 Alright, I believe we are live. Thank you for joining us for this panel professional practice and green reconstruction. Just as a reminder for those of you who maybe are joining panels for the first time in these couple days, you can use the ask a question feature to submit questions for the discussion. After the panelists presentations and all conference registrants will have access to recorded sessions after the conference for one month. So, I'm Jacob Moore, I'm the associate director of the Temple Hoyen Buell Center for the study of American architecture at Columbia. Before beginning I want to acknowledge that though we're dispersed virtually I'm joining you from Lenapehoking the unceded ancestral homeland for Lenape peoples, whose violent displacement was central to the colonial establishment and growth of New York City and whose knowledge was excluded from the founding cannons of our discipline. And currently I'm joining you from an institution where graduate workers of Columbia UW are in active negotiations regarding the terms of their first union contract. We at the Buell Center strongly support these workers in their efforts and speaking personally, I see making visible the connections between such seemingly distinct struggles and the institutions practices and forms of the built environment that participate in them as a key professional responsibility directed toward facilitating much needed change therein. So a few words of thanks before we start at the Buell Center. We've been researching programs and curricula of the built environment since the summer of 2020. And in order to sorry in order to frame a broader inquiry into the disciplines of architecture planning landscape historic preservation, and other allied fields, and of the more than 15 graduate research assistant student workers who have helped work into over 1100 programs across the country. I'm going to drop the link here into this chat. If anybody's interested in sort of initial early traces of that work. I'm particularly grateful to Emily Khan and Ethan Davis who contributed to the more recent focus within that larger database on professional practice in preparation for this panel. And with the Buell Center's director Reinhold Martin and its program manager Jordan Steingard both of whom deserve special thanks for their leadership on this project. The center owes a huge debt of gratitude to our board members Meredith Tenhor and Sheila Kennedy, as well as our collaborator Kylian Riano for formative contributions during early stages of the conversation. And immediately, I also want to add that we're aware of and incredibly grateful for the multitude of initiatives within and between institutions that are dedicated to thinking about the issues that we're here to discuss today. I hope some representatives are here and we'll join the conversation after one such initiative is actually by the ACSA also going to drop it into the chat. Regarding professional practice specifically. We offer this contribution as a most sorry we offer this not as a summary of such work but as a contribution to it. So, growing out of research and programming at the Buell Center focused on the Green New Deal. The aforementioned investigations into programs of the built environment have been under the rubric of what we're calling green reconstruction. One last chat here. Compared to the Green New Deal with its more distant and more radical historical reference green reconstruction aims to make clear the structural interconnected society wide changes, indeed reconstructions that will be necessary to successfully meet today's challenges. And importantly for today's conversation, these changes don't merely impact professionals of all kind they require them. In the 1935 book black reconstruction in America WB Du Bois addressed one of these historical periods from the vantage point of the other. And in the publication among many other key observations and conclusions. Du Bois describes the way that following the civil war powerful interests pit working class white Americans against recently emancipated working class black Americans as a strategy to prevent the accrual of meaningful power on either of their parts. And as a strategy and it's ongoing very much ongoing effects in mind, what role might the teaching of what we call professional practice play in the reproduction of precisely the same class and race based definitions and divisions today. And as one of the main sites for the Constitution of architects as working professionals professionals tasked in no small part with confronting the no longer slow violence climate change. What possibilities exist for this teaching to do the opposite. So let's take an example of the construction document mediating the relationship between groups of often differently classed and raised individuals, one at a desk behind a screen, the other on site, often across borders construction document is a key component of architectural education and architectural practice. Can the directives and delineations that are embedded within and reproduced through such a document be adjusted. If so, how and to what ends. Broadly speaking, the main question we have worked to think with as we look to cross our share of fields at the relationship between professional education and professional practice has been. If architecture is a service profession, who does it serve. As I think most gather here today recognize in architecture, what we call professional practice or architecture education professional practice is a vague term without a common definition or standard place and curricula, leading to students from different programs with different backgrounds graduating with dramatically different skills and expectations. In a 2019 ACSA and NCARB survey, just over a third of practicing architects felt proper courses had prepared them for entering the profession. Only slightly more 42% of professional practice faculty felt their students left with them with at least an intermediate level of understanding. And about 7% of full time practitioners felt this way about recent graduates entering the workforce. And this disparity is despite the fact that the average professional practice faculty member, and the average firm leaders share similar profiles, both average more than 20 