August 18, 2021

Call for Nominations: 2022-2023 ACSA Board of Directors

Call for Nominations: 2022-23 ACSA Board of Directors

Deadline: October 13, 2021

The ACSA invites nominations and self-nominations for three positions on the Board of Directors. Please review the following eligibility requirements, timeline, and background information that describes the organization’s intended directions in coming years.

Open Board Positions: Second Vice President, Two At-Large Directors

Eligible nominees for all Board positions must meet the following requirements:

  • Second Vice President. Candidates shall be full-time, tenured, tenure-track, or fixed-term faculty members of a Full Member school at the time of nomination and throughout the four-year term of office.
  • At-Large Director. The ACSA Bylaws permit no more than one At-Large Director to come from a school that is not a Full Member. For the 2021-22 Board, the Nominations Committee may consider candidates from a Candidate or Affiliate Member school that has been a member of ACSA continuously since 2018-19. Nominations of candidates from Full Member schools continue to be encouraged for At-Large Director positions.

Position Descriptions

Terms for directors begin on July 1, 2022, with terms of service noted below. All directors are expected to attend three board meetings a year: a fall meeting, which typically occurs in conjunction with the Administrators Conference; a spring meeting, which typically occurs in conjunction with the ACSA Annual Meeting; and a summer meeting, typically held in Washington, DC, in late July or early August. Additionally, board members serve on committees, which may entail travel to a meeting one time per year and conference calls one to two times per month.

The Second Vice President serves a four-year term. The elected person serves for one year, respectively, as Second Vice President, First Vice President/President-Elect, President, and Past President. The President is responsible for calling meetings of the Board of Directors, preparing an agenda, and presiding at such meetings. The President coordinates activities of the board, ACSA committees, and liaison representatives. The President serves as ACSA liaison with the officers of the American Institute of Architects, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, The National Organization of Minority Architects, and the American Institute of Architecture Students. During the term of office, the President also prepares a brief report of activities of the organization and the Board of Directors for dissemination to the constituent associations. As First Vice President, the person will chair the Planning Committee, and, as Past President, the person will serve as chair of the Nominations Committee.

The At-Large Directors serve a three-year term as voting members of the Board. In addition, they serve as liaison to member schools, including participating in organized business meetings; maintaining contact with Faculty Councilors and others associated with member schools; assisting member schools upon request; advising Candidate or Affiliate member schools; and advising the Board of issues and concerns raised by members. At-Large Directors contribute to the work of the Board through actively serving on Board committees, contributing to collective deliberations, and performing other duties as provided by the Rules of the Board of Directors or as requested by the Board.

2021-22 Nominations Committee

Lynne Dearborn, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (Chair)
Jeffrey L. Day, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Kwesi Daniels, Tuskegee University
David Rifkind, University of Florida
Laida Aguirre, University of Michigan
Gabrielle Esperdy, New Jersey Institute of Technology

Timeline

The deadline for nominations and self-nominations is October 13, 2021. ACSA will publish a preliminary slate of Board-approved candidates in November 2021, followed by a period during which members may petition for the inclusion of additional candidates to the slate. A final slate of candidates, including candidates by petition, will be published in early January, when the online balloting process will open. Candidates will be notified of the results in mid-February. The results of this election will be announced online soon after the ballot deadline.

October 13, 2021

Deadline for nominations.

November 12, 2021

Preliminary slate of candidate names announced.

January 5, 2022

Deadline for submission of petitions to add candidates to the slate.

January 12, 2022

Final slate of candidates and ballot materials published and sent to ACSA Full Member schools.

February 10, 2022

Deadline for ballot submissions.

Nomination Requirements

Nominations for all ACSA Board positions should include a CV, a letter of interest from the nominee indicating a willingness to serve, and a candidate statement. The deadline for receipt of nominations is October 13, 2021.

Nominations should be sent to:
Email (preferred): ddent@acsa-arch.org
Danielle Dent, Director of Membership, Marketing and Publications
ACSA Nominations, 1735 New York Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20006 

DESIRED COMPETENCIES AND BACKGROUNDS FOR NOMINEES

ACSA actively seeks equitable and representative involvement by a broad range of people on its Board and other volunteer bodies. The Board of Directors should represent a diversity of background, experience, expertise, and geography. This shall also include racial, ethnic, and gender diversity.

Prospective candidates and nominators are encouraged to review the strategic initiatives and priority objectives, included below, to understand future directions for ACSA board activities. The areas described below include (but are not limited to) experience producing scholarship and/or funded research, understanding processes for recruiting students from a variety of backgrounds, and experience communicating the value of architecture, whether in a disciplinary or professional context. However, the desired competencies of board members should not be narrowly understood. Regional and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity are also important to the ACSA. The vacancies on the board come from directors whose primary affiliations are in Canada and the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Ensuring regional diversity, therefore, is among the Board’s priorities. Finally, previous experience with ACSA committees, conference leadership, or other Board appointments is desired.

Strategic Initiatives: 2019-2022

Given the impact of the global pandemic on higher education and the profession, as well as ACSA’s commitment to action to address racial inequities in architectural education, the remaining two years of ACSA’s 2019–2022 strategic plan will be particularly focused. The Board of Directors is responsible for the organization’s progress against the strategic plan, and Board members will participate in governance processes that oversee ACSA’s three Program Committees, two academic journals, multiple conferences, and other member programs designed to advance our mission. Newly elected board members joining in 2021 will also participate in revising the strategic plan for a new three-year cycle from 2022 to 2025.

Following are the strategic initiatives that are in place under the current strategic plan.

Increasing Access and Promoting Equity
ACSA commits to increasing equity and inclusion within our organization and in the profession. Providing forums through which schools can reflect on their curriculum, academic culture, policies, and norms are among the ways ACSA can help make architectural education more equitable for people of color and Native/Indigenous people (faculty, students, and staff alike). ACSA is also focusing on education as both an access point and a barrier to the discipline. ACSA will advocate for the value of architecture and architectural education to prospective students from a range of demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and we will engage community colleges, non-accredited programs and international institutions through a range of in-person and online faculty development opportunities.

Enriching Pedagogy
ACSA helps architecture schools advance their pedagogy through our scholarly and advocacy programs. Our peer reviewed venues bring together a global network of educators documenting best practices in teaching and learning across the curriculum. Committees, task forces, and other opportunities to convene faculty, students, and practitioners highlight pressing issues facing the discipline, such as developing an equitable learning culture and evolving curricula toward stronger environmental stewardship.

Enhancing Research
ACSA supports the spectrum of research paradigms within the discipline and profession internationally, evidenced in changes to the Annual Meeting, its international conference partnerships for 2019 to 2021, and in its support for the Journal of Architectural Education and TAD Journal. ACSA also seeks to position architectural research relative to the wider research environment. Our recent White Papers by the Research and Scholarship Committee are intended to support faculty as they progress in their careers.

Questions

Danielle Dent
Director of Membership, Marketing and Publications
202-785-2324
ddent@acsa-arch.org