Urban design and planning deals with critical issues of human settlement and urban development. The Department of Urban Design and Planning fosters an integrative approach to education and research in planning the physical environment. The academic program includes the social, behavioral, and cultural relationships between people and the form and quality of their built and natural environment; the financial, administrative, political, and participatory dimensions of planning, design, and development; and the informational base for making deliberate decisions to shape urban areas and regions, bringing analysis together with vision. Departmental faculty are active participants in interdisciplinary research units, including the Institute for Hazard Mitigation Planning and Research, the Urban Form Laboratory, the Urban Ecology Research Laboratory, the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, and the Northwest Center for Livable Communities.
Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP) is a hands-on, interdisciplinary major. While housed in the Department of Urban Design and Planning, CEP does not provide a predefined educational path. CEP empowers students to pursue their own educational goals in the company of other self-directed individuals. The CEP core curriculum focuses on theory and practice applied to real-world settings while electives are satisfied by taking upper-level courses all across campus. Students participate in a governance process that supports the major while teaching them how to be effective leaders and doers in the world through practice, personal formation, intentionality, communal learning, and stewardship. CEP students graduate to become urban planners, project managers, educators, entrepreneurs, communication experts, and professionals of all sorts.
Suggested First- and Second-Year College Courses: CEP 200.
All students must make satisfactory academic progress in the major. Failure to do so results in probation, which can lead to dismissal from the major. For the complete continuation policy, contact the departmental adviser or refer to the department website.
Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP) is a self-directed, interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree housed in the Department of Urban Design and Planning. CEP empowers students to draw on the tools of planning - collaboration, leadership, intentionality, stewardship, and vision - to pursue their own educational goals in the company of other self-directed students in cohorts limited to 38 students. The CEP core curriculum focuses on theory and practice applied to real-world settings; electives are satisfied by taking courses anywhere on campus. Students also participate in a governance process that supports the major and teaches students how to be effective leaders and doers in the world. Our students graduate to become urban planners, educators, non-profit managers, entrepreneurs, communication experts, and professionals of all sorts, including doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Transfer students are welcomed. CEP: An education fully lived, not passively taken.
General Education Requirements
Major Requirements
77-82 credits
Electives to complete minimum 180 credits for degree; varies, depending on how many general education courses apply to more than one requirement.
Student Outcomes and Opportunities
A CEP education is fully lived, not passively taken. CEP students actively make their education in community with others. CEP class cohorts range from 25-30 students. This group comprises a community of mutual learning that requires commitment, personal investment, and strong teamwork strategies for two years. Through six interconnected, quarterly seminars students engage the core content of the major: community, environment, and planning. These contemporary academic fields and areas of research include the study of community as subject and practice, exploration of the ecological context of all societal life, and an investigation of the potentials of planning for developing strategies for positive change.
CEP students have gone on to careers in a variety of interdisciplinary fields such as community planning and organization, urban development, communications, work in for-profit and nonprofit sectors, public administration, education, community and environmental activism, ecology, and government/community relations.
Urban planning supplements other studies by providing a holistic view of the human experience and how it influences and interacts with our natural and built environments. This urban planning minor puts professional skills into practice through urban leadership, applied research, and system-level thinking.
Urban planning supplements other studies by providing a holistic view of the human experience and how it influences and interacts with our natural and built environments. This urban planning minor puts professional skills into practice through urban leadership, applied research, and system-level thinking. Students are able to choose many of the courses in the minor so they can complement a wide range of majors on campus. The urban planning minor offers classes in data analysis, planning theory, sustainable development, and community-based projects.
30 credits
See departmental adviser for recommended courses.
Student Outcomes and Opportunities
A CEP education is fully lived, not passively taken. CEP students actively make their education in community with others. CEP class cohorts range from 25-30 students. This group comprises a community of mutual learning that requires commitment, personal investment, and strong teamwork strategies for two years. Through six interconnected, quarterly seminars students engage the core content of the major: community, environment, and planning. These contemporary academic fields and areas of research include the study of community as subject and practice, exploration of the ecological context of all societal life, and an investigation of the potentials of planning for developing strategies for positive change.
CEP students have gone on to careers in a variety of interdisciplinary fields such as community planning and organization, urban development, communications, work in for-profit and nonprofit sectors, public administration, education, community and environmental activism, ecology, and government/community relations.
A two-year, eight-quarter, online degree. Teaches professionals to master the methods and core knowledge required to sustain and ensure resiliency of major infrastructures against both man-made and natural disasters. For further information, see program website.
Contact department for requirements.
45 credits
45 credits
Focuses on planning the physical environment and its socioeconomic and political determinants. Advanced students are encouraged to conduct research and studies in one of the following specializations: 1. urban design dealing with physical form, character, and quality issues; 2. real estate, designed to provide students a deep foundation and specialized skills to help launch or enhance professional careers in real estate; 3. historic preservation, focusing on the specialized skills needed actively to protect historic districts, buildings, and landscapes; 4. land-use and infrastructure planning, including its environmental, socioeconomic, legal, information systems, and administrative aspects; 5. environmental planning, addressing the interactions between urban systems and natural processes This degree, a two-year (or six-quarter) program, is the usual educational qualification for professional practice of city and regional planning, including generalist planning, research, urban design, and administrative positions in a wide variety of public agencies and private consulting firms.
Contact department for requirements.
72 credits