WEBVTT

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welcome to the UIC College of urban
planning and public affairs also known

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as CUPPA I'm excited to share a little
bit about some of the strengths and

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opportunities that you will experience
as a student at CUPPA first I want to

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briefly introduce myself my name is dr.
Brenda Parker and I'm currently the

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associate dean of academic affairs at
CUPPA I'm also a professor in the urban

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planning and policy department and I
teach classes in our undergraduate urban

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studies classes including social justice
and the city and as you may notice my

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hair is not normally purple but these
are of course extraordinary times I want

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to quickly introduce you to our Dean
Dean Michael Pagano whose research areas

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focus on finance policy and governance
so quickly let's talk about why choose

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CUPPA and what's special about CUPPA one
of the things that I like to say is that

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CUPPA is small but mighty and by that I
mean it's a smaller College one of the

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smaller colleges on campus which allows
you to have a tight-knit community

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experience with other students and with
faculty and staff and advisors who are

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really flexible and available to you as
students it also means that we're a

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mighty College and that we get a lot of
research done and we have several

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academic programs so we have
undergraduate programs and we have

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masters and PhD programs and we have
several research centers and our faculty

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are involved and not just research but
in policy change as well we're at

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college about transformation about
making communities better

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so at CUPPA we help students match their
hopes for the future with the concrete

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skills and the network to make those
changes possible in terms of our values

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we also teach students that before you
try to make change you need to first

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understand the needs and strengths of
communities and work side-by-side to

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improve them in Chicago and around the
world we strive a CUPPA to create just

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resilience and liveable communities
and the transformation that I'm talking

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about doesn't just happen for
communities it happens for the students

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who come to CUPPA these are some of the
things that our compass students care

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about they want to be leaders in their
schools and communities often the reason

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that they come to CUPPA is because there's
something that they see that they want

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to make better there's an injustice or a
policy or something in their

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neighborhood that they want to see
changed like our faculty and staff

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students care about building just
resilient and livable communities and

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they want to organize and bring
communities together around different

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kinds of issues most of our CUPPA of
students go on to pursue careers for

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change and government nonprofit
organizations and the private sector and

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in fact if you look around the city of
Chicago or even the state of Illinois

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right now you'll find that many of the
leaders who are speaking out or making

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change right now addressing some of the
challenges of the pandemic have their

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roots in CUPPA  you'll also notice that
many faculty and students are currently

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working on some of the challenges that
are related to the pandemic either the

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inequalities that have been exacerbated
by the pandemic or some of the

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challenges that have been brought about
through the pandemic CUPPA of students

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care about creating efficient effective
and fair cities and public policy so

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again we address a number of different
issues things that you might be

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passionate about including public
transportation public parks

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Environmental Policy social policy and
other kinds of themes

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we are also ranked among some of the top
programs in the country and in the world

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especially in some of our specialty
areas like urban planning and policy

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public finance local government
management so you know when you come to

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CUPPA that you're getting one of the best
education that is available to you

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importantly part of that education
involves studying with top-notch couple

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faculty and I want to say three things
about that first is at CUPPA you're

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going to have a lot of access to faculty
you're gonna have many small classes and

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one of the things that CUPPA of students
often comment about is how positive they

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feel about the faculty so some of these
quotes ears say every single professor

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in the program has been absolutely
amazing the program is very diverse

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professors care about you and are very
knowledgeable so the student perspective

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on faculty I think is really important
to think about also external reviewers

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have positive things to say about what
our faculty do so when outside faculty

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have come in and looked at some of the
research done in CUPPA they say that

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faculty are highly productive scholars
and these faculty are the vanguard of

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their fields the third thing I want to
say and I think you get a sense of that

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from the images here from our faculty
dr. Kathleen Yang Clayton and dr. Kate

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Lowe as in our faculty are actively
involved in making change in Chicago in

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the state and in the country so they are
involved in the mayor's transition

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committee they are involved in advising
policymakers on important issues on

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organizing communities to make sure that
they fill out the census so in fact the

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faculty are not only actively engaged
with students and research but also in

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community change and policy change as a
student you get to benefit not only from

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the cup of faculty but from the vast
network that CUPPA has around the city

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of Chicago around the state and really
around the world so one of the things

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that students often talk about is the
guest speakers that come into their

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classrooms many of those speakers are
couple alumni the field trips they might

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have
the internships or the classes where you

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actually get to partner with a community
organization or a government agency to

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solve an important problem so here is a
picture from one of my classes the

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social justice in the city class of our
guest speaker an award-winning cup of

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alumni Ciera Boatwright and these three
students who are in the Urban Studies

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and public policy program and who didn't
want to leave class at the end of the

