In 2002, with the generous support of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, the University of Chicago launched a new initiative to focus the extraordinary intellectual resources of the University’s faculty and students on the issues confronting Chicago and other urban communities. The Program for Urban and Community Leadership seeks to attract students of the highest quality to the field of urban policy and community development; to provide those students with exceptional training that will prepare them to address both current problems and future challenges; and to develop new approaches to urban issues through faculty research.

Based jointly in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and the School of Social Service Administration, the Program for Urban and Community Leadership will draw on the unique strengths and interests of each school to address in an integrated fashion the needs and potential of Chicago and its citizens. The basic mission of the University is the creation and transmission of knowledge, and it is in fulfilling that mission that the University can also best serve its community. The Program for Urban and Community Leadership will bring the best thinking and the most talented graduates to bear on Chicago’s urban and community agenda, with research informing practice and practice informing training.

Through the establishment of the McCormick Tribune Professorships and the development of innovative curricula, the Program for Urban and Community Leadership will help shape the fields of urban and community studies in the twenty-first century. Through the McCormick Tribune Fellowships in the School of Social Service Administration and the McCormick Tribune Leadership Fellowships in the Harris School, the Program for Urban and Community Leadership will develop a cadre of highly skilled and thoughtful leaders to guide Chicago in future decades. Bruce Meyer is the McCormick Tribune Professor in the Harris School. Mark Courtney is the McCormick Tribune Professor in the School of Social Service Administration.