The faculty voted unanimously Wednesday to reconfigure the current Urban Studies major as a concentration and house it in the Geography department.

The current Urban Studies major requires students to complete a 14-course sequence including a focus in history, geography, economics, sociology or political science, six courses related to Urban Studies and a senior seminar.

The new Urban Studies program will require students to complete a major in another department and a concentration, which Geography Professor David Lanegran said will allow students to focus more on the discipline of urban studies.

“The requirements for Urban Studies will change more on paper than in reality,” Lanegran said. “Essentially the current major is a concentration.”

Rather than seminars, the new Urban Studies program will include courses called studio courses. Experts from the outside community will teach these classes and they will primarily focus on experiential learning.

Lanegran said he hopes Macalester will offer one “studio” course per semester. According to Lanegran, there are currently 22 Urban Studies majors and most chose to double major. Ten of these majors are geographymajors.

According to Lanegran, urban studies was popular in the 1970s. It used to include African American studies, cultural studies and gender studies. The Urban Studies of today is more focused on planning and management of urban areas and on education.

Geography at Macalester has also changed in recent years. The college no longer teaches classes in physical geography. “We’ve moved to more quantitative geography,” Lanegran said. Because of these changes, Macalester hired Laura Smith, a quantitative urban geographer, as a visiting professor three years ago. Smith has since been hired in a tenure-track position.

According to Lanegran, the Urban Studies department has always had a close association with the Geography Department and the decision to house the program in the department came from Urban Studies faculty, not EPAG, and the decision is non-controversial.

“Geography has been the protector of Urban Studies throughout its history,” Lanegran said.

According to the Educational Policy and Governance Committee’s (EPAG) web site, the curricular renewal process is designed to “undertake a thorough review of the department and program structure to determine if the current framework ... is the one that most effectively educates students.”

EPAG’s guidelines for curricular renewal call for the academic structure of the college to fall into three units: disciplinary departments, interdisciplinary departments and inter-departmental programs.

An interdisciplinary department draws on the resources of multiple departments, but must have at least two full-time core faculty members. These departments may offer a major, minor, or both.

Urban Studies did not have the required two full-time faculty members to sustain interdisciplinary department status. “We are very happy with the solution,” Lanegran said. “It will make the program better because we will be doing more with less.”