 Hello, everyone. Welcome. Good morning, good evening, good day, wherever you are. Thanks for joining us. I'm Waping Wu, the director of the PhD program in urban planning here at GESAP, Columbia University. Joining me today also are my colleagues, professors, Hiba Boakar and Tom Slater, and I will let them introduce themselves a little bit in about 10 or 15 minutes, much more fully about their research and their work and their ways of working with doctoral students. At first, I think what will be helpful for all of you is for me to introduce the program very quickly, outline some key features, and then hopefully that won't take more than 10 minutes, and then we'll open up for our faculty to introduce. I'll have some conversations with them, and then of course we'll open up for questions. And if you have questions while I am presenting, feel free to jot them down in the chat box. So let's get started here. So welcome again. So I don't have to convince you about PhD program or urban planning, so you all have thought quite a bit about that, but why Columbia, right? Why Columbia PhD? And the first thing really I want to say is our required curriculum is fairly moderate in size, so it offers a lot of flexibility. We very much encourage students to explore intellectually within GESAP in terms of curriculum choices, but also across Columbia. In fact, all of our students take courses in Arts and Sciences, CEPA, Engineering, Earth Institute, or other schools. So the curriculum is very flexible and dynamic. And as is with the history of the Columbia urban planning program, both in the master's and PhD levels, we have long had a tradition of commitment to social racial and now climate justice in build environment. And this is very much a core element of the PhD program. And you will also see that in the work of our faculty across the board. And also, similarly to our master's program, the PhD program is very much globally anchored in the sense that we don't try to cover all of the world regions. Instead, we really want to bring together into a conversation of issues in global north and global south in a broadly comparative framework, but really more to encourage our students to have that critical analytical ability to understand how local conditions that context frame and situate our work. And last but not least, our program has been building an increasing strong focus on urban science and analytics, especially at the master's level. Of course, PhD, we gradually are building that with a new faculty join us this year. And beyond curriculum, we also really try to hope to help our students to think about primarily a career in academia, but also beyond academia so we have a professional development activities that connect our students with folks or graduates who have gone on beyond academia. And just really quickly, the history is long and sort of storied, and we'd be happy to answer more questions down the road. Our faculty, especially the full time faculty now we have seven in total number it's a moderate size, although for doctoral program that's actually fairly decent size among all of the urban planning programs in North America. That have PhD programs. And as you can see our full time faculty have been very productive and on the front lines of knowledge accumulation and we research issues across a number of areas in planning, and also in terms of a global scope that we also are quite broad. And so we have five major faculty a full time faculty members, anchoring the PG program. I've had students asking me whether you must work with the one of these five students as your doctoral thesis dissertation advisor down the road. The answer is primarily yes, but we do have a few additional doctoral advisors who are part of GSAP and then you can check that out on the website. So we'll introduce the faculty a little bit later. So, the doctoral coursework as I mentioned is quite moderate in size, and really tries to anchor the theoretical and methodological core of doctoral studies. So as you can see we have six courses as required. Advanced planning history advanced planning theory, and then three colloquium colloquial one more quantitative methods together with a research design, another more on qualitative research methods, and then a critical urban theory colloquium that is being taught currently actually by professors later. And so these courses because of our small cohort each year of new PhD students, these courses are actually taught every other year, each one of them. So when you enter some of you, you will actually be taking the class either with a cohort of three second year doctoral students, or in your setting year with a cohort of three first year students so that naturally forms a very nice peer group of course the doctoral students also do much more beyond just interaction within classes. And then beyond those six required courses. Also that advanced research independent study course this six is really a course that all students undertake in their fourth semester or the spring semester spring semester of their second year for you through which they prepare for their comprehensive exam. Then we require you to take two additional research methods class and so a lot of students go take, you know, ethnography if they are more qualitatively inclined. And then number of students take our GS class in the masters curriculum, which is really quite high octum in the sense that covers a lot of critical thinking in spatial analysis. And then we also have students so go take econometrics if they are a much more quantitative inclined. Then you are also required to take at least three courses electives that you consider very central to the directions of research that you want to pursue for your dissertation and we call it specialty. And then we. So I mentioned the GS class we also highly recommend doctoral students, especially those without much planning background to take our master's required course history and theory of planning taught by a professor Brock Park here so you if you have any questions, feel free to ask in a little bit. So as I mentioned that our students go across the campus take courses and seek connections with faculty. And these are just some examples of departments and schools with which our students have built connections, as well as a dissertation for some faculty member to sit on their exam comprehensive exam or doctoral dissertation committees so really, in a sense, the world is the limit, or the sky, you know there's just a lot going on intellectually and academically across campus. So I know a lot of you are concerned about how you support yourself. While in the doctoral program. And you might have heard that the Columbia student workers are unionized last year, and with that doctoral students support has been uniformly sort of endorsed and so anybody who's admitted so we admit three new students each year for the doctoral program, anybody who's admitted will have full scholarship for at least five years. I believe the amount now comes to somewhat mid 30,000 close to 40 so by next year, it'll be much closer to 40,000 that is on that's considered stipend is on top of the tuition that is fully covered by the university. And there is a summer stipend something in the amount of six or $7,000 in addition to the regular scholarship. So students entering the planning PhD program between their second and fourth years, and that means for three years, they'll be appointed either either as a research or a teaching fellow with some responsibilities. So if you have any questions feel free to ask later. And then there are other kinds of both professional development and research types of opportunities and support throughout the program, the school, as well as across campus so I just outlining a few here. Last but not least is your application, right, and you are all very committed prospective students and going to a PG program requires a lot of commitment both in terms of energy, time, everything else. So I want to say, I want to provide as much transparency as possible so that you have more understanding of the process. Deadline is December 15. And this is actually quite consistent with