Dear UCS Majors and Minors,
UCS has a few courses that still have seats available this spring on the various campuses. Some of the offerings are online and others are in person. If are seeking another course in the UCS major or minor, please take note of these offerings listed below. If you have any questions as to whether you should enroll in one of these courses as it pertains to your specific degree plan, then we encourage you to contact your UCS advisor for guidance.
URBN 3998, Variable Topic: Human Services in Policing
Tuesdays, 3:30pm top 6:00pm (Online Synchronous) with Bryan Hall
Supporting (Group IV) course in the UCS major/minor
Search Online offerings – This course is listed under Waterbury in Student Admin. but is open to all students.
Please note:, If you are interested in this specific topic you are encouraged to enroll this semester if it fits your degree plan and schedule. This course is not likely to be offered next year on any campus since it is only offered periodically.
- This course focuses on the diverse assortment of policing issues and challenges involving the enforcement of laws while simultaneously protecting and effectively partnering with the public.
- Students in this course will engage in practical discussion and exercises to explore the importance of ethical behavior pertaining to controversial issues and decision-making in law enforcement.
- Through those discussions, exercises and a final group presentation, the student will be able to better analyze the complexities of policing while articulating the need for law enforcement to infuse aspects of human services that are built upon social justice and anti-racist frameworks.
SOCI 3201, Methods of Social Research
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 9:30am – 10:45am (Online Synchronous – Hartford Campus Listing) with Kim Price-Glynn
Methods (Group III) course in UCS major
UCS majors may seek a permission number if their home campus is not Hartford by contacting Prof. Kim Price-Glynn
In our information saturated world, it is easy to be overwhelmed. Social media and news feeds are filled with reports on societies, social institutions, and the behavior of social groups. Often, we do not know where this information comes from or how reliable it is. How can we distinguish good information from bad? One answer is to understand how research is produced.
URBN 2000, Intro. to Urban and Community Studies
Tuesdays & Thursdays, 11:00AM – 12:15PM (In Person – Hartford Campus) with Ken Foote
Required Core (Group I) in UCS major/minor
URBN 2000 is an interdisciplinary introduction to the intricacies and complexities of urban communities and urban life in the U.S. and around the world. We will be focusing on the city as a physical and spatial system as well as a place defined by its people and the political, social, cultural, economic institutions that shape city life. The social and behavioral dynamics of urban communities, including the diversity produced by factors such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity. The course will help to understand the interplay of environmental, social, economic, and political forces that shape many contemporary cities. If you are considering a major or minor in Urban and Community Studies, URBN 2000 counts as a core course in both.
POLS 3632, Urban Politics
Mondays, 4pm to 6:30pm (In Person – Hartford Campus) with Brian Waddell
Core (Group II) course in UCS major/minor
Cities in Europe are considered the jewels of the continent with residents and tourists flocking to them as the most desirable places. In the U.S. cities grew incredibly quickly as the landing place for millions of immigrants and migrants from rural areas. Their chaotic growth, combined with what was thought of as their less desirable residents, made U.S. cities undesirable to many, and those who could flee to the suburbs did so. Unlike in Europe, then, central cities in the U.S. became areas of decline and controversy by the 1960s, caused by white flight and economic shifts. We will study cities in terms of these changes. We will begin by examining different ways of understanding who controls urban politics. We will then examine the institutional constraints on urban politics imposed by the federal system and the problems of financing urban government. We will analyze the suburbanization of America and how this impacted cities and conclude by considering race and poverty in American cities.
POLS 3617, American Political Economy
Tuesdays, 4pm to 6:30pm (In Person – Hartford Campus) with Brian Waddell
Supporting (Group IV) course in the UCS major/minor
Please note: This course is not likely to be offered on the regional campuses next year, so if you are interested in this specific topic you are encouraged to enroll this semester if it fits your degree plan and schedule.
This course is designed to offer an introduction to some central issues of current American political economy, including a look at the power major corporations exercise over politics, business-government relations, business-labor relations, the often-problematic relationship of capitalism and democracy, and the problems we as a nation face today. We begin with theoretical issues of conceptualizing the complex relations of government and economy. We will look at the problematic emergence of labor unions in the United States and how the Reagan “revolution” dramatically weakened labor and strengthened major corporations. We round out the semester by considering globalization, and then on to understanding current problems in the U.S. political economy. If you need a permission number to enroll in this course, please reach out to Prof. Brian Waddell.
GEOG 3000, Race, Sex, Space, and Place
Thursdays, 3:30pm – 6:00pm (In Person – Waterbury Campus) with Melisa Argañaraz Gomez
Supporting (Group IV) course in the UCS major/minor
This course critically examines how gender, race, sexuality, class, age, and other forms of differentiation intersect in spaces, places, boundaries, and bodies. Throughout the course, we will review critical writings of feminist geography and urban studies that question hierarchies of power (patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism, and globalization, among others). Students will begin the course by exploring how feminist urban geographers have contributed and challenge geography as a discipline. Next, the course will explore the theoretical overview of debates, conceptualizations, and constructions of gender, sexuality, and race in everyday spaces and places. We will cover work on the politics of knowledge production and methodologies; economic processes, including women’s work and labor, migration, and development, and political processes, such as (trans)nationalism and feminist geopolitics.
Wishing you all the best for the spring semester!
Maria Winnick
Education Program Assistant
Urban and Community Studies