The School of Urban Affairs and Education has been a constantly growing and evolving part of Cleveland State University’s campus. It contains nationally ranked programs, morally conscious faculty, and a plethora of programs offered for its student body. In this article, I sat down with Dr. Beth Nagy, a faculty member at the School of Urban Affairs and Education to discuss the changes that have happened and that are coming to the school.
Dr. Beth Nagy
Dr. Beth Nagy has been a lecturer at Cleveland State University for nine years, but she originally didn’t even think she’d be good at teaching. She holds an undergraduate degree in Urban Planning, a graduate degree in Community Planning, and a doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership- her specialty being in community engaged learning.
“I care about urban places, so I was like urban. It was in an education program, and I don’t know so much about the leadership [part],” said Nagy.
When completing her graduate program at the University of Cincinnati, she was asked to teach a class. Dr. Nagy was reluctant at first, but when offered credit, she took the opportunity and fell in love. She previously taught at a for-profit institution and when she began to prioritize her students’ futures, she decided to leave and find a job that aligned with her priorities.
Dr. Nagy spent some time as both a professor at Xavier University and a project manager for a community development project before arriving at Cleveland State University in 2016.
When she arrived in 2016, she was a full-time lecturer within the College of Urban Affairs.
“It was unique [in] that it was one college and one department. No other college on campus was like that.” explains Dr. Nagy. This was intentional as the college was endowed by one individual Maxine Goodman Levin. She has since passed, but she left a significant endowment for the college. Her family felt that the studies of cities were important and wanted to create a knowledge base and scholarly group to do so.
Now, the College of Urban Affairs has turned into the School of Urban Affairs.
“And part of the idea with the college like this was that it was interdisciplinary by its nature, and that it had a number of different degree tracts and different faculty that kind of specialized in different stuff,” says Dr. Nagy. The programs she’s referring to include sociology, urban theory, mapping and more.
“It’s also that this college had a reputation for justice-oriented planning and development. So a significant part of our decision-making in planning revolved around, ‘Is that right to do to people?’ And there were a couple of scholars that were internationally known and that developed the reputation of the school.”
About 2 years ago after the pandemic, the president of CSU at the time, President Sands, decided to consolidate some of the programs.
“Typically consolidation means that it’s not running efficiently or it’s not running the same way as other places on campus and things like that,” says Dr. Nagy.
Later on, when the College of Urban Affairs changed to the College of Public Affairs and Education, Nagy shares how it was not something the family who originally endowed the college requested, but the endowment states the funding has to stay within the college.
“The ideas as to what department [would be] selected it’s hard to say, like I think I do remember there being like, ‘what departments would you like to affiliate with,” or “what departments do you feel like would be a good fit?’ And education was not one of them,” says Dr. Nagy. Julka Hall is home to the education program here at Cleveland State University and is on the opposite side of campus.
Changes To the Programs
Urban Studies, a program offered by Cleveland State University, has recently renamed some of its subcategories. Dr. Nagy shares that these reasons are to keep programs more focused under such a wide umbrella. She shares that these decisions were made based on student feedback and are still being finalized and improved.
“What we have noticed over time, is that the word urban doesn’t resonate in terms of the physical development part. There are a lot of different perceptions of the word urban, and so that was kind of like a block,” says Dr. Nagy. She shares there was an interest in having a more local connection to the curriculum. For instance, a course was renamed as Cleveland: The City, but this name still isn’t perfect. Some students thought they were getting a history of Cleveland Class, but they were actually getting an overview of urban planning.
“That was not a good name change because it was [confusing] and that name is gonna be changed again because it’s not a good name.” shared Dr. Nagy. Within the Urban program, there’s been discussion of refreshing things. Almost like a facelift.
She shares that the changing of the Urban Studies Major to more localized, specific majors is helpful to students. She explains that not all students in the Urban Studies major want to focus on community planning, so having a separate degree makes it easier and more beneficial for those students.
“These different names came out and [there] wasn’t really a whole lot of agreement or disagreement on names, kind of like ‘let’s try it and see how it goes’.” said Dr. Nagy. There was an agreement to freshen up the course names, and to work on the curriculum for classes. Student feedback showed that they found too much duplication between classes.
These changes are still in process, but Nagy shared that most of these changes were being done because of student feedback.
What’s Next for the Urban College
Despite the rapidly changing political environment toward education and educational policy, Dr. Nagy stands firmly in her code of ethics. She shares that a lot of students have expressed their concerns about their future to her.
“I do think one thing that unites us all within the college is our value system. That we do care about vulnerable people and that’s not gonna change our ethics, our professional responsibilities to teach students all they need to know to be successful and to know what’s going on,” shares Dr. Nagy. Despite public affairs and education being such a broad topic, one thing they share is ethical boundaries and a code they choose to live by.
“I’m a glass half-full person anyway. Even if the things that I would teach or how I would teach or the thing that I would talk about in classes, even if I didn’t have the job here, I would find a way to do it. Wherever I ended up,” shares Nagy.
Nagy is hoping within the next couple of years, new faculty will be hired and they will begin to improve their numbers of classes and sections. She’s looking forward to seeing how their backgrounds and specialties will contribute to the college.
A new director of the School of Public Affairs and Education was hired but she won’t start until January.
“So who knows what kinds of things are in store when our new director gets here? I hope that if there was one more change that I’d like to see is having more faculty more integrated into the community.”
Dr. Beth Nagy is prioritizing her own code of ethics in this quickly changing time and is looking at things in a positive light to continue doing what she does best. Teaching.
Mays Turabi 
Ele Solovyov 
EveLynne Bruening