Booth University College - Winnipeg
Bachelor of Arts in Community and Urban Transformation
Winnipeg, Canada
BA
DURATION
4 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
Key Summary
About: The Community and Urban Transformation (CUT) major examines the city as a dynamic environment, combining urban studies, community development and social justice. Topics include planning, poverty, homelessness, Indigenous experience and immigration through coursework, experiential learning, community research. Awarding a four-year Bachelor of Arts (BA), it emphasizes servant leadership, conflict transformation and vocational discernment.
Career Outcomes: CUT prepares you for graduate study and careers in anthropology, sociology, law, education, social services, criminal justice and theology. You’ll gain skills in research, writing, analysis, self-management, oral communication, intercultural competence. Job options include urban planner, community organizer, policy analyst, nonprofit manager and social worker.
The Community and Urban Transformation program examines the city as a dynamic environment, taking a globally engaged and regionally responsive, social scientific approach. Its scope spans both traditional issues of urban studies, such as planning and development, and the contemporary concerns of community development that focus on understanding and transforming the urban experiences of the disadvantaged.
The CUT major leads to a four-year Bachelor of Arts (BA), while its minor study complements other programs at Booth UC. Courses cover a range of relevant issues and topics informed by and geared towards self-transformation in the urban context.
As a practicable theory, self-transformation moves from a top-down to a strategically collaborative model grounded in the resilience of community membership. In addition to Booth’s core curriculum, based upon a broad foundation in the arts and humanities, CUT course content touches on issues specific to Winnipeg, Canada, having to do with youth, poverty and homelessness, the Indigenous experience, and immigration, and extends to global issues having to do with international development, human rights, and health and diversity.
Students will become equipped with the techniques and strategies to address urban social issues by learning in community, building intercultural knowledge, and gaining conflict transformation skills, and by pursuing leadership development, spiritual formation, and vocational discernment.
Studying at Booth
Through academic rigour, experiential learning and research, public events, and collaborative partnerships in Winnipeg and beyond, CUT educates students for lives of servant leadership in an increasingly urban world.
Course Requirements
Community and Urban Transformation (CUT) majors at Booth UC develop a sophisticated grasp of communities and their complex role in cities, and of cities and their role in global affairs through systematic course work. Practical experience forms the focal point of the program as encompassed by the various preparatory seminars; applied practicum, workshop-conference, and educational travel options; and, the capstone integration. The CUT minor complements many other programs of study at Booth UC, and allows students to gain familiarity with urban studies, including practically, minding prerequisites.
4 year/120 credit Requirements:
- Minimum of 120 credits
- Minimum of 42 credits in Core Curriculum
- 33 credits required courses; 27 disciplinary elective credits (see list); 18 general elective credits
Required Courses (33 credits)
- BHS310 Qualitative Methods (3)
- BHS200 Research Methods (3);
- CUT100 The Social Life of Cities (3)
- CUT200 Pre-Field Seminar (3);
- CUT 301 Urban Practicum I (3);
- CUT 302 Urban Practicum II (3), or CUT311 (1.5) and CUT312 Workshop / Conference Participation (1.5), or ETR395 Educational Travel: Selected Themes (3);
- SOC100 Intro Sociology (6)
- SOC210 Social Problems (3);
- SOC380 Social Theory (3);
- CUT499 Advanced Community and Urban Studies Seminar / Capstone Integration (3) or HUM499 Capstone Integration (3)
Elective Courses (30 credits)
- BUS230 Marketing (3)
- BUS250 Organizational Behaviour (3)
- BUS335 Marketing in a Not-For-Profit Environment
- BUS352 Leadership (3)
- BUS494 Creativity, Innovation and Negotiation (3)
- CUT3XX Disciplinary electives
- CUT395 Selected Themes in Community and Urban Transformation (3)
- CUT390 Independent Study in Community and Urban Transformation (3)
- CUT490 Advanced Independent Study in Community and Urban Transformation (3)
- ENG360 Mass Media and Society (3)
- ENG320 Trauma Literature (3)
- ETR395 Educational Travel: Selected Themes (3)
- REL332 Perspectives on a Theology of Social Justice (3)
- PSY354 Community Psychology (3)
- PSY395 Selected Topics in Psychology (3)
- REL250 Christianity and the Marginalized (3)
- REL333 Wesleyan-Salvationist Theology of Mission (3)
- SOC220 Introductory Criminology (3)
- SOC355 Human Diversity (3)
- SOC370 Social Change (3)
- SOC372 Sociology of Religion (3)
- SOC390 Directed Readings in Sociology (3)
- SOC395 Selected Topics in Sociology (3)
- SWK220 Introduction to Social Welfare (3)
The Community and Urban Transformation program seeks to equip students with the theoretical and practical skills needed to critically assess urban social issues and synthesize interdisciplinary evidence within the institutional framework of the Salvation Army and Booth University College and its existing faculty strengths.
This includes the theological values of the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition, and the regional specificity of Winnipeg, its denizens and surrounding area. CUT majors gain mastery of social scientific (sociological and interdisciplinary) knowledge and practices in the following ways, including:
- How the social sciences contribute to a critical understanding of social relations – This entails being able to: describe how sociology, for example, is distinct from other social sciences; and to apply sociological principles and concepts to understand one’s own and others’ personal experiences in a social context.
- The nature, relevance, and interrelatedness of key social scientific concepts, gaining mastery of the following: agency, identity, and self-transformation, symbolic interaction, cultural studies, social change, and socialization; social structure, problems, institutions, inequality and justice, and globalization; democracy, socialism and global capitalism; race, gender, sexuality, health, ageing and health care; family, population, and the life course; crime, deviance, law, and social control.
- The place of theory in the social sciences and the place of the social sciences in theory, including religious systems such as Christianity – This entails, in the first instance, the ability to: define theory and understand its role in building interdisciplinary knowledge; compare and contrast foundational theoretical perspectives, and apply such theories to understand urban social reality. In the second instance, this entails consideration of research as it is used in system-specific knowledge production; its supportive or critical role; and comparatively across various religious and non-religious knowledge systems.
- The role of evidence and methods in community and urban research – Students learn to: identify and distinguish key methodological approaches; understand the role of methods in building scholarly knowledge; interpret and communicate research material; understand the skills and knowledge base required for independently carrying out a research project.
- The application of research knowledge in and through community-based collaboration – Students gain applied experience as they: perform a range of social scientific research in and through the program’s practicum requirement and participatory research; locate and access original published research; conduct ethical research independently through faculty and community-based, collaborative partnerships; interpret and communicate research within and outside the university college, including with those who may be unfamiliar with sociology.
- Preparedness for graduate studies in anthropology, sociology or other social sciences, law, education, social services, the criminal justice field, theology or other professional fields.
- A range of marketable skills, including technical reading and writing; self-management through the conduct of applied research and analysis; and effective oral communication.
The Community and Urban Transformation Studies program provides preparedness for graduate studies in anthropology, sociology or other social sciences, law, education, social services, the criminal justice field, theology or other professional fields.
You will gain a range of marketable skills, including technical reading and writing; self-management through the conduct of applied research and analysis; and effective oral communication.
