This summer we were happy to formally welcome Sean Fitzpatrick, Professor of the Practice in Public Policy and Urban Studies, to the CUGS team. Prof. Fitzpatrick has been a friend of CUGS since his days as Director of Development Services for the City of Hartford under Mayor Luke Bronin and has taught in Trinity’s graduate Public Policy program since 2018. Last year, he worked closely with Professors Garth Myers and Xiangming Chen on the design of the college’s new Graduate Certificate in Urban Planning and several of his courses will be part of that program. This fall, he is adding an urban-focused First-Year Seminar called Reading the City, where students will study the American urban experience “from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to COVID-19” through readings in scholarly and creative works from a number of disciplines and perspectives. “There will even be some music and film thrown in,” says Prof. Fitzpatrick, “because who can resist discussing cultural treasures like Bruce Springsteen’s Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner in a course about cities?” Prof. Fitzpatrick will be assisted in the course by First-Year Mentor Ali Odermann ’21, a double-major in Urban Studies and Spanish Language and Literature who is a familiar face here at CUGS.