many arts and science program and social sciences across campus. And we very much are looking for evidence, especially through your personal statement, as well as, of course, the registration letters, the transcript of your bachelor and master's program we require a master's degree prior to entry into the PhD program. And if you have a writing sample of course so your critical thinking and independent research ability, your writing ability. So this personal statement is perhaps one of the most important pieces of your application I can't say enough about how important this, and we would very much like for you to tell us why you're interested in the PG program. What kind of research you might be interested in doing just really quick reminder at Columbia, a reclining program, we do not match a student with a potential advisor at time of admission. We actually encourage our students to come in and explore intellectually. So you also do not need to send us a research proposal. Oh, this is what I want to do for my dissertation. It's too early. Your interest will change and very well will change dramatically. Once you enter the program, perhaps the direction will remain the same, but the specifics will for sure be changing. So we really wanted to see, you know, what kind of preparation and the capacity you have been building to allow you to pursue that kind of research. And then of course your experience with any analytical reasoning, inclusive of quantitative and qualitative spatial analysis methods because this year we're not requiring GRE. And so if you have very strong background, it's totally fine. But if you feel a GRE could help you strengthen your application, you're welcome to take them. So the review process is very much collective. The entire doctoral faculty, all five of us will review them together. And then we will have some virtual discussion with finalists hopefully will make that happen early February. And then we will start informing top candidates shortly after, but the admission of waitlist decisions will probably be issued somewhat later towards March or so and the deadline for decision is mid April, April 15. Okay, so that's the overall process and so on. And again, I would encourage you to connect, discover, and really discover is really important. I, you know, if you, I can click this but later. Basically, you go to our PhD webpage. From there, you'll be able to see past rotations by our students, as well as alumni placement of the program. So you'll get a better sense of where students are have been and so on. So let me stop right here. And then so we can open up for questions discussions. And then let me first see if we have any questions in the chat box. We're all good. So, so why don't I invite my colleagues to introduce their work a little bit, and then we can start the Q&A and fairly informal discussions so feel free to chat down your questions now or just raise your hand later. I'll be watching for those signals. So, Hiba. Hello everyone. Nice to meet you. I'm Hiba Boakar. I am assistant professor of urban planning in the program. And I teach for the PhD, I teach the planning theory course, advanced planning theory course. And I teach also masters into planning history and theory that PhD students take in their first year before they take the advanced planning theory course. In terms of my, I also teach electives on issues related to exclusion, cities in crisis, which is related more to my research. I work on urban planning as it relates to cities in conflict, post conflict cities, issues related to segregation and social exclusion. So my latest book entitled For the Warrior to Come, Planning by Roots for Referes, it talks about, it's an ethnographic, what we mean by ethnographic it's a very much you get immersed a lot in the context, you do a lot of observations and participant observation as well as interviews and with the local community over an extended period of time. So I am from Beirut and that research is based in Beirut. And it basically was, it's about how religious political organizations use urban planning tools like zoning, master planning, how they intervene in housing and real estate markets to shape spaces in cities after after war or what we call post conflict cities that are still expecting future crisis to happen. But it's not only about Beirut, it also theorizes from Beirut about things that what what does urban planning mean when the future is, is like foreclosed like a climate. How do you think urban planning and planning in the future characterized by climate crisis or by pandemic or by war and refugee displacement crisis and so how do you think of urban planning beyond the modernist idea of progress and everything is going to be better, how, what, what, how does, how does that new ways of seeing the future shape our field so this is what my research is on and I continue to work on along these axes, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you Hiba, Tom. Hi everyone. Pleasure to meet you all I think I've actually met a few of you already an individual. Cool so nice to see you again. I am a professor of urban planning here. I'm the new guy here by the way I only got here at the beginning of September. So, I'm new to the program. I have to say that the students who I've met so far on the program are fantastic, and not only in terms of the intellectual energy but the fact there's a very strong sense of community among them and I've been really impressed by how they look after each other, and they debate with each other, and that's a really exciting thing to see. So, I'm perhaps a bit unusual in the urban planning program and that I'm not trained as an urban planner my background is an urban geography. I use all kinds of work in my own research. So, urban planning is just one discipline that I engage with when I do my work and I think that's an important thing for us all to be as interdisciplinary as we can to learn about different approaches and different perspectives. So my work has over the past 20 years, been on various aspects of urban inequality. I was best known for my work on gentrification and displacement of my PhD over 20 years ago now was a comparative study of gentrification and displacement in New York and Toronto. And I also have done various work on questions of urban marginality territorial stigmatization housing justice struggles, and also I engage a lot with critical urban theory and try and move debates forward in my work. In terms of the regional focus, the bulk of my work, my published work has been on global north contexts. But more recently, I've become very interested in what's been going on in respect of urbanization in South Africa specifically the city of Cape Town. When I was at the University of Edinburgh, where I worked for 14 years before Columbia, I took students to South Africa. And through those connections I made in order to do that, I've developed very strong research interests in some of the spatial planning issues which particularly Cape Town is facing. My most recent book is called Shaking Up the City. And what this is, it's a book about urban inequalities in multiple contexts, how they emerge, how they are sustained, and what can be done to reduce them. And while I explore those issues, I also provide a critical analysis of the concepts, categories and methods of what I call mainstream urban studies where structural and institutional arrangements generating inequalities tend to go unquestioned and accepted. So what I try and do in that book is articulate an approach to urban studies that brings together epistemological critique with social critique in an effort to encourage the formulation of research driven policies as a counterpoint to mainstream policy driven approaches to research. So that's a bit about me. I'm very excited to be here at Columbia, and I'll just finish by saying apply. There's a lot of energy with this program, and it's exciting to be part of it. Very nice to meet you all. Thank you, Tom. And so let me introduce a little bit of the two other faculty members. I just typed in the chat box which you will see. First, I want to introduce quickly is Professor Hugo Samiento. So