University Collaborations
The Sam Fox School benefits from collaborations with partners, departments, and centers across the University. Students and faculty are able to access the unparalleled resources of a tier-one research university while working with peers across disciplines on the most urgent issues of our time. These partnerships support a wide variety of activities, from funded research and fellowships, to special workshops and networking opportunities.
Collaborative Partnerships and Initiatives
The Divided City
The Divided City is an urban humanities initiative in partnership with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, WashU’s Center for the Humanities, and the Sam Fox School. The initiative seeks to bring humanities scholars into productive interdisciplinary dialogue with architects, urban designers, landscape architects, legal scholars, sociologists, and others around one of the most persistent and vexing issues in urban studies—segregation.
International Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (InCEES)
Founded in 2007, InCEES addresses a range of environmental challenges that are critical to the well-being of our society and planet, working in close collaboration with leaders across disciplines, industry, and government.
Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Skandalaris Center aims to inspire and develop creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship at WashU, offering programs and events to help students, faculty, staff, and alumni explore their inner maker. Programming includes workshops and networking opportunities specific to the fields of architecture, art, and design, such as a Freelance Bootcamp for Creatives and special conversations with entrepreneurial alumni from across the Sam Fox School.
Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement
The Gephardt Institute fosters a vibrant culture of civic engagement throughout WashU, realized by engaged citizens, scholarship, and partnerships that advance the collective good. Its goals include educating students for lifelong engaged citizenship; catalyzing partnerships that respond to community needs and priorities; and infusing civic engagement throughout the University experience. Special opportunities for students include the Civic Scholars Program and Arts as Civic Engagement Program.
Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2)
CRE2 brings the research force of the University to study how race and ethnicity are integral to the most complex and challenging issues of our time. It is driven by the belief in field-defining research, innovative learning, and strategic engagement that will transform scholarship, policy, and clinical interventions where race and ethnicity are at the center.
Dowd Illustration Research Archive
The Dowd Illustration Research Archive focuses on 20th century illustration. The collection includes artists’ working materials and sketches as well as original artwork from books, magazines, and advertising. Professor D.B. Dowd serves as director of the, which has strong ties to the School’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program.
Tyson Research Center
Tyson is the environmental field station for WashU, facilitating multi-scale research and teaching opportunities and collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and levels of academic training.
Resilient Cities
Based in the Sam Fox School, InCEES’ Resilient Cities initiative is a cross-school effort that actively engages with the St. Louis community around the critical and complex issues of environmental and social resiliency. These complicated problems require systems thinking and interdisciplinary teams to unravel them.
College Prep Program
WashU’s College Prep Program is a no-cost, three-year immersive learning experience that serves to successfully prepare first-generation college students for college life and beyond. Second-year participants take Design Thinking: An Approach to Problem Solving, which provides an overview of approaches to design thinking.