Through the Urban Education Semester (UES), students spend a semester in New York City, engaged in a combination of supervised fieldwork and coursework offered by Bank Street College of Education. This interdisciplinary, academic immersion program earns academic credit and introduces students from all academic backgrounds to the complexity of issues facing urban public education. Students interested in urban environments, community development, teaching and learning, and systemic reform find that this semester-long immersion program enables them to examine urban public education from the perspective of educators and policy makers in one of the nation’s largest and most complex school systems. For more information, visit www.urbanedsemester.org. Applications for the Spring 2011 program are due on Wednesday, November 10, 2010.

Bank Street College and Brown University share a commitment to fostering civic responsibility. Since 1987, their collaboration has presented the intensive and challenging experience, Urban Education Semester (UES).

Employing the powerful lens of urban public schools in New York City to examine a network of disciplines – urban studies, public policy, community development, system reform – UES uniquely combines a graduate-level, demanding course of theoretical study with hands-on, supervised fieldwork.

Participants spend three days a week working in classroom or public policy placements, and in the evenings, take a full semester of graduate-level study with the prestigious faculty of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College. Weekly group field trips and discussion group seminars; individual advising conferences; and monthly on-site visits by faculty advisors encourage participants to integrate their field placement experiences with the theoretical frameworks they examine in class.

Group living is a fundamental component of the UES experience – participants live together at the 92nd Street Y's de Hirsch Residence, located on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, three blocks from Central Park and the Museum Mile.

Admission to the program is competitive and open to rising seniors, juniors and exceptional sophomores from any US college or university. Students of color are encouraged to apply.

Brown applicants are asked to meet with the on-campus selection committee for an interview to discuss their interest in the program; they will be contacted shortly after the deadline. Students from other schools will also be contacted to arrange for individual interviews, which may be conducted by telephone.

Applications are reviewed by the selection committee, and then by the Urban Education Semester Director at Bank Street and the Director of the Engaged Life Partnership at Brown University, who make final decisions.

A group of 7-14 participants are selected each semester. Students are notified of decisions approximately four weeks after the application deadline.

Applications may be submitted at any time, but must be received by the deadline for each semester (generally, end of March for Fall semester; mid-October for Spring semester.) The deadline for Spring 2011 is Wednesday, November 10, 2010.

Applications should be mailed to: UES Program, Brown University Box 1838, Providence RI 02912. They must include all of the following:

·    A completed application "Cover Sheet"
·    Separate, typewritten responses to all questions on the application
·    Two letters of recommendation, one of which must be from a faculty member with whom the applicant has taken or is currently taking a course
·    An official college transcript
·    A list of courses currently being taken

Applications may be downloaded here.  Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the downloaded UES application.

UES Video – Watch a fast-paced, fun, seven-minute overview of the program created by UES Fall '06 alum Graham Browne (thanks, Graham!)

UES Handbook – Pages of detailed information about the Urban Education Semester program, with lots of links you can follow to find out even more!

UES Features - interviews, sample fieldwork placements, student profiles, and more (check back for updates!)