he's areas of interest, as you can see from the chat box, climate change adaptation, post disaster recovery, spatial inequalities, political economy, and Latin American urban geography. So he's very much of an American specialist as well, and you will see actually all of us have some regional interest across the world and which really engages sort of our teaching and research in a way that goes well beyond planning as Tom was saying and so is Hibas' work and my own work. We are all quite a bit involved in the area studies, kind of traditional Middle Eastern studies, you know, Chinese studies and so on. And then with our colleague Hugo, more Latin America, he's worked quite a bit in Colombia, as well as now in Puerto Rico. He also has work now in New York City, all from the lens of climate adaptation and will be called retreat and all of that. So feel free to check out his work. And I had a question in the chat box saying, should we contact a prospective professor before your application? My, yes, if I am shaking, right? Exactly. You know, as I mentioned earlier, some of you may not heard this, or you dial in after I said that, is that we do not do the matching at this point. And most likely you will be connecting with a professor during the end of your first year time, even going into second year as you begin to prepare for your comprehensive exam. So there, so just kind of be mindful of the time commitment that each of us has to our doctoral program and master's programs and teaching and so on. And so it's kind of challenging often for us to be able to give you really sustained as well as detailed feedback as you approach prior to your application. And then once we have reviewed applications, we'll have this virtual discussion with the shortlisted applicants. At that point, I think we'll be good time, say, to reach out or even we'll engage all of the faculty in those discussions and you have opportunity to do that. So I apologize if we're not able to for all of our faculty to be individually filled in questions in advance. Okay. Another faculty, we are thrilled to have him joining us this year is Anthony Vanky. Again, you can see in the chat box. Oh yeah, I didn't hit them. Return keys. You didn't see Hugo just now. So now you see, right? You see Hugo and you see Anthony. So Anthony is our big data guy. Of course, he also has a really strong training in design and architecture. So very much built environment anchored big data kinds approach, very critical, very much looking at how communities engage in the kind of the analytical and ground building process. So transportation mobility. He's not your typical transportation kind of modeling person. He really looks at transportation from point of view of mobility and accessibility. And he's very much into urban form. And then the rule of urban information technology. Of course, methodologically, he's approaches very much spatial analysis and big data modeling. Hugo's work is primarily qualitative in methodological approach. So they are now, five of us are advising students and to say just a little bit about myself. I'll copy this to that I have worked primarily in the context of urbanization across the global south and how to bring into conversation with urban theories and especially as related to migration and how migrants navigate the urban scene once they arrive in cities. Right. And so I have geographically primarily focused on China and the East Asian context and methodologically I am a mixed methods kind of person. I've done very large scale surveys, very much demographic, I'm sorry. Yeah, demographic kind of research type of large survey. But I also have done quite a bit in depth interviews and firm interviews because another line of my research is really looking at how cities manage resources as well as using land as a source of financing for infrastructure development. And so there involves quite a bit firm interviews and so I do both large survey I haven't done a lot in more recent years, but I use quite a bit survey data in my work as well. So I show the couple of books I've been writing and really is to look at how the trajectories of post socialist cities in terms of settlement forms as well as settlement processes, especially for migrants are in a way resembling as well as diverging from migrant settlement patterns, say in Latin America cities, or even to some extent, African cities. So that's my work. So before I open up completely default other questions I want to say so Hiba teaches the advanced theory class required, Hugo teaches will be teaching next semester advanced history planning history class, and Tom is teaching the colloquium on urban critical urban theory, and Anthony will be teaching colloquium on research design and quantitative methods, and I teach the applied qualitative methods colloquium so you see all five of us teach the core courses you have quite a bit interaction students with each of us prior to students taking comprehensive exams. Okay, so we had a couple of question let me just answer that so that we don't forget these questions so if your master's program, our master's degree is from English speaking university and say in UK or us but you are generally from an international origin. You don't need to submit TOEFL because your university was you know English in instruction, if you have any questions feel free to email our GSAP admissions address so Sarah if you're there can you just type in the GSAP admissions email address in the chat box, whenever you can. Also, for those of you from low resources countries if you need to wave application fees, that is also the email to send your inquiry to we can't really help you unfortunately. And then, unfortunately, we do not have part time option for PhD program. The PhD program is a really intensive preparation process for an academic career primarily, and as a result, it's really really really challenging to do it part time. It's not just in our university I think cross the board at you know at the dissertation stage, some of our students go on and work but in the first few years generally that's very very difficult and we will be taping the session we are taping the session so those of you who need to leave early feel free to do that. Okay, though, I think thanks Sarah the emails email is in the chat box so let's open up completely to your questions, you can address it directly to any of our faculties, or in general to all of us. Yes, the hand raising option is enabled you go to reactions and go to raise hand, or you can just holler. Okay. Let's see if I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Yeah. Yes, it's, it's aia. I yeah. Okay, sorry. So my question was, you know just take it into consideration I think just the climate around you know just racial justice and particularly the conversation around, you know, equity, particularly for the black community. I've been, you know, looking at your program and got a chance to connect with some of your faculty current current students, just kind of curious as to you all's perspective of those who are representing department today. You know, just what, how you think this program is is currently doing and maybe what are some of the hopes for the program around supporting candidates who specifically want to focus on black issues and anti racist kind of planning with that particular focus in the black community. And what are ways that students are currently able to engage utilizing the current capacity and perspectives that are available but also being aware as a smaller program and not with particularly faculty who are who come from that community. How's the institution kind of like working to support or the department working to support students who have that lens that that interest in their in their research. Like through collaboration with other departments or are there other internal kind of strategies or or even anecdotal experiences that students have been able to experience that have allowed them to focus on that and in that area. I know newer faculty might not have as much of a perspective on that but I think they do because they actually work on some of the related issues so in fact