years of experience, working a small firm are licensed in the US, and are most likely to identify as a Caucasian man. As I would also expect many attendees are aware the percentage of BIPOC and women architects is substantially lower than the number of students representing these groups. For example, as of June 2020, more than half of the post secondary students in architecture identified as women, but not long prior in 2017 only 22% of licensed AIA members did so. Over somewhere around 2% of NAV accredited architecture degrees were earned by black women at that time, and 0.2% of licensed architects are black women currently or recently, I believe was the number. In short, even considering competing definitions for what success might entail, professional practice education in architecture does not provide those who need it with the sufficient support or tools to achieve it. So I would like to ask the question yet adequately meet the interconnected climate racial and economic justice crises that we face as a society. What might these two devastating shortcomings one inside and the other outside the Academy have to do with one another. These most recent updates to their conditions for accreditation professional practice is defined as quote, professional ethics, the regulatory requirements, the fundamental business processes relevant to architecture practice in the United States, and the forces influencing change in these subjects, and quote, it's this last call clause, the forces influencing change in these subjects that interest us most today. For this reason I'm really excited to welcome our panelists who are all involved in important definitions or redefinitions of what constitutes sufficient education to professional practice at their respective institutions. So, since we only have an hour, I am going to refer everyone to the bios that are linked through the panelists on the platform you can link and learn more about each of the panelists. What I'll do now is just list their names and institutions in the order in which they're going to present. We have representatives from four institutions so we have for short presentations, and then followed by a discussion that I'll moderate so please add your questions again to the ask a question feature. We're going to try and defer as much as we can given the short time to to that discussion because we know so many people are involved and invested in this conversation so again really happy to have with us today we have these five panelists, we have Rebecca Barry and Robert Moore from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chris McConig from Pratt Institute, Casey Daniels from Tuskegee University, and Megan Groth from Woodbury University. So without further ado, I will turn my camera off and hand it over to Bob and Rebecca. Thanks. Everybody. Let me just get my screen up. So, again, Bob Moore with Rebecca Barry and we're from MIT architecture, where we co teach the professional practice course. We're a part of MIT's MR curriculum, where we have a cohort of about 30 students and the reason I say that is because, you know, I just want to acknowledge that all programs are different they all have different needs and different student bodies and and some of what we we present may be unique to MIT, but hopefully it's useful for discussion. I've taught this course since the class was renovated. So to speak in 2016, we had at that time just exited the NAB review process and there was a change in faculty makeup and the department and then had me Jun Yoon were interested in sort of taking that opportunity and completely renovating the class. It had been for many years of a rather boilerplate course, a very boilerplate course, you know, one that fills that, that widening gap between the academy and the profession. And that gap is the main reason why so many students have been dissatisfied with the way they're introduced to practice in the profession. So to them, students who are are have ambitions right whether it be to improve their lot in life or to make a contribution to their community or to humanity. More broadly, you know, or just to bring good works of architecture in the world, the course is always seen very foreign right and underwhelming in its relevance to the remainder of their studies. And for decades really the pro practice catch all course in many institutions has largely been one of, you know, beating students over the head with how difficult and how serious and have different. The making of architecture out in the world will be, and it's largely been about communicating a service model one that's largely corporate leaning monolithic and Eurocentric and it's disposition. The mission from the beginning was to interrogate that issue and in so doing up in the course from scratch to teach it very differently. So it's been five years now but I'll fast forward to today when Rebecca and I co teach the class together. Looking back on what we've done I tried to just summarize the approach in the form of a few lessons or principles one is lecture less and discuss more. We have a seminar format which we can do with 30 students which allows for those students to understand questions within the profession as fluid and under scrutiny constantly rather than finite. Don't deliver content but pose questions, rather than telling students how it is we asked students to describe the projects they believe the world needs to have and help them develop an understanding of what might be involved in getting them to the place in their field so that they can realize that vision show architecture practice as multi dimensional and and not monolithic architecture is a collective act right. And so the more voices the better. A big part of our class is actually outside speakers guests who come in to talk about their particular experience. And so by broadening the definition of architecture to include activism and advocacy and organizing. It certainly helps students see themselves as a part of it and see it as relevant to what their interests are, but also makes the profession itself more relevant. And finally just deal with difficult subjects head on architecture is created in a messy world with a lot of stakeholders, and it's important to acknowledge that. In 2020 that last point really became a focus