CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Jose Marquez, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois, is one of seven people selected to participate in Urban Design Regional Employment Action for Minorities 2010, also known as UDream, an internship/immersion program sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture and its Remaking Cities Institute.
UDream, in its second year, includes five weeks of academic courses and studio work with architecture faculty at Carnegie Mellon as well as a 12-week internship with an urban design firm, public agency or non-profit organization engaged in planning and community development. Additionally, UDream participants lead groups of high school students in a weeklong design charette during which they develop proposals for transforming unused urban spaces in a local neighborhood.
UDream’s mission is to increase diversity in the profession of urban planning regionally and nationally by helping recent graduates of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and urban planning programs broaden their knowledge of urban design while cultivating job prospects and professional contacts that may retain them in the Pittsburgh area.
Marquez and the other participants will receive free tuition, housing and transportation to and from Pittsburgh plus a stipend of $1,000 per month.
UDream is funded by the Heinz Endowments, a philanthropic organization based in Pittsburgh that supports programs that improve quality of life for Pennsylvanians and people in other U.S. communities.
Marquez, 23, of Midlothian, Ill. graduated from the U. of I. this month with a master’s degree in architecture from the College of Fine and Applied Arts.
