Overview

The Ph.D. in Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington is one of 39 Ph.D. programs in urban and regional planning in North America, and one of the oldest, founded in 1967.  

This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions.  Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas.  The breadth of this program permits students to pursue doctoral studies in the various aspects of urban design and planning as well as in a number of related social science,  natural resource, and engineering areas.

The Program seeks to prepare scholars who can advance the state of research, practice, and education related to the built environment and its relationship to society and nature in metropolitan regions throughout the world. The program provides a strong interdisciplinary educational experience that draws on the resources of the entire University, and on the laboratory provided by the Seattle metropolitan region and the Pacific Northwest. The program emphasizes the educational values of interdisciplinarity, intellectual leadership and integrity, and the social values of equity, democracy and sustainability. It seeks to promote deeper understanding of the ways in which public decisions shape and are shaped by the urban physical, social, economic, and natural environment. The program envisions its graduates becoming leaders in the international community of researchers, practitioners and educators who focus on improving the quality of life and environment in metropolitan regions.

Intellectual Focus  

The intellectual focus of the Ph.D. program is unique in bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives from the social and natural sciences, humanities, and design and planning disciplines, and applying them to the formation and evaluation of urban and environmental plans and policies.

• It seeks to explore interactions among built urban form; urban markets for real estate, labor, public services and infrastructure; urban social and political institutions and processes; and urban ecological patterns and processes. Study of these interactions draws on the disciplines of economics, geography, history, sociology, political science, and ecology, among others.

• It seeks explore ways of applying the interdisciplinary understanding of these interactions to informing the development and evaluation of plans and policies related to land use, housing, transportation and other infrastructure, and the environment. These applications draw on the fields of urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, forest resources, policy analysis, and civil engineering.

• It seeks to employ research methods and approaches that promote advancement of theory and the empirical testing of theory, in order to make contributions to the advancement of scholarship and practice in the areas of urban and environmental planning and policy. Research methods range from qualitative to quantitative techniques, including such techniques as GIS and simulation modeling.

Credit and Degree Requirements

Prior to the General Examination which concludes Phase Two of the program, six quarters of full-time (minimum of 10 credits per quarter) study must be completed.  Three out of four consecutive quarters must be full-time.  For the other three quarters, part-time (fewer than 10 credits) quarters may be added together to equal full-time quarters. None of the credits counted toward this requirement may be in UDP 800 (Doctoral Dissertation) credits.  At least 18 of the credits earned during the course of the program must be at the 500-level or above, and at least 18 credits must be numerically graded 400- or 500-level courses.

Prior to establishing the Supervisory Committee and taking the General Examination, the student must complete coursework in a required set of core seminars and courses, and be evaluated and passed to Phase II of the program (explained below under "The Core Curriculum") .

There are two major examinations in the program:  the written and oral General Examination, and the oral defense of the dissertation, called the Final Examination.  The General and Final Examinations are administered by the student’s Supervisory Committee.  Successful completion of the General Examination results in admission to Ph.D. candidacy (Ph.C. status). The equivalent of three full-time quarters of study is required between admission to candidacy and the Final Examination.  All students must take a minimum of 27 credits of UDP 800, which represent directed study for the dissertation.

Faculty Monitoring and Supervision

Student performance is monitored and evaluated for each of the three phases of the doctoral program. Each student in Phase One is supervised by an individual Ph.D. Advisory Committee appointed by the Interdisciplinary Group Steering Committee. Upon satisfactory completion of Phase One, each student forms a Supervisory Committee to guide her or him through the remainder of the program.

Student Funding & Mentoring

The Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Urban Design and Planning attempts to provide funding for doctoral program applicants in a way that makes the program attractive to the strongest potential applicants, ensures their effective mentoring while in the program, and actively engages and energizes faculty to improve the program and to bring research funding to support students.

The Program attempts to provide three-year funding packages for each newly admitted student.   The first year of funding is a 9-month Research Assistantship, the second year, a 9-month Teaching Assistantship, and the final 9 months of funding is a Research Assistantship from faculty research grants.

Students are systematically mentored through the three-year process by gaining competence in teaching and research. In the first year, students focus on preparing for the qualifying examination. They are also mentored as an apprentice in teaching and in research, but in both cases mostly as an observer, with little operational responsibility. The second year, students are expected to teach 2 sections of a course in Community and Environmental Planning Program (CEP), the Department of Urban Design and Planning (DUDP), or the Program on the Environment (POE).  Students also begin taking a more active and productive role in a faculty research project, and jointly authored papers are highly encouraged. The third year involves a transition to a focus on the dissertation, with an expectation that the program will lead to completion of the dissertation by the end of the third year for a considerable portion of students. In the third year, students are given the opportunity to design and offer a course organized around their dissertation research topic, and are mentored to develop a second or third joint or sole authored publication.