I would invite my colleagues to chime in. Okay, let me just explain a few things that I'm doing here. So I teach a colloquium has way pink circle critical urban theory. And one of the things which I'm excited about with that without colloquium is how we are engaging with some of the real cutting edge debates in urban theory right now much of which are to do with, for example, things like gentrification is not just about class it's about racial capitalism. Another example, we're looking at theories of racial segregation, many of which still today are used even to explain things even though they were formulated 7080 years time so we're looking at how relevant some of these, you know, for example measures of racial segregation are when we're when we are used them to apply to cities today. Okay, so we're having these kinds of conversations in in my theory class. Another thing I should tell you about is just a couple of weeks ago. I met a community organization based in Manhattanville just north of Columbia University campus. And this is called the United Front against displacement. And it actually has several outposts this organization not just in New York City but I met the New York organizers. And this is actually really exciting for me because it's an opportunity to do things a little differently to how maybe they've been done in the past, across the institution so for example Columbia has a very ugly history of gentrification of Harlem, right. I think it's important that we look at this history and bring in people into the university to talk to our students about what they're doing in order to to fight for affordable housing fight against displacement. And so that's what I'm going to be doing in my master's program teaching but I'm certainly excited to see doctoral students engage with these issues as well. So that's just a couple of examples of things that I'm doing, but there may be others from my colleagues as well. That does sound incredibly exciting. Would you like to share some of the work you've done. Yeah, first, I mean the students, when we after the murder of George Floyd, the students that we had here we got together. And we did a reading list that the student driven reading list about racial reckoning with the field of urban planning and it's something we continue to have a conversation because we don't have a clear answer from the urban planning discussion that had a big hand in in red lining and segregation and what we got like the the exclusion of the black communities here urban planning played a big role in doing that and so how to do a racial reckoning with the profession is a big question that I think all of us are trying to to think about and work. And so Tom has talked about a little bit about about that I during the pandemic I worked on two projects given that we weren't able to do one is about how the urban planning response to the killing of Trevor mountain in Florida and what does the role of urban planning, how what was the urban planning response to the killing of black man in a in a privatized neighborhood but also what are the what were, what was the urban planning response and how the response was not up to task in terms of continuing similar patterns of of exclusion but and using new terminology so that was one paper that is I submitted for review and it's it's been it's been requested for revise and resubmit so it's about it's about that is that the cyclical notion of urban planning that you keep being called upon to correct mistakes of the past only to fall again into traps of what could what could we do and then reinforcing similar patterns of patterns of exclusion from before. The second project is along what Tom was walking working on talking about is that during the pandemic I I stayed here and Columbia is very much the housing faculty is really next to public housing we're. I mean, there's a history for Columbia and the creation of these public housing project and the urban, urban renewal project that was that happened in the 50s. So it was very clear at some point that the deaths or the ambulances were coming across the street way more often than they were coming to our part of the neighborhood so I started research program. Project on what is the role, how did this split in the neighborhood between the, the Columbia side that is like fancy buildings fancy living and just across Broadway it's a destitution continuation continual continual destitution since the urban renewal project so I've also been working and one of my students who was our master students and now she's doing a PhD. Now she moved to Berkeley is working with me on on that project. So trying to bring Columbia's history into accountability and what's happened in Harlem. Thank you that that's really important and really helpful to know. Thank you. Okay, and so let me also then answer a few questions. Heba already typed in some answers to straightforward questions but there are some questions are probably a beneficial to all of you guys. So one question has to do with besides stipend what are other opportunities for grants scholarships to support research travel equipment and so on. So, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, for which we are kind of a collaborator that regulate Jesus. So when you apply you'll notice your application portal is actually Jesus, instead of Jesus, right Jesus is Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The unitization as well as the sort of regularization of various different procedures happens primarily at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. And so there there are some wonderful opportunities for instance Fulbright and other kinds of opportunities there's a whole list of fellowship you can apply through campus. So we generally encourage our students to think about that more geography and spatial sciences and planning related such as the NSF dissertation improvement grants or social science research Council or ACLS American Council of Learn Society those kinds of fellowships primarily external internally the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has began a travel stipend process and so our school GSAP is following suit and that will allow a student to apply for travel funding. I think, don't quote me on this it's not being publicized yet twice during your PhD career, applying for funding it's non competitive as long as you have a conference invitation twice I believe for funding. And then that's on the funding side. I have another question about whether if you're interested in climate adaptation, whether UP or HPP program is more relevant. I mean I think the scale at which we do investigation in urban planning versus historic preservation are very different right specially I believe the historic preservation program at Columbia has actually quite refined scope at the material level at the even the building material level of how you know climate is affected, you know the changing composition of building materials and so on and so forth they have a lab. They do have one faculty, you know I'm not fully familiar but they do have one faculty who looks at more of, you know, large areas of sort of heritage or cultural heritage preservation but generally I think the scale of investigation is very very different. I don't think you can apply, which is safer and so on, it really has to do with your interest. How does teaching factor in during the PhD process at Columbia are there are opportunities to teach at GSAP and what are the common classes that PhD students are involved with. So, I mentioned that year two to four are the time when a PhD students either are appointed as a research fellow or teaching fellow most likely are teaching fellows so Hiba knows for instance in her master's required course on planning history and theory she has three doctor students as TAs so the TA opportunities are primarily required master's degree courses planning theory and history planning methods planning law and economics for planners at this point, as well as studios that's for a smaller number of doctor students but some of our doctor students are very interested in connecting with practice but also, you know, in