Take a MetroBridge Course
MetroBridge embeds real-world research projects for cities, towns, and community organizations into classes at Boston University, addressing pressing urban challenges and creating experiential learning opportunities. Students will have the opportunity to gain applied skills through impactful, project-based research.
Are you interested in cities or urban issues, or do you want hands-on, applied, experiential learning opportunities? If so, check out our MetroBridge course listings below!
Questions? Wondering about classes in future semesters not listed below? Please email MetroBridge Program Manager David Gross at davgross@bu.edu.
MetroBridge Courses
Each year, MetroBridge courses are subject to change due to a variety of factors, although many courses typically collaborate with us every semester they are offered (we call these our “core” MetroBridge courses).
Below, is a list of our planned courses for current and upcoming semesters, our core MetroBridge courses that regularly feature projects, and a selection of past courses that incorporated MetroBridge projects in the past. Don’t see classes from your school/college or academic department? We’re constantly working with faculty across the university on new collaborations!
Spring 2025 MetroBridge Courses
Courses and projects are subject to change.
CAS AN 557: Anthropology of Mental Health — Massachusetts Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Disease and All Other Dementias
Faculty: Merav Shohet
Day/Time: Tuesdays 3:30-6:15pm
Project: Students will create a preliminary checklist for dementia-friendly public spaces in Massachusetts based on anthropological research. Students will utilize the Town of Brookline, MA, in collaboration with the Brookline Council on Aging, as a pilot town for their research.
Course Description: Advanced seminar examining global and local challenges and connections that shape patterns of illness/health around the world, including international responses to mental health crises and moral quandaries through ethnographies of mental health care in different settings and treating different conditions.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Ethical Reasoning
CAS AA 600: Seminar in African American Studies: Roots of Disparity: Racism and Pathways to Health Justice — Boston Fair Housing Commission
Faculty: Shannon Whittaker
Day/Time: Wednesdays 2:30-5:15pm
Project: Students will seek to understand the impacts of urban renewal and displacement in Boston.
Course Description: This course explores the role of race in public health through a lens of anti-Black racism, highlighting how systemic discrimination and disinvestment shape health disparities for Black Americans in particular. Students will examine four core areas: historical context, focusing on the legacy of racial violence in the development of medical and public health knowledge, as well as its impacts on health and well-being; social determinants of health, investigating how racism shapes factors such as housing and income in ways that disproportionately affect the health outcomes of different racial groups, with an emphasis on Black Americans; institutional racism in healthcare, analyzing bias, mistrust, and unequal access to quality care within healthcare systems; and structural solutions and freedom dreaming, evaluating and conceptualizing programs, policies, and interventions designed to address racial health disparities through an abolitionist perspective. In semesters where it can be paired with a MetroBridge or other community partnership, students will get an opportunity work collaboratively on a PH advocacy project.
Credits: 4
CAS EE 524: Environmental Justice — Boston Climate Action Network
Faculty: Anne Short Gianotti
Day/Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-10:45am
Project: Students will seek to understand the role that climate and equity-related advisory boards play in various municipalities as case studies.
Course Description: Exploration of the origins of and current trends in environmental justice activism and scholarship. Introduces empirical evidence of environmental (in)justice, links contemporary environmental problems to historical and broader political-economic processes, and explores a range of responses to environmental injustice.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Writing-Intensive Course, The Individual in Community, Social Inquiry II.
CAS HI 528: Engineering Boston — West End Museum
Faculty: Betty Anderson
Day/Time: Mondays 2:30-5:15pm
Project: Students will seek to learn about the history of urban renewal in Boston and its effect on communities, including through understanding the stories of current and displaced West End residents.
Course Description: Examines how governments, companies and residents have constructed Boston, its neighborhoods and its transportation systems. The class studies shifting immigration and development patterns, produce photographic essays, and construct maps analyzing urban renewal, while visiting neighborhoods every week.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Aesthetic Exploration, Creativity/Innovation, Digital/Multimedia Expression
Please email Professor Betty Anderson if you would like to register. Limited seats may remain, and the course may not show in MyBU Student when searching
LAW JD 786: Legislative Policy and Drafting Clinic — City of Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics
Faculty: Sean Kealy
Day/Time: Mondays/Wednesdays 2:10-4:105pm
Project: One student will conduct a legal analysis of Massachusetts Chapter 149 for the City of Boston and propose solutions as the City seeks to reduce development costs on city-owned property.