Information About the Three Phases of Study

Phase 1: The Core Curriculum

The core curriculum defines the intellectual foundation of the program. While the program retains considerable flexibility in defining a research agenda within the broad umbrella of urban and environmental planning and policy, it provides a common foundation for all students to build upon. The following are the core curriculum requirements. Students could enter the program with a Bachelors or a Masters degree, in fields ranging from planning and public affairs to natural and social sciences.  Depending on the academic preparation of the student prior to matriculation, the core requirements can be met within one to two years.  Previous coursework could be used as a basis to waive specific course requirements.  A course waiver can be obtained, if both the primary advisor of the student and the Program Director approve it.  Courses listed below that are aimed principally at masters students will need to be supplemented to address more advanced requirements for doctoral students, until such time as more advanced courses can be offered.

Advisory Committee
An advisor is assigned to each student at the time of their enrollment, and the student is expected to coordinate with their Advisor to add two additional members to their Advisory Committee by the end of the fall quarter to oversee their progress through phase 1 of the program and to provide mentoring.  The committee membership may be changed at any time in phase 1, based on agreement by the student and faculty.  Committees must consist of at least three members of the Interdisciplinary Group, and represent at least two academic departments.

Required Courses:

 Phase I requirements involve 5 courses, and should be completed during the first year, unless schedule conflicts make this infeasible.  Courses from Phase II requirements may also be taken in the first year, to accelerate completion of the curriculum requirements.

Core Sequence

URBDP 591     Advanced Research Design                                           Autumn
UDBDP 592     Advanced Planning Theory                                            Winter
URBDP 593     Interdisciplinary Urban Research Seminar                       Spring

Restricted Electives (before completion of Phase I)
Qualitative Research Methods - Choose one of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses at an equivalent or more advanced level:
URBDP 598     Qualitative Research Methods                                        Autumn
GEOG 425        Qualitative Methodology in Geography                            Winter
HIST 598          Methods of Historical Research                                      Spring
HSERV 526      Qualitative Research Methods for Public Health              Spring
POL S 493        Qualitative Research Methods                                        Spring

Quantitative Research Methods - Choose one of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses at an equivalent or more advanced level:
CS&SS 594 C   Multivariate Data Analysis for Social Sciences                Autumn
CS&SS 504      Applied Regression                                                        Winter
CEE 584           Analytic Methods in Transportation                                Winter

Note: for students needing a refresher in mathematics, the following one-credit course would be a useful refresher before taking one of the courses above:
CS&SS 505      Review of Mathematics for Social Scientists                   Spring

And the following one-credit course is valuable for obtaining skills in computing environments for quantitative analysis:
CS&SS 506      Computer Environments for the Social Sciences              Winter

Evaluation of Phase I:
The procedure for evaluation of Phase I work and the decision to advance a student to Phase II will be based on a portfolio of the work completed in required courses in Phase I that includes:
1)        The papers prepared by the student in these courses,
2)    Written evaluations by the instructors of these courses and by the student’s advisory committee, that address  the potential for the student to successfully complete the requirements for the program. 
3)    A Prospectus and Plan of Study for Phase II prepared by the student and approved by the student’s Advisory Committee that describes the general research area and fields of study the student wishes to pursue and the courses the student intends to take in Phase II, and
4)    A designation of a Supervisory Committee to mentor the student during Phase II

Phase 2: Area of Study

Once a student is admitted to Phase II, they form a Supervisory Committee to oversee their progress through the rest of their academic program.  The committee must consist of at least three faculty members in the Interdisciplinary Group representing at least two academic departments; one member must be from the Urban Design and Planning Department.  Students requiring a committee of a different composition should submit a request to the Steering Committee.  The Steering Committee recommends (but does not require) that students have at least four faculty members on their committee and that two of these be from the Urban Design and Planning Department. 

Students will develop with their supervisory committee a description of their proposed areas of study.  These will define areas of scholarship that must demonstrate an interdisciplinary research approach to an application within urban and environmental planning and policy.  The description should develop a curriculum proposal approved by the supervisory committee that addresses the following advanced study requirements:

Phase II Curriculum Requirements:

Phase II requirements involve 7 courses and a teaching seminar, in addition to advanced courses directly related to the area of study selected by the student.  Some of these courses may be taken in the first year.

Urban Processes and Patterns - Choose three of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:
URBDP 479     Urban Form                                                                  Autumn
URBDP 498     Real Estate Process                                                      Winter
URBDP 561     Urban Economics                                                          Winter
URBDP 598     Urban Ecology                                                              Autumn
URBDP 598     American Urban History                                                Autumn
GEOG 440        Regional Analysis                                                          Spring
GEOG 448        Geography of Transportation                                          Autumn
GEOG 450        Theories of Location                                                      Autumn
GEOG 466        Regional Economic Development                                   Winter
GEOG 477        Advanced Urban Geography                                          Spring
GEOG 478        Intraurban Spatial Patterns                                             Spring
GEOG 479        Race, Ethnicity, and the American City                           Spring
GEOG 578        Theorizing Cities                                                            Winter
SOC 490           The Urban Underclass                                                   Aut/Win
POL S 481        Big City Politics                                                             Winter

