Teach
Teach our students the knowledge, skills, and values they need to be confident, principled, and visionary planners, using Colorado as our classroom to engage students in real-world, experiential learning.Inspired by our setting in the downtown of a thriving urban center in the dynamic Rocky Mountain region, our mission is to:
Advance
Advance the field of planning through insightful, relevant research that directly informs policy and design, and improves our built, natural, and social environments.Serve
Serve as a vital resource for communities and professionals, and help develop sustainable solutions to our region’s complex planning challenges.Seven core values inspire all the work we do:
Our Program
Master of Urban and Regional Planning
Program Performance Indicators
The Planning Accreditation Board requires this information be posted for the University of Colorado Denver Master of Urban and Regional Planning program.
Student Achievement
A key element of the mission of the MURP program is to “teach our students the knowledge, skills and values they need to be confident, principled, and visionary planners, using Colorado as our classroom to engage students in real-world, experiential learning.”
In the semester before graduation, MURP students complete a Capstone project—a professional project for a real client. This project, conducted about a topic and for a client of the student’s own choosing, represents the culmination
of our students’ academic careers and highlights their unique areas of interest and the skill set they gained through their self-directed elective curriculum. Evaluation by the clients, and by the students themselves, demonstrates
the degree to which we have successfully achieved our mission.
Our flexible schedule and self-directed curriculum allow our students to work part-time in professional jobs or internships during the academic year. Additionally, non-resident students are eligible for residency after one year of living in Colorado (see our Colorado Residency page for more information.)
We are a member of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's Western Regional Graduate Program (WICHE-WRGP), which allows any student who is a resident of one of the 15 western member states to qualify for Colorado resident tuition for their entire time in the MURP program. For more information, see the official WICHE-WRGP webpage.
The MURP Program Strategic Plan
In 2012, the MURP Program developed a new vision and Strategic Plan. Please review the plan found here, but note that specific references to courses, programs, policies, centers, and other elements found in the Strategic Plan may no longer be current as their names or descriptions may have changed in our ongoing process of implementing the plan’s goals and objectives. The program is updating its strategic plan during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Department News
Urban and Regional Planning Contacts
Austin Troy PhD
Professor & Department Chair
Director, Presidential Initiative on Urban and Placed-Based Research
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