Course Description: THIS CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have formally applied to and been accepted to the Legislative Policy & Drafting Clinic. Students learn about the law-making process through coursework and hands-on experience working with a client seeking to advance a bill or project through the state legislature. Students work on several projects during the semester that highlight different aspects of the legislative process, allowing students to relate and test the theories discussed in class to real life situations. The in-class seminar covers subjects that affect the legislative process including: constitutional interpretation by legislatures, theories of representation, legislative organization and rules, lobbying, legislative oversight powers, and legislature-executive agency relationships. The clinic instructor works with students to select projects in the students’ specific areas of interest, if any. In particular, students interested in business and tax, environment law, or health law, may specialize in those areas for the full semester. NOTE: This clinic counts toward the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement.
Credits: 6
MET UA 505: Urban Management — City of Boston Equity & Inclusion Cabinet
Faculty: Robert DiAdamo
Day/Time: Thursdays 6:00-8:45pm
Project: Students will examine the development and implementation of equity definitions and frameworks, making recommendations on next steps and replicability.
Course Description: Examination of selected cases in municipal and public management. Organization, financial management, personnel relations, program planning and budgeting, and issues of public and private sector relations. The administration of municipal functions, including health, police, schools, and housing.
Credits: 4
MET UA 805: Urban Studies Capstone — Fort Point Neighborhood Association and West Broadway Neighborhood Association
Faculty: Luis Santiago
Day/Time: Mondays 6:00-8:45pm
Project: Students will develop a neighborhood vision plan for a 30-acre redevelopment site to help the local neighborhood associations gain insight as they work to ensure local interests have a say in development plans.
Course Description: The capstone course integrates the principles and applications of the major area of study of City Planning, Urban Affairs and Public Policy. During the course of the semester, students are required to work in groups to complete a comprehensive project which serves as an evaluative tool for student achievement for the major learning goals of the Programs. The course is primarily student driven, and is aimed to foster interdisciplinary partnerships and help cultivate industry alliances and cooperation. Recognizing the unique and diverse characteristics of the Boston urban environment, the capstone projects will be drawn from a range of topical issues that are currently ongoing in the greater Boston metropolitan area. The project-based course emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of city planning and urban affairs and provides students the direct opportunity to gain experience with real-world projects and stakeholders.
Credits: 4
QST SI 859: Strategy Implementation — Boston City Councilor Sharon Durkan
Faculty: Christopher Carter
Day/Time: Wednesdays 6:30-9:15pm
Project: One group of students will assess the viability of a Merchandise Licensing Program (MLP) for the City of Boston, and if viable, propose an optimal structure for the program.
Course Description: Gain the skills and know-how to manage up and across your organization, passing the normal organizational tests along the way from technical expert to cross-functional integrator to directing the future course of your organization. This is strategy implementation for the middle manager who needs to 1) size-up the situation and 2) determine how to gain the power needed to achieve their objectives. One of the qualitative factors that will be explored in great detail is personal style choice vis a vis different stakeholders and organizational politics and the resultant perceptions of you and your programs. Students will study both successful and less-successful managers through cases and readings, honing their own, personal managerial style.
Credits: 3
WED HD 265: Social Science Research for Community Impact — Boston Fair Housing Commission
Faculty: Linda Banks-Santilli
(A1) and
Detris Adelabu(B1)
Day/Time: Mondays 2:30-5:15pm (A1); Thursdays 12:30-3:15pm (B1)
Project: Students will assist the Boston Fair Housing Commission determine the demand for family-sized housing in Roxbury, Dorchester, and East Boston, while seeking to understand why there may be a disproportionate need for family-sized housing in neighborhoods with higher populations of people of color and immigrants.
Course Description: Students will collaborate with community organizations to design and conduct small-scale research projects (e.g., economic and educational equity, environmental justice, youth justice and mental health disparities). Research methodologies, qualitative and quantitative, will be determined based on the project.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Social Inquiry II, Teamwork/Collaboration
Fall 2024 MetroBridge Courses
Wondering what projects we worked on during the fall 2024 semester? See below for a snapshot!
CAS EE 512: Urban Climate — Boston Housing Authority
Faculty: Dan Li
Day/Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-10:45am
Project: Students will research and develop tools to help the BHA understand the health impacts of extreme heat on their properties. Students will also research potential low-cost interventions.
Course Description: Introduction to urban microclimate within the context of global climate change. Basic climate processes in urban systems; urban heat islands; mixing and dispersion; modeling and observational techniques; anthropogenic emissions; climate change impacts on cities; mitigation and adaptation.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy; Research and Information Literacy; Scientific Inquiry I
CAS IR 559: Leadership and Cultural Change in Large Organizations — Transportation for Massachusetts
Faculty: Jack Weinstein
Day/Time: Thursdays 8am-10:45am
Project: Students will evaluate major issues (fare policy, governance and oversight, and human capital) affecting the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to inform Transportation for Massachusetts’ work.
Course Description: Analyzes the determinants of successful leadership and the importance of diversity in large organizations, with focus on how to transform dysfunctional cultures. Using military and corporate case studies, addresses how to identify root causes of problems and impediments to change.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Ethical Reasoning; Oral and/or Signed Communication; Teamwork/Collaboration
CAS PO 517: Urban Politics and Policy — Abundant Housing Massachusetts
Faculty: Katherine Levine Einstein
Day/Time: Thursdays 8am-10:45am
Project: Students will research to inform Abundant Housing Massachusetts’ efforts to engage youth by analyzing why (or why not) youth are engaged in local elections and politics in select cities.
Course Description: Explores the impact of American urban politics on the implementation of local policy. Topics include deindustrialization, white flight, neighborhood effects, housing policy, schools, regionalism, and factors that constrain policy-making capacities.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: The Individual in Community; Teamwork/Collaboration; Writing-Intensive Course
CAS SO 483/883: Gentrification Studies — Boston Climate Action Network
Faculty: Loretta Lees
Day/Time: Tuesdays 3:30-6:15pm
Project: Students will conduct research to understand what defines green gentrification, how it’s measured, whether it is occurring in Boston, and what strategies have been put forth to mitigate displacement caused by green gentrification in cities both in the United States and internationally.
Course Description: This seminar explores the process of urban gentrification from an interdisciplinary perspective, examining the variegated histories, geographies, and sociologies of gentrification globally, thinking through comparative urbanism. It considers definitions of gentrification, how theorizations developed over time, and key concepts.
Credits: 4
CAS SO 490/890: Global Health: Politics, Institutions, and Ideology — Upham's Community Care
Faculty: Joseph Harris
Day/Time: Tuesdays 12:30-3:15
Project: Students will conduct background research and interviews to develop a community needs assessment for a community health center that provides services to disadvantaged communities in Dorchester.
Course Description: What is global health? Who are the main actors in global health debates? This seminar explores the politics of global health, providing students with sociological tools, concepts, and knowledge to help make sense of conflict in contemporary global health debates.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Research and Information Literacy; Social Inquiry II; Writing-Intensive Course
MET UA 703: Urban Research Methods — Fort Point Neighborhood Association and West Broadway Neighborhood Association
Faculty: Yeşim Sungu-Eryilmaz
Day/Time: Wednesdays 6:00-8:45pm
Project: Students will analyze the existing conditions of a 30-acre redevelopment site to help the local neighborhood association gain insight as they work to ensure local interests have a say in development plans.
Course Description: Mixed-Methods Design for Urban Research is intended to develop skills in the evaluation and utilization of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods approaches to scholarship in social-science research. The course will explore survey, experimental, observational, interview, ethnographic, and case-study research methods in depth, and students will learn how to collect, organize, and evaluate data in various forms.
Credits: 4
QST SI 250 C1: Ideas to Impact — Cambridge City Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler
Faculty: Ian Mashiter
Day/Time: Tuesdays/Thursdays 9:30-10:45am (section C1 only)
Project: As part of a sprint project, students will seek to understand why truck operators (and companies that contract with them) in the City of Cambridge do not adopt safety measures for bikers and pedestrians and what could be done to promote the adoption of such measures.
Course Description: This course is required for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor. The goal of this course is to expose students to the conceptual frameworks that guide ideation and innovation. Thus it will include all five learning principles the guide design of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor. The course analyzes the conditions that foster innovation as well as the process by which ideas progress from conception to implementation and execution, and the creation of either economic or social impact. Students will be exposed to theories on the conditions that affect the generation and development of creativity and innovation within individuals, teams, cities, and regions. To foster experiential learning, the whole class will be structured around the process of innovation with a “live case” that focuses on creating social innovations for the City of Boston. When people think about great social challenges, they often look afar to distant countries. Yet, many social problems lie right around the corner from students’ daily lives. Students will develop a toolkit comprised of brainstorming, design thinking, human centered design, prototyping, storyboarding and field research. Students will conduct original field research within the City of Boston and identify a challenge or problem to address which they will focus on for the duration of the course, culminating in final presentations.
Credits: 4
Undergraduate Hub Designations: Creativity/Innovation; The Individual in Community; Social Inquiry I
WED AP 635: Public Policy for Researchers — Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative
Faculty: Ariel Tichnor-Wagner
Day/Time: Tuesdays 5:00-7:45pm (only meets 1st half of semester: 9/03-10/15)
Project: Students will work to better understand how select state tax policies that seek to benefit seniors are implemented at the local/municipal level in order to identify trends and develop policy insights and implications.
Course Description: The purpose of this course is to expose students to the basics of the public policy field in order to be able to conduct research, advocate for issues, and develop careers in policy-related fields.
Credits: 2
Core MetroBridge Courses
We are in the process of developing a list of BU courses that typically incorporate MetroBridge courses every semester in which the course is offered. Our initial list of core MetroBridge courses will be published during the spring 2025 semester. Check back before registering for fall 2025 classes!
Please note: This list is provided as a resource for students to incorporate MetroBridge courses into their planning. We work with BU faculty and our city and community partners to keep this list as up-to-date as possible; however, it is subject to change and we cannot guarantee MetroBridge projects in a given course.
Select Previous MetroBridge Courses
Click here to view a selection of recently completed MetroBridge projects. Look below for a sample of courses that have featured MetroBridge projects in prior years.
Please note, the courses below are a selection of courses that have previously incorporated MetroBridge projects. Not all past MetroBridge courses are listed. These courses may or may not be MetroBridge courses in the future. Please consult the listings above for the most up-to-date course information.
Anthropology
Art
City Planning & Urban Affairs
- MET UA 509 – Public Finance and Urban Infrastructure
- MET UA 703 – Urban Research Methods
Communication
- COM EM 757 – User-Producers 2.0: Developing Interactivity
- COM EM 777 – Masters Collaboratory Project
Computer Science
- CAS CS 501 – Computer Science Practicum
Criminal Justice
- MET CJ 640 – Management & Accountability Analytics
Cross-College Challenge
- HUB XC410 B1 – Spark! Data Science for Good. Topics in Civic Tech: Housing
Earth & Environment
- CAS EE 512 – Urban Climate
- CAS EE 538 – Research for Environmental Agencies 2
Economics
- CAS EC 328 – Urban and Regional Economics
Education & Human Development
- SED AP 635 – Public Policy for Researchers
Health/Social Welfare
- CAS SO 490/GRS SO 890 – Global Health: Politics, Institutions, and Ideology
- SAR HS 348 – Global Mental Health
- SAR HS 349 – Cultural Humility, Racial Justice, and Health
- SSW WP 705 – Mental Health and Social Policy
- SPH PM 755 – Health Care Delivery Systems
History
- CAS HI 190 – History of Boston
Kilachand Honors College
- KHC HC 302 – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Challenges
- KHC HC 401 – Epistemologies and the Process of Inquiry
Management/Strategy & Innovation
- QST SI 250 – Ideas to Impact
- QST MG 737 – Action Learning Capstone
Political Science
- CAS PO 307 – Public Opinion in American Politics
- CAS PO 313 – The Politics and Policy of HBO’s The Wire
- CAS PO 519 – Inequality and American Politics
- CAS PO 524 – Local Policy Analysis Lab
- GRS PO 705 – Special Topics in American Politics
Psychology
- CAS PS 326 – Experimental Psychology: Social
- CAS PS 560 – Cross-Cultural Psychology
Romance Studies
- CAS LP 307 – Portuguese for Business and Professional Life
- CAS LS 309 – Spanish for Heritage and Native Speakers
Sociology
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- CAS SO 490/GRS SO 890 – Global Health: Politics, Institutions, and Ideology
- CAS SO 702 – Sociological Research Methods
