Study Abroad Prepares Planning Students to Lead a Changing World

Three UC graduate students – Eileen Crisanti of West Chester, Ohio; Chris Gritzmacher of Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Shawn Tubb of Springboro, Ohio – will head for Europe in September, each to study at a different European university thanks to a transatlantic study program that sends UC planning students and planning students from North Carolina State University and the University of Michigan to study in Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The UC students will study European urban design and planning – Crisanti at Technische Universiteit in Eindhoven, the Netherlands; Gritzmacher at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow; and Tubb at the Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst in Brussels, Belgium – until mid-December.  During that same time period, students from each of the European schools will study at the three U.S. schools involved in the exchange. 

The exchange program, which will continue this fall and next thanks to a more than $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), was designed by Johanna Looye, associate professor of planning in UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.  Also funding the program is the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission.