Department of Urban Studies
Created to strengthen the Campolo School’s vision of preparing students to become servants and change agents in urban contexts, Eastern’s M.A. in Urban Studies addresses the critical need for effective Christian leadership in today’s urban areas. It seeks to develop leaders who are committed to the task of transforming urban communities. Program concentrations--in Arts in Transformation (community arts), Community Development, and Youth Leadership--allow students to develop specialized areas of knowledge and skill.
Goals
- To develop leaders who understand the complex interrelationships between various influences on urban development, including historical, religious, legal, political, philosophical, economic, sociological, aesthetic/artistic, and global dimensions.
- To cultivate students’ critical reasoning and professional communication skills along with an ability to apply various research methodologies and create new solutions to critical, complex problems in urban communities.
- To assist students in becoming Christian change agents who understand the role of leadership in effectively empowering individuals and urban communities to bring about social transformation.
Arts in Transformation
The Arts in Transformation concentration prepares artist practitioners to become effective leaders committed to transforming urban communities.
Eastern provides the skills, knowledge, and spiritual development to use a broad range of artistic expressions in holistic ministry and coalition-building within urban communities. Eastern graduates become deeply involved in solving urban problems through their own leadership and initiative in urban areas locally and around the world.
We strive for excellence in art and art in service: art with a vertical role in expressing praise to a Creator God, as well as a horizontal role with a passion to understand and love our neighbors.
Community Development
The Community Development concentration is a redesign of the original program in urban economic development developed by Dr. Tony Campolo in the mid 1980's as an effort to make manifest the Kingdom of God in a global urban context in order to bring about social transformation through community revitalization.
The purpose of the program is to prepare Christian change-agents who, as advocates for the poor, can serve as catalysts for change to bring about community development. This is done through the empowering of local communities to develop the resources for the holistic transformation of their quality of life through economic, educational, physical, social, spiritual, and relational means. Under-girded by a compassionate exchange that represents equity, justice, and wisdom through quality workmanship and self-sacrificing service, the Community Development concentration prepares students to make manifest the Kingdom of God in the present, in the lives of all people and communities they serve through wholeness.
Youth Leadership
The Youth Leadership concentration addresses specific needs of leaders in the fields of urban youth ministry and youth development programming. The program seeks to produce professionals who are theologically, academically and culturally competent to serve with excellence in an urban context. An emphasis will be placed on collaboration with the local church, para-church and other community organizations.
For further information please contact:
Urban Studies Office
215.769.3121
urbanma@eastern.edu
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Contact Us
School for Social Change
Campolo College of Graduate and Professional Studies
Eastern University | Philadelphia
990 Spring Garden Street, Sixth Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19123
P: 215-769-3100
F: 215-769-6785
E: change@eastern.edu
AIM: studychange
