2022 Administrators Conference

CHALLENGES TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Shortening length to degree, removing requirements for professional or (and in some states) post-secondary degrees for licensure, and new apprenticeship programs are just a few of the myriad challenges to architectural education as we know it today. How should ACSA and its membership respond to these challenges? How can we demonstrate the value of higher education to the profession and the communities we serve? What assumptions of our own do we need to challenge?

Equity in Architectural Education

Architecture’s Afterlife

After Ranking, What? 

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION LUNCH (provided)

RESPATIALIZING ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION
Even before the Pandemic uprooted our studios and classrooms and thrust them into 2-dimensional, virtual, anywhere space, a small number of architecture schools were developing multisite, online, and hybrid degrees and programs. How has two years plus of remote/hybrid teaching and learning changed our perspective on these “alternative” delivery formats? How might they help us improve the accessibility and affordability of professional education? This session will look at several existing programs and engage a conversation about how schools are expanding and transforming their offerings based on lessons learned from pivoting existing curricula for Covid-era education.

BUILDING THE FACULTY OUR DISCIPLINE DESERVES
This session will kick off the work of the 2022-23 ACSA Leadership Committee, which is charged with surveying and evaluating new faculty positions–fellowships, visiting positions, etc–aimed toward diversifying faculty and expanding teaching, research, and scholarship on issues of social and environmental justice, racial equity, and community engagement. Are these programs advancing young, contingent faculty into tenure-track or other forms of permanent teaching positions? Are they impacting our classrooms and curricula? How can we shape them to be both impactful forces for pedagogical reform and ways of bringing more diverse people and positions into stable and remunerative teaching positions?

FORGING NEW ALLIANCES
Representing schools and the discipline of architecture, the ACSA participates in an alliance of organizations–AIA, AIAS, NCARB, NAAB, & most recently NOMA–responsible for defining architecture through educational, professional, and regulatory lenses. In recent years, these legacy organizations have been challenged by disruptors asking new questions of our field. This panel will bring together members of The Architecture Lobby, Dark Matter University, and US Architects Declare to discuss their interests in and work on architecture school curricula, structures, and faculty.

MODELS OF K-12 OUTREACH
In the keynote/interview of the 2022 AIA Conference on Architecture, President Barack Obama opened with a confession regarding his childhood interest in becoming an architect and closed with a discussion of how architects and architecture could accomplish meaningful change in our communities. But Obama chose law and community organizing instead of a career in design. How do young people who want to change their communities, envision new spaces, or build better futures find their way to our architecture programs? This panel will present examples of high school, after school, and summer classes; mentorship programs; pipeline initiatives, and independent place-based studios and opportunities to scale them up for expanded outreach.