Profiles of 2004 Graduating Students

LaToya Thomas plans on helping inner city communities prosper

By Linda Myers

Like Washington, D.C., where LaToya Thomas grew up, Ithaca has neighborhoods in which some people earn a lot less than others living only blocks away. In both cities, some of the poorest neighborhoods also happen to be predominantly black. A desire to change that sealed Thomas' commitment to working at a community level on societal issues of race and class.

Senior LaToya Thomas, urban planning major in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, stands near Sibley Hall on the university's Arts Quad. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

As a student in the College of Architecture, Art in Planning, Thomas enrolled in courses like Associate Professor Kenneth Reardon's Neighborhood Planning Workshop and "found my passion," she said. "I went from door to door doing hands-on surveys and learned the history of the local black community; some of the houses on Ithaca's southside were stops on the underground railroad."

She also led a breakout session at a community planning meeting and introduced residents to a mapping tool that imaged their neighborhood in terms of such components as income level. Once income differences between neighborhoods became apparent, she said, "People wanted to work to fix that problem." The experience, she said, "taught me how much power you have with a tool like that."

Thomas' mother and grandparents placed a high value on education and struggled to ensure that she attended good schools. Growing up in a mixed-income neighborhood in northeast Washington, she enrolled in private Catholic schools -- including a prestigious all-girls' preparatory school in Bethesda, Md., where most students were from well-to-do families. While she did well academically, it was hard, at first, to adjust to the different social milieu. But part-time jobs gave Thomas confidence and a sense of responsibility and helped her learn to interact easily with "people of different economic backgrounds and ethnicities." Her most important lesson: "The wealthiest people aren't necessarily the happiest."

Applying to college, Thomas qualified for a Gates Millennium Scholarship. The selective, merit-based award helped open the door to Cornell, where she was accepted in the architecture program. But the urban planning program in the college's Department of City and Regional Planning turned out to be a much better fit. Transferring in her sophomore year, she helped revive the Organization of Urban and Regional Studies in 2002, then became president of the student group as well as vice president of the Minority Architecture, Art and Planning group.

"As a planning student, my focus has been how to make a community more economically and culturally sustainable," said Thomas.

"She is full of personality and energy, inside and outside the classroom," said Ann-Margaret Esnard, associate professor of planning, of Thomas. "What stands out most, though, is her sincere commitment to bettering inner city communities and neighborhoods."

Completing her undergraduate studies in just three years, Thomas now plans to continue in the college's master of regional planning degree program.