many planning programs across the North America there are significant studio components of teaching. So generally PhD students do not independently teach during their years two to four, but during their year. Six and seven if you don't complete that might be opportunities right now one student has been involved in our undergraduate summer class teaching which was really tremendous for the student as introduction to planning for undergraduate students exploring about the field. We do have students who go out to other institutions in New York City and do adjunct teaching in that advanced years we generally try to encourage students not to start doing that so that they can focus on their research, but in their fifth year or sixth year, they can do that. Okay, if you have a graduate from our master's degrees seven years ago work in industry can we ask for professional references yes of course, but you must have recommendations that speak to your academic preparation and abilities for independent research. So again for references do we prefer all of them come from the most recent academic sources that really depends. So again, who writes your letters. Really depends on how well they know you how much they can speak to your abilities your experience your qualifications. You know, sometimes we know the big name professor but they write one paragraph right so like doesn't tell us anything. And you want the letter to be really substantive to be really speaking to your strength, as well as opportunities for you to grow. And so I can't give you a yes or no to this question but I would encourage you to find people who know you well, we can write really substantive letters. I think I've answered all of the questions in the box right and I'm missing anything. So let's open up more to the floor if you have other questions. If there's no questions right now I want to take this opportunity to talk briefly about about the statement of purpose. Already way being mentioned that it's a very important element of your application. But of course, I think many of you probably that's the first time applying for a PhD program so it's not like a master's application kind of statement so it's not like where you grew up or what you did so far of interest, it really has to art you need to stand you want to stand out and it has to show ability to ask important recent questions to be able to show that you know where you're heading where where's the state of the research in the, like for example if you're interested in climate adaptation and urban planning what is the state of the field at the current moment and why is what what kind of interest of questions you're interested in. It's not just like what you did it's not like a repetition of your CV basically, but where make put work into clarify clarifying why you are interested in these kind of questions where where do you find yourself what what is inspiring these questions, and where why Columbia is is is relevant to answering these kind of questions you're interested in in researching. So I feel like this is an important thing to keep in mind is that the statement of purpose is a very important element of your application but it's also it's like the masters one. It's a bit more developed in terms of research and showing critical thinking and interest in writing and reflecting on the subjects you're interested in. Yeah, thank you, but let me also add a little bit because we over over the time that we've seen various different personal statements and don't be too worried about the, you know, word limit right. If anything longer is probably better. Of course, I'm not talking about 10 pages. I'm talking about three or four pages. But you should really tell so some of you will say oh I did this and that in my master's program I wrote this thesis, but what about the thesis. What questions did you ask in the thesis. Why is it an important question for us to care right. What did you find. What might even be the limitation of that work. Right. And, and that's why you're going on for pg program right if you were so so happy and the thesis did all of what you wanted to do we probably didn't want to do a doctoral program. I mean, so we really are looking at that kind of depth of thinking. And even curiosity right in a way of it based on your thesis research for instance, and you become curious at, you know how things might work work, one of the conditions be different and so on and so forth you have no answer right you're exploring, but you have been thinking about other relevant literature, any sample needs to be well thought of it doesn't need to be long it could be a short five or six page paper for your, let's say a term paper for your master's elective but there you've really asked a good question and showcase your ability to go and dig out evidence or dig out theoretical sort of arguments among different scholars around that topic. So again, think about your application having a narrative narrative that says, you are interested in this kind of work or this direction of research, you've been thinking about these kinds of questions, and the kind of methodological approach you might be taken, or maybe interested in taking is this and that, you know, it's very much of a little bit, you know, conjecture in a way of what you want to do, and how what you have done prepares you to do that. Okay, so we do have a question. I mentioned to several PhD programs in my perceptions of that intellectual rigor is a key driver to be applied on current and upcoming theme how is it an event of technology paradigm change and impacting the doctoral research environment at Columbia. It's a good question. So, again, of course we'd love to have all of you here but the match between your interests and what we have to offer is also important, right. Even though we do not match a perspective or you know incoming student with advisor, we are very mindful, whether or not we can actually support a student with their interest. In this research environment, I'm expertise are indeed an important question. So, someone wants to come in and do advance the modeling either in environmental science transportation studies. We're not it. Don't come don't even apply don't bother. We can't support you we don't have the infrastructure, meaning we don't have large funded grant projects to allow you to say do massive kinds of data analysis and modeling we have a new colleague, Anthony who works on big data. His approach is very much grounded kind of approach. He doesn't really go out there say do large scale travel diaries. He doesn't do that right he's more critical by using already available data sources. And so, yes, indeed that the technological change have affected our research environment. In general, though, we are in a architecture school, and we are very much based on a social science approach. So those of you are interested more of engineering and science kinds of approach would probably are not a good place for you. Yeah. I'll just add something to that like I'm as far away from the big data thing as you could imagine I what I tend to say about myself as I tend to ask big questions of small data. So I, I tend not to know very much about large data sets and that kind of thing and I certainly don't know very much about the sort of technological side of things when you mentioned the technological paradigm changes. I'm just to give you an example of that I usually have to get students to help me just set up anything. But really I'm not very heck. So, and I'm here, and that is a high hope and indication of, of how much that impacts the doctoral research environment in terms of technological paradigm changes so it's a really good question you asked but yeah to small data I think is what I'm trying to say. If I think you want to say something. Yeah, I would just, I was just going to clarify, like just to speak to both what you both said is that we have been centering and working a lot on social justice racial justice as our centered but the Columbia campus is an extension of our program so our program is small but if you want to like do more oral history of your want to do ethnography if you want to do data there all these other departments that the students go to so we provide the core courses that you everyone has to go and has to do and they are at the center piece of creating our community and as whipping and Tom said we have a very strong community of PC students I it's a small program and therefore people connect with each other. They do peer peer support for each other which I found I came from a large PhD program so I'm finding this very fascinating like very tight in its PC program and very interesting people really are helping each other supporting each other and it's much more rewarding intellectually, but also people go out to the history department to the sociology department to the anthropology department so to to learn new methods to learn about subjects about ethnic. For example where ethnic studies is where African American studies is so they're all these other departments that people who take courses with to support what they're going to study so we provide the core. But then also you need to do your own work and they're all these students to help you figure out what courses to take across campus to support the research and math research question and methods that you're interested in pursuing. Yeah, let me just add really quickly to that also. It doesn't actually mean that you have interest in big data, this is not the place actually in fact we want to inject a more critical lens into the use of big data so we have this, you know, search in the big soul searching about the data and big data urban analytics in planning. So what happened then we felt that a lot of people nowadays will use data, you know, out in the various different practices or research tends to ask, you know, sort of smaller questions so we want to really rise up for pt education. We want students to occupy an important position in the evolution of urban analytics within urban planning, and also beyond urban planning, for instance, you know the smart cities discourse now very much is dominated by data scientists and engineers, and really lacks the sophistication and the questioning of positionality of you know that planning students and faculty have. So we are very interested in students who can come in and really critically assess the the use of technology in planning and so as Tiba was saying that on campus we have a very strong data institute, which also has a very strong component on smart cities. And so we very much want our students and faculty to be part of that, that dialogue. Yeah, people who have raised their hand digitally. Yeah, so yeah, I be before I come to you Ryan I did have a question in the box. I'm not sure Lindsay I get what you're saying. How do you approach this internally in terms of equity and faculty are with your student body. Can you just specify where you're saying there is saying our research clearly centers around equity but how do you approach this internally. Do you want to specify that. All right I'm not sure Lindsay is still here. Anyway, moving on to Ryan. Hi, I'm a bit curious about how the program. I mean, the professor professor bachar and Professor Slater mentioned their work on the community around like the research on the ambulances sort of that you had mentioned on the feet when you notice the frequency of the ambulances on one side or the other. I'm curious if there is opportunity for students to sort of interact with the community that Columbia occupies. In general, while they're there, and if those opportunities are ones that that you've seen students have to look for or do they typically come up just organically. Yeah, that's So, like Tom is saying I'm also me to I mean after the. So historically, yes, the faculty has were involved in the planning more recently we're trying to we're trying to build bridges with people who are resistant gentrification or resisting. There's a whole new campus for Columbia and in in West Harlem that they're like trying to stop building towers or trying to modify the master planning and stuff so also i'm connecting with certain people from the neighborhood who are who are working, working on that so this is from the but but for a PhD so in masters we're trying to do and way pink and talk more about like the studios that people are doing this, more about with being sensitive to the community but also on the PhD is basically about building your own research question and your own your own connections but also if we have connections we're happily like everyone can benefit from everyone's connections in the neighborhood but but I don't know masters it's more spin more through design studios or something maybe way pink and clarify on that. I know actually that we've only did one studio with Harlem. The challenge there is also you know the tortured history between Columbia and Harlem, and we don't our really our thinking is we don't really want to be further. kind of continuing that relationship so we've been quite. I guess in a way careful about that and we only do that with faculty who have deep understanding, or faculty will actually come from Harlem. So we had a practicum last year with a historian of East Harlem, who came in and led a small group of master student project. And then, so it's been kind of tentative in a way if I say it, because our students are also very mindful of of that kind of relationship that Columbia has had. So there's a question in the chat box in terms of infrastructure do PhD students have a designated area within the school, yes they have a PhD room where they come, convene all the time and it's a very. They made it really comfortable and nice and this is where they host we have a PhD first year, second year PhD students organize our lecture series that we host every Tuesday noon was lunch and people, they invite the scholars they're or practitioners into their interest in hearing and master students attend. And then, most of the time the PhD students invite the scholar or invite the guest to the PhD room where they can have lunch with with them and ask questions more. More, more personal, more one on one questions with with with our guests so there is a space for the PhD students and they work and do workshops there. Sometimes we do workshops with them in that room. Also, there's a question about what are the sub fields of urban planning studied research in G SAP. There isn't like a specific. There's. So, we're not in the sense we're not our program does not like bring in students who are just aligned with our research interests so we don't have like research groups, we're not interested in just expanding our research agenda. We work on all sorts of things and we're here to advise them collectively and some work with advisor but we don't admit students just because we want to like produce more and publish more they everyone is doing all sorts of different, different things and we're here to support them we don't have the kind of a group mentality here so you're welcome to apply on and apply. I'm not interested in any kind of subject and we feel we can support you and you rise to the top we're happy to to admit you. Yeah, I also basically copy the link to the page of our doctoral dissertation in the past 10 or 15 years you get a sense of what our students have been working on. It's quite a broad range of topics. Someone, you have another question. Sorry, I meant to lower my hand from before. You have other questions on the applications on the program, things you're wondering about your curious about about for questions for individual faculty. Yeah, so we do have a question so maybe he but you can get started on that question. You mentioned that the program seeks to make connections between the global north and global south, can you provide some examples of these connections. I mean our existence is an example. All of us in the program as faculty in the program work and I my research is is in the Middle East, but I also teach in the global north but also now I'm bringing back thinking from the global south to thinking about the geographies of Columbia and Harlem here and and Sanford Florida for example and thinking between the global north and global south. We actually also our program does not only