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 It is my privilege to welcome you to the Department of Urban Planning and Environmental
Policy in the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern
University. Our department offers instruction, research, and professional services
through two graduate degree programs, Master’s of Urban Planning and Environmental
Policy (MUPEP) and Doctoral of Philosophy (PhD) in Urban Planning and Environmental
Policy.
Our MUPEP program is the only accredited planning program in the Greater Houston region
and the fourth accredited planning program in the State of Texas. It was first accredited
in 2009. Recently it was awarded a seven year re-accreditation (the longest period
allowable) by the Planning Accreditation Board (PAB). The MUPEP program is designated
to train students toward policy-oriented planners and environmental policy analysts
and to assume leadership positions in planning organizations. Our PhD program provides
advanced knowledge, skills, and extensive experience for students to work closely
with an interdisciplinary faculty in research and instruction. We have eight full-time
faculty members that are recruited from the first-rate universities and highly qualified
for teaching and research. Our faculty members have extensive research experience
in varied planning fields, such as housing and community planning, environmental planning,
and transportation planning. Our faculty and students have also been actively engaged
with the Texas APA and Houston APA. Our programs have received strong support from
local planning community through the Council of Planning Advisors (CoPA). Many of
our PhD graduate are working as faculty or research scientists in universities or
research institutes. Most of our MUPEP alumni are professional planners working in
public agencies, not-for-profit community development organizations, private real
estate development firms, and other entities.
I appreciate our dedicated faculty and staff. I am also proud of our students’ superior
professional performance. I invite you to spend time visiting us or looking deeper
into our programs. I will share with you more successful stories of our faculty, staff,
and students.
Department’s Mission Statement
The mission of our department is to prepare our Masters students to be professional
planners and train doctoral students to be urban planning researchers and professors
who are well-prepared to help solve the pressing urban and environmental problems
of our city, the region, the nation, and the world. As a state-designated “special
purpose institution for urban programming,” we embrace the challenge of preparing
students to work on demanding urban and environmental problems in complex political
and institutional settings and in difficult multi-cultural situations. We understand
the diversity of our students – in race and ethnicity, nation of origin, gender, life
experiences and cultural background, and otherwise – as a precious resource for our
program, the profession and society. Our mission is to develop this resource to advance
the public interest and the common good through planning and policymaking.
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