Marie Kennedy
M.Arch., Harvard University, Graduate School of Design
Professor, Emerita, Community Planning
marie.kennedy@umb.edu


Marie Kennedy is Professor Emerita of Community Planning in the College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts Boston. She combines the roles of activist and scholar, teaching, working in and writing about community development, planning education and participatory action research. Over the years, Marie supervised numerous collaborative projects, through which students earned academic credit while providing service to community organizations focusing on housing, anti-displacement, anti-racist, human service and community empowerment issues. She was the faculty sponsor of Women in Community Development and previously of the Roofless Women's Action Research Mobilization. Through these programs, low income women are supported in acquiring a college education while focusing their academic work on issues of importance to homeless and low income women. Marie has worked extensively with community organizations in the Greater Boston Area, as well as in San Francisco, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and Nicaragua. In 2007 she will be working with the Colegio de Tlaxcala, a graduate college in Mexico, on curriculum development and to evaluate planning projects throughout the state of Tlaxcala. Currently, she serves on the board of directors of La Alianza Hispana and on the advisory boards of the Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy, Common Ground, the Planners Network, and Grassroots International.