proposed areas of study.  These will define areas of scholarship that must demonstrate an interdisciplinary research approach to an application within urban and environmental planning and policy.  The description should develop a curriculum proposal approved by the supervisory committee that addresses the following advanced study requirements:

Phase II Curriculum Requirements
Phase II requirements involve 7 courses and a teaching seminar, in addition to advanced courses directly related to the area of study selected by the student.  Some of these courses may be taken in the first year.

Urban Processes and Patterns - Choose three of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:

URBDP 479  Urban Form   
URBDP 498  Real Estate Process             
URBDP 561 Urban Economics     
URBDP 598   Urban Ecology    
URBDP 598  American Urban History   
GEOG 440  Regional Analysis     
GEOG 448 Geography of Transportation    
GEOG 450  Theories of Location   
GEOG 466  Regional Economic Development   
GEOG 477 Advanced Urban Geography    
GEOG 478 Intraurban Spatial Patterns   
GEOG 479    Race, Ethnicity, and the American City    
GEOG 578  Theorizing Cities   
SOC 490  The Urban Underclass    
POL S 481  Big City Politics     

Research Design and Methods - Choose two of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:

CS&SS 536  Log-Linear Modeling  
CS&SS 560  Hierarchical Modeling in the Social Sciences   
CS&SS 567 Statistical Analysis of Networks   
CS&SS 594 Distributional Methods with Application to the Measurement of Inequality    
CS&SS 529 Sample Survey Techniques    
CS&SS 544 Event History Analysis of Social & Spatial Change  
CS&SS 566 Causal Modeling   
URBDP 422  Geospatial Urban & Regional Analysis   
URBDP 525 Planning Evaluation   
URBDP 530 Introduction to Urban Simulation   
URBDP 571  Research and Analytic Methods for Urban Design   
GEOG 460  Introduction to Geographic Information Systems   
GEOG 461  Urban Geographic Information Systems   
PBAF 526 Program Evaluation      
SOC 526 Causal Approach to Theory Building & Data Analysis  
SOC 529  Structural Equation Models for the Social Sciences    

Urban and Environmental Design and Planning - Choose two of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:
URBDP 465 Land Use Planning   
PBAF 513  Policy Analysis   
PBAF 517  Economics of the Public Sector    
PBAF 518  Applied Cost-Benefit Analysis    
URBDP 598  Transportation Planning    
URBDP 598 Environmental Planning    
POLS 574 Environmental Regulatory Policy   
CFR 592 Environmental Policy Processes  
ARCH 561  Urban Design Theory   
PBAF 565 Housing Policy   

Teaching Methods - One teaching seminar, and experience as a TA for at least one quarter, before completion of phase III.  The following courses or a suitable alternative will satisfy this requirement.

GEOG 599 Effective Teaching    
GRDSCH 630 Special Topics in College/University Teaching     

General Examination

A critical review of the literature in the area of study must be developed by the student, which integrates interdisciplinary research on the area of study selected by the student, and identifies areas of potential research opportunity that may subsequently form the basis for a dissertation proposal.  The review should demonstrate broad familiarity with relevant research in the chosen area, and with the range of theory and methods applied within the reviewed literature. The committee will provide feedback to the student at this stage about areas of additional study that may be required before a suitable dissertation proposal may be developed. Once advanced coursework in the area of study and critical review of the literature are completed, the student and committee schedules a General Examination, in which the Supervisory Committee evaluates the preparedness of the student to advance to doctoral candidate status, and to begin developing a dissertation proposal.  It will be designed and evaluated by the student's supervisory committee.