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session because they were enjoying so
much I'm speaking with our guest speaker

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another benefit of being a CUPPA is that
we have several really active student

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organizations so these organizations you
can see a list of some of them here

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including the Society of black urban
planners women and planning and public

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affairs these are organizations are run
by students they're at the undergraduate

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and graduate level and they plan all
kinds of important learning and social

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activities for students so it's a sort
of great benefit of being part of CUPPA

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and also the advising structure at CUPPA
is something that students are very

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positive about so we practice what's
called hands on or even intrusive

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advising and I mean that the best way
possible I mean that your advisors care

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about not you just graduating getting
your degree and fulfilling your

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requirements but about how you can
succeed as a person eventually as a

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community member a leader and in
securing a job for the future so

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advising and student organizations are
really positive part of the CUPPA

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experience and here we just have an
example of one of our couple alumni in

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fact our speaker for commencement last
year Michael Johnson not only had an

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opportunity to work at one of our
research centers which I'm going to talk

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about in just a moment the urban data
visualization lab but he also was

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involved kind of before and during the
Urban Studies program in a community

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planning effort and angle would so for
Michael the Urban Studies program

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combined his interest in building a
social and physical environments for

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human development and his work at the
research

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which many students have opportunities
to hear about and sometimes get involved

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in these research centers involved
important modeling work to think about

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community networks in housing
displacements so again we have two

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undergraduate degrees and several minors
available at CUPPA many of you either

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interested in one of these specific
programs or you're just interested in

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couple more generally and you're going
to decide later which major you want the

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degree in public policy as many of you
know focuses on how to understand public

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problems and how different government
agencies can deal with those problems so

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as a public policy student you get to
learn how to analyze implement policy

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alternatives you get to work with the
public nonprofit or private sectors on

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issues and you get to choose a
concentration area maybe education or

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public health that's an interest area
for many people lately or the

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environment
our other undergraduate degree is in

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urban studies urban studies students
care about cities and they examine

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topics like access to affordable housing
and clean water public space how to

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create good jobs in city so as a student
in urban studies you learn how Chicago's

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developed what it will take to improve
it you acquire important tools in both

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of our undergraduate programs to make
cities great and sustainable while

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connecting with people that can help you
make change now and in the future in the

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Urban Studies program you'd be fortunate
to have basically the City of Chicago

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one of our greatest cities as your
laboratory where you get to apply the

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lessons that you learn in the classroom
and in both of these programs either of

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our undergraduate programs you have a
cool opportunity to fast-track to a cup

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a master's degree what I mean by that
and many students are increasingly

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choosing this is that you can get a
combined undergraduate and master's

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degree in a shorter amount of time than
you normally would have to do so you

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could for example get an undergraduate
in urban studies and then a master and

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urban planning a master's degree or you
could get an undergraduate and public

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policy and then go on to get a masters
of Public Administration and you can do

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this by saving time you save nine
credits if you do go for this joint

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degree together which means you're
saving money and you get to your

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master's degree more quickly and here's
an example of one of our students Kevin

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Peralta who did this combined degree so
Kevin got his undergraduate degree in

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urban studies and then he went on to do
the fast-track to the master's degree so

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we got a MUPP a master's in urban
planning and policy so this quote from

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Kevin I think is helpful for students he
says when I was in high school I didn't

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know what urban studies or urban
planning was I took an urban studies

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class my first semester where I learned
about urban planning in cities I

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realized I could make maps study how
cities work or how they sometimes don't

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and do it with a group of students have
similar questions and interests that I

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do
so now kevin has gone on he uses his

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Urban Studies degree in his urban
planning degree daily and his work at

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the Chicago Housing Authority which is a
government organization my degree taught

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me about social equity how to analyze
data and why extreme poverty exists it

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gave me the knowledge and tools I need
it work for providing socialized housing

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for people and understanding the root
causes of their needs so that I can help

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with improving their lives so Kevin is
just an example of many alumni who have

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benefited from an undergraduate degree
or a combined joint degree where they

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got an undergraduate degree and a
master's degree in an accelerated

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timeframe and now they're applying those
skills in an important job

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so just a couple of words about next
steps before we close up so if you are a

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current student who has applied you
probably know that we've extended our

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time for you to ite or submit your
intent to enroll to June 1st 2020

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because of the pandemic and we're also
because of all the challenges brought on

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by the pandemic we're also still
accepting late applications at this time

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so whether you've already been admitted
and you need to submit your intent to

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enroll we encourage you to do that soon
or to contact us with questions or if

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you're still considering applying that
opportunity is still available and as

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you know you can find lots more
information on our couple website and

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please do contact us at any point if you
have questions about getting no degree

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at the College of urban planning and
public affairs

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you