Current Employer: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Indianapolis Regional Office

Teresa Jeter-Newburn is working in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Indianapolis regional office as a senior project manager, credit mortgage analyst, and faith-based coordinator in the Multifamily Housing Division.

Her job involves multimillion-dollar housing developments for families, senior citizens, and residents with disabilities throughout Indiana. She reviews credit mortgages for the projects' developers, contractors, and boards of directors, determining whether the developments are feasible and what the market will bear. Indiana's HUD region is a national leader in completing these projects.

She also helps faith-based organizations in the state learn about the partnerships and opportunities available through HUD.

Teresa previously was a community builder for HUD and deputy director of the Muncie, Indiana, Office of Community Development. She also worked with the Martin Luther King Commission in Anderson, Indiana, on a neighborhood revitalization program that developed new affordable housing for first-time homeowners.

She says Ball State University's M.U.R.P. degree gave her skills in management, grantsmanship, research and market studies, and demographics and statistics. She worked on two major research reports during her internship with the Joyce Foundation in Chicago, the fourth largest foundation in the country.

"The master's program in urban planning is a broad-based degree and provides the basic foundation to facilitate projects from beginning to end," she says. "It equipped me with the skills and confidence to step into opportunities involving both the public and private sectors."

She credits the program's faculty and interdisciplinary focus, noting: "The professors were very helpful. The interdisciplinary approach also is very important. Universities that do this are ahead of the game."

Since graduating, she has been asked to teach undergraduate neighborhood planning studios at Ball State.

Teresa earned her undergraduate degree in public health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis but had not considered pursuing graduate studies until a professor there suggested it. Urban planning at Ball State was a natural choice for her.

"Urban planning is about the community, about the public," she says. "I thought it was a good match."

Learn more about Ball State's urban planning degree programs.