of a class with the blessing of the department and the encouragement of the department we, we decided to challenge the course to view all subject matters through the lens of justice and equity. We talked about project management and fees we talked about labor and when we talk about marketing and networking we talked about barriers to entry for by Puck architects. And when we talk about the structure of the profession we unpack the hard numbers about racial ethnic and gender makeup of the profession. And Rebecca will just jump to what we some of the things we added this year. So as a part of that change we added sort of two major components into the structure of the class the first one being the seminar series titled disrupting practice which was really about featuring these outside speakers on kind of an individual firm and a larger institutional role who are really involved with the notion of interrogating practice in a completely different way and making change at each of these levels that that is required in order for us to stay relevant as a profession. And the second piece that we added was a series of self reflective exercises, where we asked students to really look inward and to take a look at their own personal values to basically say, what is it that I want to see in the world you know how I want to be what needs to be brought in, and then to literally like build on that and say okay well if this is what that what I want to see in environment where we have such political divisiveness right where we have a climate crisis where we have serious issues around justice and equity. So what is it that I will need to take this forward and to actually be able to accomplish the projects that I think need to be out there in the world. This was an appreciate an exercise that the students actually said later they really appreciated these kind of moments of self reflection. Right and what we're trying to do is help them understand how they can make a living at doing what they want to do as architects. The position of the of the class is really to make it okay to believe that one should be paid fairly for their work, because we all need to feed and close and house ourselves and our families and we should all want to be able to build a world where we can make a fair living, bringing great works of architecture into the world for for the betterment of all so that's that's what we've been up to and we look forward to the discussion. Thanks. Hey everyone this is course on a canik with Pratt Institute I'm going to be going next I am going to turn off my camera just to make sure bandwidth stays where it needs to be but I just want to say hello. So one second. Okay. So, that's a quick framework as a coordinator of practice at Pratt I teach in the graduate architecture and urban design program. We have a six semester program with a professional practice course delivered in the fourth semester. Also like Rebecca and Bob we have a small cohort of about 45 students that we see at that time. We are currently developing practice elective coursework for the fifth semester and all God students meet us in their first semester so they are very kind of familiar with practice and and who are leading those classes. We're also kind of coming off of this NAB position, we believe strongly that there is no longer one form of practice. There's no longer one kind of architecture. Yet to call ourselves an architect here in the United States we have a compulsory system to achieve licensure in order to legally call ourselves an architect. We are currently tied to these ideals protecting the health safety and welfare of the public, and we would argue that these ideals are fundamentally are fundamental to architectural education and not just in terms of a building commission. At Pratt God and professional practice and within professional practice we have been operating with the built environment creating a framework for exploration, using building research to examine the social contract and who writes the terms of that contract. We have a professional practice course around four key questions. What does the future of practice look like. What do buildings consume. How can our profession reflect society. How do you want to participate. We have a weekly micro lecture series introducing students to diverse voices in the forms of practice. At the start of each semester we do survey students to help align guest lectures with their interests. Here are a few examples of lectures and their practice. As we operate on the built environment students spend the semester researching process and conducting a series of interviews in order to understand how the world around them has been purchased, legislated, contracted plan design and constructed. And this is a result of some of that work. We continue the development through the semester and out of this approach students continue to develop their research which helps them examine contemporary issues of their interest surrounding the profession. This is an example of one students investigation topic, how the word architect is used and issued and what the impact might have on public perception. Another examined how policy is created, exploring how disparity across the city continues and how to create agencies for community. And another student studied the underpinnings of how sites are created, grounded in the meaning and this kind of switch and eminent domain that happened in 2005, where economic, where public use became about economic development, exploring land acquisition and what that impact means to the profession and the built environment. So quickly in summary at Pratt in professional practice we believe this is a fundamental question for students how do you want to participate. In setting the process of many forms of practice and wrapping the layers of what it means to acquire will help develop architects who drive the profession to a more inclusive and reflective position. Thank you. Thank you still sharing screen. Good afternoon. I'm Daniels. I'm the department head of architecture at Tuskegee University, and I'm going to follow charisma by turning off my camera as well, just to assure that you can all hear me was very little. It's rough. It's rough. Started. So I've already gone over who I am. So at Tuskegee. I don't