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Truman Scholar Debbie Warshawsky (right) with Ethel Velez, president of the Johnson Houses Tenant Association and executive director of the New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance during Love and Unity Day at the James Weldon Johnson Housing Development in East Harlem (7/29/06).
(Photo Credit: Janet Velez)
Urban Studies Junior Wins
Truman Scholarship
Deborah Warshawsky, Urban Studies ’08, has received the prestigious Truman Scholarship. The $32,000 award was given to 65 college juniors nationwide who are committed to careers in government, the nonprofit or advocacy sectors, education, or other forms of public service.
The U.S. Congress established the award in 1975. It provides financial support for graduate study, leadership training, and fellowship with other students who are committed to making a difference through public service.
Debbie’s concentration in Urban Studies is Community Organization, and she plans in the future to pursue a doctorate in sociology. She is the founder and president of Stanford STOP—Students Taking on Poverty—and has spent summers researching public housing in East Harlem, working with the homeless in Washington, D.C., and volunteering in her hometown of Cincinnati. In the summer of 2007 she received a major grant from the office of Undergraduate Advising and Research to pursue research on her honors thesis, a study of racial politics in Cincinnati in the years since the 2001 riots in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.
Debbie is the second Urban Studies major to win the Truman Scholarship in recent years; Johnny Madrid won the prize in 2004.
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Urban Studies Major Wins National Planning Award
Claire Cormier, Urban Studies ’08, has received the American Planning Association's Planning in the Black Community Division Scholarship.
Claire, a native of Houston, Texas, concluded her Urban Studies coursework in 2006-2007 with a concentration in Urban Planning and Design. She is currently working towards a coterminal masters degree in Construction Management in the Civil Engineering Department.
The Robert A. Catlin/David W. Long Memorial Scholarship serves to foster increased interest among African-American undergraduates in urban planning as a graduate field of study and as a professional career. The $2,500 scholarship is given directly to the student to pay for expenses incurred during the academic year.
A staunch New Urbanist, Claire is particularly interested in historic preservation, downtown revitalization, and mixed-use development. She plans to return to Houston and work for a real estate development firm after finishing her undergraduate and graduate degrees in 2008. In the summer of 2007, she worked as a development analyst for Fidelis Realty Partners and an on-site construction management intern for Hines Interests. Claire’s honors thesis is entitled “Colleges, Refurbished Structures, and Downtown Revitalization: A Case Study of Houston Community College Central Campus.”
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Two Urban Studies Seniors Win Honors Thesis Awards
Deland Chan and Lola Feiger, both Urban Studies ’07, both received university-wide awards for their honors theses.
Deland received the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, which is given to Stanford’s top theses in sciences, social sciences, and engineering. Deland’s thesis, “How Migrant Workers Find Housing in Beijing: The Role of Individual Agency in Differential Housing Access and Outcomes,” is a study of how migrant workers in Beijing find shelter. She designed and conducted her own field surveys during a quarter at the Stanford in Beijing program. One of the major findings of her thesis is that migrant workers have considerable influence over their housing type and quality.
Deland graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, with honors and distinction. In the fall of 2007 she will begin the Master’s program in City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.
Lola received the Robert M. Golden Medal for Excellence in the Humanities and Creative Arts. Lola’s thesis is entitled “The Memorialization of Urban Concentration Camps: Reading the Scale and Infrastructural Complexity of Sachsenhausen for an Understanding of the Holocaust.” Based on a wide range of source material in German and English, the thesis traces the contestation over memorial space in the case of Sachsenhausen, and then examines the politics of establishing boundaries between the camp’s memorial space and its urban environment. Lola argues that memorialization practices must attend to the spaces of the perpetrators as well as the victims, and must come to grips with each camp’s entanglement with its local community.
Lola’s concentration in Urban Studies was Urban Planning and Design. She was also a member of Stanford’s varsity crew team.
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