Faculty Profile Tarry Hum

Tarry Hum: Empowering Communities–and
Students– Through Urban Planning

“I got my degrees in city planning because I wanted to be in a field that works for systemic social change, helping people to improve conditions in their communities,” says Tarry Hum. Recently named acting chair of the urban studies department after teaching there nearly 20 years, Hum knows the struggles of immigrants and marginalized populations first-hand.       

Her father, born in China, immigrated to Canada at age 14 with a third-grade education. He later worked at an industrial laundry in Brooklyn, spending weekends waiting on tables. Her mother, also a native of China, did embroidery piecework in Montreal, where Hum was born, and after moving to New York, toiled in the Chinatown garment industry.

In 1970, the year the family left Canada for New York, the city was in a downward economic spiral. Despite those difficult times, Hum received a progressive public school education that, she says, “moved me beyond the insular immigrant community I’d known.” When her parents saved enough to buy a house in Sunset Park, they were the first Chinese home-owners in that Brooklyn neighborhood.

           
After earning her master’s degree in city planning from MIT, Hum remained in Boston to work as executive director of two Asian nonprofit organizations in affordable housing and community development. “We faced some important challenges,” she says. “How do you pursue equitable economic development when private property interests predominate? How do you mobilize a community divided by class, race, and ethnic concerns?”

Hum’s experience in Boston led to the realization that she had to pursue a PhD. “I wanted to do community-engaged research,” she says. “This is my personal strength–to conduct research and make it accessible to help inform and empower a community. But I also wanted to better understand the scholarship behind the field of urban planning.”

           
With a PhD from UCLA and a NYU post-doctoral fellowship under her belt, Hum was hired by QC. The recipient of the 2013 QC President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching by Full-Time Faculty (she is also a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center), Hum has enjoyed teaching courses that get students directly involved with the neighborhoods they’re studying. The capstone Service Learning Practicum required for all undergraduates majoring in urban studies provides that opportunity.

“In Spring 2012, our students collaborated with QC art students from the Social Practice Queens program on the Corona Plaza project, a proposed pedestrian space,” says Hum. “They interviewed community stakeholders and we held classes in a nearby storefront that serves as an immigrant community center.” Students also interviewed Jackson Heights merchants and street vendors about the controversial proposal to expand the 82nd Street Business Improvement District; pounded the pavement in Jamaica to learn about new land-use issues; and, most recently, worked with a community consortium, contributing to a report about the rezoning of the downtown Flushing waterfront.

“At a Flushing Town Hall meeting, our students heard the concerns of tenants in rent-stabilized buildings who feared displacement by luxury housing and commercial development,” says Hum. She is proud that the students took the initiative to create a video that the residents used for tenant organizing and zoning presentations.

           
Hum’s own grants and fellowships from prestigious organizations such as the Ford Foundation and Henry Luce Foundation have funded research in Sunset Park and many Queens communities. In 2018 Temple University Press will publish Immigrant Crossroads: Globalization, Incorporation and Placemaking in Queens, NY, which she co-edited with QC political science colleagues Michael Krasner, Francois Pierre-Louis, and Ronald Hayduk (now at San Francisco State University), with a contributing chapter from Alice Sardell (Urban Studies).

Now as acting chair of urban studies, Hum wants to increase its visibility as a major and a minor, and plans more outreach to community colleges such as LaGuardia. “The capstone fieldwork course is great preparation for graduate school and future jobs,” she says. “The world is being urbanized and we need to build equitable and sustainable cities.” Hum also wants to strengthen relationships that the department already has with many community organizations.

In the end, her work at QC comes down to the students. “They remind me of me!” she says, describing them as “largely first generation to attend college and very practical-minded.” Her greatest satisfaction, Hum says, is “hearing back from our graduates that urban studies was a transforming experience.” ​