The mission of UEP is to educate a new generation of leaders – "practical visionaries" – who will contribute to the development and nurturing of more inclusive, just, participatory, and sustainable communities, regions, and ecosystems.
What UEP students learn
UEP's public policy and planning curriculum is grounded in our mission and values. It integrates interdisciplinary academic knowledge, professional skills, and ethical principles to prepare students for real-world impact. Students learn:
To critically analyze the historical and systemic forces that perpetuate urban, social, and environmental problems and, in particular, their disproportionate impact on communities of color and other vulnerable and marginalized groups.
To analyze societal and environmental trends, assess public policy and planning interventions, and communicate findings so as to influence decision-makers and hold them accountable to their constituents.
To design, implement, and evaluate innovative and practical public policy and planning interventions to contend with these problems.
To recognize and realize opportunities for both incremental and transformational changes that take into account social, political, economic, institutional, organizational, and physical contexts.
To identify and leverage communities’ untapped assets to create innovative solutions that benefit the people who live there and grant them control over future development and distribution of resources.
To appropriately and effectively engage residents and other key stakeholders as empowered partners in public policy and planning processes and the co-production of knowledge.
How UEP students learn
By project-based learning in addition to lectures and seminars
With a passionate, curious, critical, and diverse cohort of current students as well as a faculty of scholars, alumni and practitioners who are dedicated to student learning.
By engaging with and contributing to accumulated knowledge of scholarship and practice through dialogue and research with faculty and other students.
Through learning and researching together with community partners.
Four Master's degree program offerings
UEP offers four Master's degree programs designed to sharpen the skills of policy and planning professionals:
