About the Center

MISSION

The Center for Urban and Global Studies advances Trinity College’s urban and global education – on campus, in Hartford, and around the world. As a research and teaching hub, the Center serves as a driver, facilitator, convener, and connector for faculty and student work. Through collaborative research, curricular innovations, and outreach initiatives, CUGS enhances student learning, strengthens Trinity’s urban engagement, and elevates the College’s global presence and academic reputation.  

VISION AND GOALS

Trinity College is proud of its urban location and its strong global connections, including study-away programs, research partnerships, and international networks. CUGS works to deepen this dual identity. It supports Trinity’s aspiration to be the “preeminent liberal arts college in an urban setting,” “preparing students to be bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives”. 

CUGS is the key pathway through which students engage with, understand, and learn to transform the urban world of the 21st century—starting in Hartford and expanding outward to national and global urbanisms across every inhabited continent. This vision guides the Center’s core goals: 

CUGS aims to be the hub for student learning about urban and global issues at Trinity.

It is the home of the Urban Studies Program with its major and minor, the Urban China Minor, and the Master’s Program and Graduate Certificate in Urban Planning. CUGS runs a major annual summer field course on urban China and Southeast Asia, which has focused on and traveled through large river cities and is currently based in the dynamic megacities of Shanghai and Shenzhen and their surrounding regions in China, and a January field course every other year in Zanzibar, Tanzania. CUGS also supervises numerous student research projects, through the Kelter Urban Research Fund, the Davis Fund for Peace program, the Thomas Endowment for Urban China Research and Teaching, the Tanaka Fund for Urban Asia research, and research assistantships from the Center itself. Student researchers with CUGS regularly present their findings in the Center’s Global Vantage Point seminar series.

CUGS aims to be the hub for faculty development related to both teaching and research on urban and global issues at Trinity.

It is achieved through both fixed and varied programs. CUGS hosts the Kelter Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Urban Studies, the Rescue Scholar program through the Institute of International Education Scholar Rescue Fund and the Scott M. Johnson Endowment Fund, and visiting professors through the Thomas Endowment for Urban China Research and Teaching and Trinity’s partnership with Fudan University in Shanghai. CUGS has also hosted visiting scholars through grants from the Urban Studies Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation. CUGS has developed and instituted numerous research grants, co-curricular initiatives and research workshops – which have in turn led to further grants as well as published books and research articles. Notably, CUGS produced Confronting Urban Legacy: Rediscovering Hartford and New England’s Forgotten Cities (edited by Xiangming Chen and Nick Bacon, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), with many Trinity faculty and student chapter authors. CUGS regularly invites new and recent Trinity faculty to present research findings in the Global Vantage Point seminar series and other workshops and symposia, alongside developing new urban courses and participating in both the Summer and January field courses.

CUGS aims to be a central player in Trinity’s outreach to the Hartford region particularly in relation to global and urban issues.

CUGS has established partnerships with and/or financial support to the Connecticut World Affairs Council, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Leadership Greater Hartford, the Southside Institution Neighborhood Alliance, and the New University in Exile Consortium, among other relationships. CUGS hosts numerous events and conferences that bring together students and faculty from the region and the world to discuss timely urban and global issues.

HISTORY

CUGS was formally launched in October 2007 through a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the Trinity College Mellon Challenge for Urban and Global Studies and generous alumni and parent donors. 

Since Trinity’s founding in 1823, the College provided an excellent classical liberal arts education, but historically had limited engagement with the outside world. As global urbanization accelerated, Trinity recognized the need to expand the traditional liberal arts model to incorporate a robust urban-global perspective. 

CUGS was created to meet this challenge—strengthening Trinity’s liberal arts tradition by integrating urban and global study, research, and engagement. The Center fosters an educational environment that extends learning into Hartford, across Connecticut and the United States, and to cities around the world, bringing insights and experiences back into classrooms. 

Since its establishment in 2007, CUGS has adapted to administrative changes and evolved into the focused, research-driven, and teaching-centered unit described above.