Research Design and Methods - Choose two of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:
CS&SS 536      Log-Linear Modeling                                                    Autumn
CS&SS 560      Hierarchical Modeling in the Social Sciences                  Winter
CS&SS 567      Statistical Analysis of Networks                                    Winter
CS&SS 594      Distributional Methods with Application to the
                         Measurement of Inequality                                           Winter
CS&SS 529      Sample Survey Techniques                                            Spring
CS&SS 544      Event History Analysis of Social and Spatial Change       Spring
CS&SS 566      Causal Modeling                                                           Spring
URBDP 422     Geospatial Urban & Regional Analysis                           Spring
URBDP 525     Planning Evaluation                                                       Winter
URBDP 530     Introduction to Urban Simulation                                    Spring
URBDP 571     Research and Analytic Methods for Urban Design          Winter
GEOG 460        Introduction to Geographic Information Systems              Autumn
GEOG 461        Urban Geographic Information Systems                          Winter
PBAF 526        Program Evaluation                                                        Winter
SOC 526           Causal Approach to Theory Building and Data Analysis   Winter
SOC 529           Structural Equation Models for the Social Sciences          Winter

Urban and Environmental Design and Planning - Choose two of the following, with potential for substitution of alternative courses:
URBDP 465     Land Use Planning                                                       Autumn
PBAF 513        Policy Analysis                                                             Autumn
PBAF 517        Economics of the Public Sector                                      Spring
PBAF 518        Applied Cost-Benefit Analysis                                       Autumn
URBDP 598     Transportation Planning                                                 Autumn
URBDP 598     Environmental Planning                                                 Winter
POLS 574         Environmental Regulatory Policy                                   Autumn
CFR 592           Environmental Policy Processes                                    Autumn
ARCH 561       Urban Design Theory                                                    Winter
PBAF 565        Housing Policy                                                              Spring

Teaching Methods
One teaching seminar, and experience as a TA for at least one quarter, before completion of phase III.  The following courses or a suitable alternative will satisfy this requirement.
GEOG 599        Effective Teaching                                                        Autumn
GRDSCH 630   Special Topics in College/University Teaching                 Winter

General Examination

A critical review of the literature in the area of study must be developed by the student, which integrates interdisciplinary research on the area of study selected by the student, and identifies areas of potential research opportunity that may subsequently form the basis for a dissertation proposal.  The review should demonstrate broad familiarity with relevant research in the chosen area, and with the range of theory and methods applied within the reviewed literature. The committee will provide feedback to the student at this stage about areas of additional study that may be required before a suitable dissertation proposal may be developed.

Once advanced coursework in the area of study and critical review of the literature are completed, the student and committee schedules a General Examination, in which the Supervisory Committee evaluates the preparedness of the student to advance to doctoral candidate status, and to begin developing a dissertation proposal.  It will be designed and evaluated by the student’s supervisory committee.

Phase 3: Dissertation

Once the student passes the General Examination, he/she is advanced to the level of doctoral candidate, and is expected to build on the critical review of the literature to develop a dissertation proposal. The dissertation proposal should demonstrate the characteristics of interdisciplinarity, relevance to urban and environmental planning and policy, and potential for contribution to scholarship.

Dissertation Proposal

A dissertation proposal should be formally presented to the Reading Committee at a scheduled defense presentation. The Reading Committee must certify that the student is prepared to undertake the proposed research, and that it meets the program requirements for scholarship.

Dissertation Defense

The final step in the Ph.D. program is the formal presentation and defense of the dissertation.  This process follows the normal protocol as set by the Graduate School.

Tuition and Fees

Graduate School Application Fee $ 45.00/on-line application.

Tuition (academic year, 7-18 credits per quarter, 3 qtrs., Aut-Spring):

Resident (@ $2,539/qtr

Nonresident (@ $5939/qtr

Specific questions and verification of residency status should be addressed to:
Residence Classification Office
264 Schmitz Hall
206-543-5932
resquest@u.washington.edu

More Information

 

For information on the on-line Graduate Admissions process, access the

On-Line Graduate Admissions Form.

 

International Applicants

 

An international applicant is anyone who is NOT a United States Citizen or Permanent Resident. If you fit this definition, please click here for important information about admission and application requirements.  International Applicants Information

  

For further information about the Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning, contact

 

Jean Rogers

Coordinator

Interdisciplinary Programs

University of Washington

The Graduate School

Box 352192

Seattle, WA 98195-2192

(206) 543-6398
jeanp@u.washington.edu

For information on the Master's of Urban Planning (MUP) Program, access the Department of Urban Design and Planning.

The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. To request disability accommodation contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance at: 206.543.6450/V, 206.543.6452/TTY, 206.685.7264 (FAX), or e-mail at dso@u.washington.edu.

 

Modified: 2/22/05