In 1967, following the
Hough riots and student protests on campus, Dr. Thomas F. Campbell and a group of Cleveland State faculty formed the Ad Hoc Committee on Urban Studies and called on the university to form an urban institute to "bring together faculty from a wide range of specializations to work on urban problems in an interdisciplinary setting, designed in particular to facilitate communication between specialists with common interests in urban problems — linking academic specialists with the political and economic leadership of a large metropolis – [including] a full range of undergraduate courses focusing on urban problems, particularly in the social sciences." The Institute of Urban Studies first offered classes in the fall of 1968 with the financial support of the
Gund Foundation. The program was one of the first members of the Council of University Institutes of Urban Affairs, which became the Urban Affairs Association in 1981. In 1969, Maxine Goodman Levin, founder of the
Cleveland Landmarks Commission and the Cleveland Restoration Society, and a real estate developer, established the Albert A. Levin Chair of Urban Studies and Public Service in honor of her late husband. It was the first endowed chair in the country to allow the chair holder to combine classroom teachings with public service to study and work at finding solutions to urban problems. Cleveland State reorganized the Institute as the College of Urban Affairs consisting of a single department of Urban Studies in 1977. In 1989, the college was renamed the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, following the benefactor's gift of an endowment to support the college. In 2022, The Levin College of Public Affairs and Education, was renamed to honor the transformational philanthropic donations to the university from Mort Levin and the Levin family. The newly formed college brings together the previous Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, the College of Education, communication, and sociology and criminology. == Degree programs ==