Ryan Good teaches at the Washington Community Scholars’ Center (WCSC), EMU’s internship and urban studies program in Washington, DC. Ryan is an interdisciplinary urban scholar with teaching and research specializations in community development, urban geography, and the geography of race and poverty. He holds a PhD in Planning and Public Policy from Rutgers University.
Ryan’s research explores the politics of place, community-based political mobilization, and racialized geographies of inequality, with a specific focus on the implications of marketized education reforms for local communities. He has pursued research projects on community responses to school closures in Philadelphia, on private fundraising for Philadelphia public schools through neighborhood-based 501c3 organizations, and on the geographies of charter school expansion and gentrification in Washington, DC. Spanning geography, planning, and education policy, his work bridges a historic disconnect between community development and school reform that has hindered efforts to improve both schools and communities.
At WCSC, Ryan teaches courses in urban studies, community development, and vocational and career direction. In his teaching, he helps students engage and begin to make sense of the dramatic development that has transformed DC and the implications of these changes for people and communities across the city. Through seminars and course assignments, students explore DC neighborhoods and meet with community organizations that are fighting for affordable housing, economic justice, and the rights of lower-income communities of color in DC.
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