2025-2026 Academic Catalog 
    
    Aug 13, 2025  
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2025-2026 Academic Catalog

Community Development & Planning, MA Accelerated 4+1

Overview

Master’s in Community Development and Planning BA/MA

 

Community development isn’t a one-size fits all endeavor

Community development is so much more than blueprints and zoning. It’s about cultivating spaces where people can flourish. Spaces with enough green space to play and relax. Spaces that offer economic opportunities that allow people to realize their dreams and aspirations. Places where people have access to quality, culturally responsive food, education, healthcare, and housing. At Clark, you will learn about the power structures that shape community spaces, and how to create processes in which community members have a say in those power structures.

Change happens at the speed of trust

Community development happens in the context of relationships. As practitioners, we can’t impose our own visions on communities. Rather, through community-engaged learning, students collaborate with community members and other stakeholders to understand each community’s unique strengths, and then collectively create strategies so that people’s dreams can take root and grow.

Be a partner in a community’s transformation

Grounded in principles and practices of ethical community engagement, we provide students with knowledge and skills in finance, project management, monitoring & evaluation, geo-spatial analysis, and non-profit leadership. These skills are needed to be a practitioner who can be a partner and ally in a community’s transformation.

Departmental Eligibility Requirements

This program is open to all majors, minors and concentrations in the social and natural sciences, and humanities, especially International Development and Social Change, Urban Studies, Geography, Environmental Science, Management/Business, Economics, Sociology, Political Science, and Community, Youth, and Education Studies (CYES).  

Students are required to meet with the Community Development and Planning 4+1 adviser before April 1 as a formal part of the admissions process. This meeting is intended to assist prospective students in assessing the appropriateness of the degree to their professional aspirations. The student applies to the MA program by completing the Online Application no later than April 15 of the junior year. Please note that application deadlines differ for students who are graduating off cycle (either a semester early or late) or who have advanced standing; such students should contact Graduate Admissions for alternative dates.

Program Adviser

Students are required to meet with the designated program adviser before starting their application. The adviser will sign the 4+1 Adviser Form through the Graduate Slate system.The signed form confirms the student and program adviser have discussed the requirements of the program. 

The designated program adviser is:
Professor Laurie Ross
SSJ Department
lross@clarku.edu
508-793-7642

Any students considering applying to the 4+1 program should read and understand the Eligibility Requirements and Policies.

Planning for the 4+1

Prior to Senior Year:

Students must demonstrate before their senior year an interest in community development by taking four courses that are central to the CDP Program. One of these courses should be at the 100-level and three at the 200-level. Because multiple majors are eligible to apply, there isn’t a master list of courses. Check with the CDP Program Adviser to determine course eligibility.

Senior Year:

Two 300-level courses approved by the Community Development and Planning Program Adviser. 

Graduate Year:

During the fifth year of study, the remaining required coursework is completed, including an experiential learning option for one unit.

Students in this program may take longer than the fifth year to complete the culminating requirement. Students must register as a non-resident if they do not complete the requirements in time for August degree conferral. Students have up to one year of non-­residency status (fall and spring) to complete all requirements for the master’s degree.

Program of Study

The M.A. in Community Development and Planning requires a minimum of 10 graduate course units, combining skills/methods courses and elective courses that link theory with practice. Students in the CDP BA/MA program are required to take one internship/ experiential learning unit.

Program Overview

  • Students will take the following courses: Core Courses (2 units), Sustainability Studies (1 unit), Social Change and Institutional Transformation (1 unit), Fundamental Skills (2 units), Methods of Inquiry and Subject Matter Electives (1.5 to 2 units), Intersectionality (.5 to 1 unit), Common Seminar (.5 unit) and one Experiential Learning unit.

 

Core Courses (2 units)

 

Program Requirements

Fees

This program is eligible for up to 100% tuition remission rate for a student’s fifth year graduate program.  There is a one-time program fee in the first semester of graduate study.  The student continues to be responsible for paying other enrollment and activity fees as well as their housing, books and personal items.  Tuition and fees are set annually by the Board of Trustees.

Students in the 4+1 Program are allowed two semesters of non-residency status (fall and spring) after the fifth year presumably to complete research and the practitioners report or master’s paper. Please note there is a $200 fee (per semester) associated with the non-residency status registration.

Sustainability and Social Justice Program Faculty

David Bell, Ed.D.

Ramón Borges-Méndez, Ph.D

Nigel Brissett, Ph.D.

Cynthia Caron, Ph.D.

Timothy Downs, D.Env.

Anita Fábos, Ph.D.

Jude Fernando, Ph.D.

Ellen Foley, Ph.D.

Denise Humphreys Bebbington, Ph.D.

Eman Lasheen, Ph.D.

Ken MacLean, Ph.D.

Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Ph.D.

Margaret Post, Ph.D.

Laurie Ross, Ph.D.

Morgan Ruelle, Ph.D.

Department Instructors

Jennifer Safford-Farquharson M.Ed

Dodi Swope M.Ed

Frank Kartheiser, M.A.

Kelly Lynema, M.A., AICP

Nastasia Lawton-Sticklor, PhD


 

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