We are again sharing a statement from CURA Director Ed Goetz on the murder of George Floyd at the top of this message. The fundamental issues of justice that Mr. Floyd’s murder surfaces for our community and for the entire nation dominate our conversations about what is next for CURA. 

Following that statement, we share a message about CURA’s work in a COVID-19 world.

Statement from the Director of CURA

Our community witnesses again the violence of police brutality ending in the death of a Black man. It is well past the time for people in power, those who can impose…

CURA is pleased to announce the recipients of this year′s Faculty Interactive Research Program grants: 

• Ryan Allen (Urban and Regional Planning, Humphrey School of Public Affairs) The USDA Section 515 Program and the Challenge of Preserving Affordable Housing in Greater Minnesota
• Lizbeth H. Finestack (Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, College of Liberal Arts) Identifying Language Impairment in Students with Diverse Home Languages
• Lindsey Weiler (Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development) …

In the coming decades, Minnesota is poised to lose nearly 10,000 units of rental housing in the United States Department of Agriculture's Section 515 Program. This housing currently exists in nearly every county in Greater Minnesota, and comprises a substantial proportion of rental housing for very low-income households. In partnership with Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP), a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul that supports the work of affordable housing and community development organizations, I propose a mixed-method research project focused on the Section 515 Program in Minnesota. Through analysis of secondary data maintained by USDA and primary data collected from interviews…

This project aims to better serve students in Minneapolis Public Schools who speak a minority language, which is currently 32% of district students. As is true of monolingual English-speaking students, a subset of these bilingual students experience significant language impairment. This negatively impacts their social and academic success. Because most standardized assessments used to identify students with language impairment are English-based, alternative approaches are needed to assess the language skills of students whose home language is not English. Thus, the current study will develop a new assessment approach that uses a test-teach-retest dynamic assessment format to assess…

Researcher: Lindsey Weiler (Family Social Science, College of Education and Human Development)

Representing one of the highest rates in the country, one in every 42 children in Minnesota is identified with autism spectrum disorder. Without intervention, adolescents risk a sharp decline in social support, stalled neurological progress, and a marked increase in depression and anxiety. Often shut off from educational and social supports that were available in childhood, adolescents experience significant roadblocks as they strive for independence. Similarly, young adults with autism can feel isolated and undervalued as members of our community. This project seeks to…

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) invites proposals for our Faculty Interactive Research Program (FIRP). University of Minnesota faculty are critical resources in exploring issues and concerns important to Minnesota, such as the criminal justice system, demography, state or local economic development, education, employment, energy, the environment, health, housing, state and local government, welfare and poverty, human and social services, transportation, or land use and development.

The FIRP encourages University faculty to carry out research projects that answer questions about these important regional issues, in partnership with community groups…

It’s no coincidence that both the Shoreland Management Act and the Center of Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) are celebrating their 50th anniversaries this year. Minnesota’s shoreland management program was one of the first major statewide initiatives to come out of CURA. This milestone year offers a unique opportunity to look back on the history and purpose behind the shoreland program, its beginnings with CURA, trends in shoreland development, and what we can do to improve shoreland…

It is with great sadness that we report that Esther Wattenberg passed away on July 19, just shy of her 100th birthday.

A professor of social work at the University of Minnesota, she was a fierce advocate for underserved women and children. Esther was a critical part of CURA's work for several decades and a treasured part of the CURA family. May her memory be an inspiration.

• Minnesota child welfare pioneer Esther Wattenberg dies at age 99 from the Star Tribune
• …

Minnesota ranks third in the United States for crop production totaling $14.6 billion with nearly half of all lands dedicated to crops. Improving data availability for farmers, government agencies, and researchers will inform decisions in improving conservation practices and crop yields. This project will create and disseminate the first open map of Minnesota farm fields, and produce several examples to demonstrate to policy makers and stakeholders how the farm field data can be used to improve conservation practices and crop yields. We will use satellite imagery and rigorous, reproducible, and robust geocomputational methods running on supercomputers to delineate and map each field. The…

School based mental health programs (SMHP) provide critical services to students in order to mitigate the myriad of negative outcomes associated with mental health problems. However, limited applied, evaluative research has been conducted examining the effects of such programs on student outcomes. In particular, problems exist regarding the measurement of student mental health (needs in school settings. The purpose of this project is to improve measurement of SMH needs by engaging in two related studies. The first study will investigate the psychometric properties of the Minneapolis Public Schools (Behavior Screener Checklist 3 (BSC), which holds promise as a critical indicator of SMH…