Clark University

Be a partner in community transformation.

Community development is so much more than blueprints and zoning. It’s about cultivating spaces where people can flourish. Spaces with enough green space to play and relax. Spaces that offer economic opportunities that allow people to realize their dreams and aspirations. Places where people have access to quality, culturally responsive food, education, healthcare, and housing.

Students in Clark University’s Master of Arts in Community Development and Planning learn about the power structures that shape community spaces, and how to create processes in which community members have a say in those power structures.

Through community-engaged learning, students collaborate with community members and other stakeholders to understand each community’s unique strengths, and then collectively create strategies so that people’s dreams can take root and grow.

We ground our work in principles and practices of ethical community engagement, and we provide students with knowledge and skills in finance, project management, monitoring & evaluation, geo-spatial analysis, and non-profit leadership. These skills are needed to be a practitioner who can be a partner and ally in a community’s transformation.

Who Should Apply?

Applicants to Clark’s Master of Arts in Community Development and Planning program  want to explore the frontiers of knowledge while defying conventional wisdom to devise inventive solutions to complex problems — and then roll up their sleeves to get things done. Because it is the right thing to do.