teach theories that are emerging from the global north but because this has been the history of urban planning but we're very much what we call decolonizing or decolonizing our curriculum by always thinking in at least in my courses for example every session brings together readings from the global north and the global south to things together to think collectively with the students around across these geographies so it's a pedagogical quest it's also a research quest. And all of us are working in these kind of between these two geographies to your I theorize basically I'm very much invested in provincializing planning theory and urban theory by by thinking from the global south on questions not only related to the global south but also to the global north and global south and global north it's important, the way we think about them are not only geographies it's not like Oh, this is just another way of saying developing countries or quote unquote what used to be said, third world countries but also to recognize that there's a global south in the global north so when we think about inner cities the way they've been treated or it's a way in the dispossession that happened, but also that their geographies of global north in the global south themselves when we talk about the 1%, the 1% in certain countries and the geographies of inequality and wealth in certain geographies so it's also a theoretical lens not only a just a geography. Yeah, I mean, let me also add that. Hiba is absolutely right I think this connection is in our research in our teaching, but also just say, materially, we also do quite a bit conferencing forum that connect scholars across, you know, the broadly different parts of the world. You know, Hiba is doing I think planning a conference on Middle Eastern urbanism and then over last weekend. Every fall we also have a forum called urban China forum, it's actually organized by mostly master students, but we bring scholars from China and scholars who work on China who are here or Europe into conversations about common shared interests. In fact, one of my recent books really is based on the contributions of authors from various different world regions on their impacts and transitions in China's urbanization on the forum we held in 2019 just before pandemic so finally that volume is coming out last month. So yes, you know materially, we are really trying on that as well. Okay. Let me also add, I mentioned my interest in South Africa. As I've been having some fascinating conversations with two community based organizations, one of them called reclaim the city the other one called and if you need to quasi, and these are organizations which respond to the ongoing problem of land dispossession, which is one of the big issues facing everybody in South Africa, not just historically but these days as well. And they respond by foregrounding black and indigenous knowledges and how indigenous understandings of land and indigenous ontologies are really important in sort of reorienting spatial planning, which has a very, very ugly history in South Africa. And so what I've been trying to do is learn from these organizations and see how I can bring that into my teaching first and foremost so the critical urban theory course. I'm using some recent work on bringing decolonial theory into urban studies and thinking about what I've learned from these organizations. And so that's how I bring in my own experiences and the experiences of these organizations into a global north classroom. So that's how I'm doing things at the moment. Thanks Tom. I think we have a question for Kayla. Hi. Thank you so much so far for just a really great session this morning. And I just wanted to briefly ask so professors later mentioned earlier in his opening remarks about their being really great community among the PhD students, and also great debate among them. I'm curious, you know, if beyond just kind of classes, what opportunities exist for really healthy debate, theoretical debate, or just conversations that allow for students and faculty to come together, and I think really get more into the material of, you know, what perhaps is just not within, you know, our courses, but really push more conversations around theory or what we would want to kind of continue to dig into. So, and that I think rain could, you know, be opportunities for either inviting lectures to come to campus or, or even just like if there are, you know, just open. Yeah, I guess like meeting some some way. Yeah, I'm curious if there are those opportunities for those conversations. Tom, do you want to. So, I just mentioned the experience of one of my students a few weeks ago. She presented her work, which she's doing in India to a group of us who met during lunchtime and waiting what was the name of this. I remember this forum where this happens, the one that Jen is organizing. Right, so it's the PhD research workshop. That's it. Okay, so they PhD led workshop where people get a chance to bring along their latest ideas, and to get feedback. And what was really nice about this is how this student was at a point where they were sort of struggling to put some things together presented the problem. And then the feedback from about what 1520 people was tremendous and they were really buzzing after it so and actually there were people in there who were from beyond the program. And it's actually really nice to see that kind of supportive environment. And also as Hibba mentioned earlier the students do invite external speakers and host those speakers and have discussions with them that go beyond simply the presentation that that speaker gives. There are probably other things that wayping and Hibba will mention as well. Columbia is such a sort of wonderfully busy campus. There are so many opportunities sometimes it's actually too much, you know, a faculty would know we don't try to go to everything we do we won't have time for anything that we do on our own. So we actually I mean PG program is very different from a master's program. We encourage our students to take ownership of their learning. And this is actually also a period of time that you're preparing for an independent research career. And so the independent part is actually quite important. We do have a mentoring system in a way that the doctoral faculty assess the progress of each doctor student at the end of the each year and then we provide feedback so we also support in a formal way. But we really try to encourage students say if you are weaker in qualitative research methods go take a class in anthropology or sociology, but also to get to know faculty in those places through these classes. Our students have been doing quite a bit actually getting the support without us knowing, you know, so these are some of the more organized formal mechanisms within the program. But our students are really encouraged to sort of take initiatives and to seek out assistance and support. On their own so one of our students has been working very closely with someone from public health, right because she also has a public health background. And it's really important doctor program is, I guess, you know if I say probably less politely is it's not a handheld process of learning. And we really encourage more collaboration and more sort of pushing the boundaries on our students side. Yeah. Also, just to lighten things up we're also a fun program we actually like do potlucks with our students we do picnics with our students. And so there's always a picnic at the beginning of each semester. We also sometimes do potlucks to so it's not it's also compared to other other places we are quite accessible and fun as a program and because we are very, very tightly knit as a group. And you can ask students about that but yes, we are very we do these things that are also not just about serious stuff but we get to know each other on a personal level as well. All right, in this, you have your hand up. Everyone. Thank you so much for the presentation. I just had a question. It's slightly overlapping with a few previous questions. So I'm trying to end right here. We can hear you. We can hear you that can you speak in the mic proper. We can hear you but we can't understand. Can you hear me. Yes, but I know. Okay. So, yes, I don't want to overlap too much with previous questions here it's mostly about the support for the research after the first slash second year once we are assigned to sort of. I'm wondering like do we have like a supervisor that needs every week, or is it a bit more free where, you know, we can set it up with the group we're assigned with, or and also is it that we are sitting within a lab with just to sort of group, or is it more open for all the PhDs. I'm not sure if I really get your question but that's the quality of the sound. But I think I get it. So, as I mentioned a little bit earlier that we are quite different from say some large planning programs or engineering science kind of approach. We have labs where teaching students sit around and, you know, constantly working on similar topics. We are probably more like if anything social sciences and humanities so just about every doctor student works on somewhat different topic. They do collaborate in fact we have two doctor students who just wrote an article together and got accepted at Journal of Urban Affairs. We have these workshops for professional development but generally the topics are quite esoteric, let's say, let's say that way. And so students come together really to support each other and with faculty on the general approaches. But there is no such a thing that like you must work on your advisors research right kind of in science and engineering that's kind of the approach you know there's a large research platform and you know everybody work around similar topics or parts of different processes or faces of that research. In us as students are very independent. So, you as a student would be looking for who you want as your advisor, starting from your proposal stage, well actually starting from your comprehensive exam stage, you already kind of are interacting with one or two faculty more closely, and then you would ask one of them to be the check sorry your sponsor we call it sponsor essentially advisor for your dissertation. And then you work with your advisor to think about the makeup of your doctoral dissertation proposal as well as the actual doctoral dissertation committee is two separate committees actually we're thinking about streaming that. But right now you can have two completely different committees, except your advisor probably should stay the same. And then so who you want to be on that committee is really up to you and advisor to work it out we give you complete autonomy and discretion in making that decision, especially who you want to invite as your external member, meaning someone outside of G stop and then someone even outside of Columbia. So you have a scholar who you really want to work with say, I don't know, at new school. Yes, bring them on board as part of your committee. So it's a, I think the approaches quite similar to say sociology anthropology, or even other humanities fields. The answer your question. The exact answer my question. Thank you. All right, does the PhD program require campus residency for the entirety of the program. So it's not framed as a residency but all our classes in the first two years are in person so you must be here. And then a second year through fourth year you are, you have responsibilities either as teaching or research fellows, you need to be here, although we have been quite flexible, especially when students need to go out and do field work and travel in their fourth year and then they can kind of fulfill their RALT responsibility in their fifth year. And so I think most of our students during their fourth fifth year are not around as much. We do not kind of require them to be around on the fifth in the fifth year. No, it's not important to communicate with a potential advisor as indicated. I think that yeah I would like to expand on this because we get a lot of requests and it's very hard to answer all of you so that's why we do this forum and I think the conversation is probably more after you apply and you get admitted we can have further conversations. But for now I think just focusing on your statement of purpose, trying to see if this is a good fit. Also, it probably goes without saying but it's important to consider why you're doing a PhD because that's not a small commitment you're committing five six years of your life and when you think about it we still have students come to our offices they're like, why I'm not sure why I'm here what am I doing etc and then you like, like, what they cry. Existential crisis are common in PhD so I'm not saying that you're not going to have one but also to really think why you're going to want to commit five six years of your life to this is important before you get in and realize what you did. Yeah, precisely. Tom maybe you can answer the next question is about thanks for mentioning the importance of indigenous knowledge in academia. I'm wondering if there are students looking as such topics within the program. If there are institutes or other scholars at Columbia with opportunities to expand on indigenous knowledge and indigenous ecology studies. In the program. I'm not sure it is the answer because again I'm very new here. But I don't think specifically indigenous knowledge is however, there are people of course working with post colonial theory, decolonial theory set the colonial perspective so there are those theoretical interests which are there. In terms of other schools at Columbia I believe so in fact just last week I believe there was an indigenous rights day that was held at Columbia with all kinds of fascinating events, which was showing the kind of research which is taking place. Unfortunately, I didn't go because I had covered, but I'm aware that there were some interesting things happening on campus and it wasn't the first time, but difficult for me to answer these questions given that I've only been here seven weeks. Yeah, actually so in the master's program and we will have a travel studio next spring to Canada for working with a number of indigenous communities on some community development projects. This is led by this will be lead led by a faculty whose originally from Canada was had long term connections with these communities throughout her career. And the PC program. I think, as Tom said, the actual kind of focus in working on that is yet to come. But just to clarify that planning as a field also is recently like really like our settler colonialism is some people work on that and for example aboriginals among originals in Canada, etc. In terms of thinking about that question here. It's, it's sadly, it's recent in many ways so also it's not like we're not teaching it but we're including it in our syllabi but it's it's basically now it's it's a frontline of research in some ways. Yeah, we did invite someone from University of Toronto. Yesterday I don't know if any of you were able to dial in to Michelle's talk on indigenous water relations so I think there's a lot of interest among our students to adopt our students because they organize these. We have identified the speakers. So the fact that they were able to invite someone to speak about this topic really reflects their interest on the student side. All right, I think we're about time as well. And again, this has been a fascinating kind of range of questions, and then allowing us to kind of provide more description of how we approach doctoral education, how the program is organized and how best you can spend five years here if you get in. In terms of your own growth. So best of luck with your next step. Planning is a small field. I, you know, for those of you who continue to push the boundaries and who get in wherever whichever planning PhD program will probably see you somewhere down the road in, you know, our association conferences and so on so stay in touch, even if I say, you might not be studying at Columbia you might be studying somewhere else will be, you know, interested in keeping in touch and watching how you grow and and reading your scholarship down the road. So, best of luck, and we'll look forward to reading your applications.