# About Us

**Source**: https://chicagostudies.uchicago.edu/about
**Parent**: https://chicagostudies.uchicago.edu/

Chicago Studies makes it easier for the College to forge genuine bonds with our amazing city. We offer O-Week and Welcome Week [programming](http://chicagostudies.uchicago.edu/events), sponsor  and [city-based research initiatives](/projects), and share  to help you be more than a visitor while you're here, so you can better understand (and have a positive impact on) your new home.

As one of several College offices that support innovative teaching and research, Chicago Studies works with academic programs across the College curriculum while also offering our own "in-house" courses and research labs through the New Collegiate Division. In all that we do, we aim to:

- Encourage the College to respectfully explore and learn with **Chicago's diverse communities**, especially those that have historically been marginalized, objectified, or problematized by academic discourse;
- Provoke **critical thinking** about Chicago and our University's relationship with it;
- Sponsor creative **curricular and para-curricular experiences** in, with, and about Chicago, especially those that emphasize first-person narratives and foreground the historic and contemporary voices of Chicagoans of all walks of life;
- Resource and elevate Chicago-focused **undergraduate research** within the College, especially at the BA thesis/capstone level, and with an emphasis on participatory/collaborative approaches;
- Curate and promote authentic, reciprocally-beneficial **partnerships** with organizations, institutions, businesses, community groups, and residents across Chicagoland; and
- Recognize and celebrate students who have meaningfully integrated various forms of **Chicago engagement** into their academic careers.

Although we are , we multiply the impacts of our work by cooperating with a wide range of partners (both on campus and across the city) and by engaging the direct support of student, faculty, and community-based advisors.  These inform the themes and methods of our programming and classes, and help hold us accountable to our core principles of epistemic justice, high-impact teaching and learning, and respectful place-based engagement.  [*Learn more about our work and the philosophy and histories that inform it.*](/facing)