currently teach our professional practice course, but our course is really rooted within a larger conversation around how we practice architecture at Tuskegee. So, in our course, the faster noted that the strategy that he uses is to treat the professional practice course as if the students are already architecturally. And thus, the students have a deeper appreciation of the role of architecture and the role of the work, in addition to the training they've received up to that point. Now for us, a lot of our work is really rooted in who we are and the pioneers who've come before us. You've already been noted when you, you know, the statistics of who we are as African American architects, or students of color, training to be architects in this country. Those stats are very dismal when you project them out throughout the entire country. We find it's necessary for our students to understand that they're not a part of a small minority, but a part of a large pioneering majority of African African American architects, who have been directly responsible for the transformation of students, beginning with the early founders and professors at our schools, who came to Tuskegee from other institutions, including our namesake, Robert R. Taylor, who came from MIT, and was responsible in conjunction with many other architects with building the campus. And so we use that foundation to really train our students to connect the dots between the history and the legacy that they're a part of, which began with the overall construction of the campus, and also acknowledging that this process of becoming an architect is not a new process for us. Starting a firm is also not a new process for us. Robert R. Taylor and Lewis personally were the first African American architects in the country to start a firm. And so we believe that by connecting the dots between this rich legacy that was left to us with our students, that we can help them understand how they're positioned within the profession, knowing that as they walk out they'll need to be connected with these types of tools. And so, contemporarily, one of the strategies that's been employed in COVID was a huge help with this was the ability to invite architecture firms and construction lawyers into the course to help deliver our curriculum. And so we were able to invite Moody Nolan, who recently won the 2021 AIR Firm Award, into the classroom on multiple occasions and they had firm employees that were in Baltimore, Atlanta, Ohio, all being able to participate in the course and connect the dots between what we're learning in the coursework and what the demands are within the profession. And we do all of this so that our students understand that there is a great need for them in addressing the pandemic issues that are rooted in within this country. This image here is of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and over the last two to three weeks you've been commemorating the history of the Tulsa and Brace massacre. And so we help our students realize that there's a role for you as architects in recreating the spaces that are have been divested from and marginalized through the documentation of civil rights sites. Students can begin to understand their position within this space and realize that there is a narrative that's promoted, but through architecture through the practice of architecture you can find a way to not only address those those pandemic issues, but also address those failed issues that are brought to us from a more corporate position. But we let them understand that there's not an necessity to be either or you can actually both. Thank you. Good morning. First of all, thank you very much to Jacob and the Beal Center for convening this great panel and professional practice. And I'm really looking forward to a lively discussion. All right. And so my name is Megan graph and I'll begin with a brief overview of Woodbury University School of architecture, where I teach and where I'm the newly named practice coordinator. Woodbury is comprised of two campuses, the larger main campuses in Burbank, Los Angeles, and a second campus that houses only architecture, and the real estate development program is in Barrio Logan, San Diego. Woodbury is a Hispanic serving institution, and many of our students are community college transfer students, first generation college students, and second career students, in particular at the San Diego campus where I am based. Woodbury is in the process, and as many people have talked about of updating the pro practice curriculum after a new strategic plan was formulated to focus our efforts on preparing students for surprise the future practice. This means critically interrogating where architecture is going, how the architect can reclaim territories of power and influence and have a commanding voice in addressing the most pressing issues of our time, issues of social cultural environmental justice. Institutionally, we are doing this by expanding the required professional practice courses from two to three, this is for bachelors, five year bachelors of architecture program to make space for this critical conversation, while still fulfilling all of the now accreditation requirements. The pro practice coordinator which I currently hold was created to shepherd in this restructuring and create a stronger relationship between the adjunct faculty who teach pro practice, and to standardize some of what is being taught across the two campuses. In this class we're strengthening partnerships with local architecture organization such as the EIA and LA San Fernando Valley and San Diego nonprofits such as the San Diego architecture foundation and local architecture firms because we cannot we will not and we should not be doing this on our own. In this curriculum content, we're attempting to approach each topic and professional practice from the perspective of ethics and the interrogation of value. What values beyond strictly monetary value are being prescribed to the work that architects do the decisions that are being made, and who is prescribing this value anyway. In practice, for example, when you're told to work overtime without extra pay or for free, who is profiting from that work. When you're told or choose yourself to design to code minimums. Why is that. Why does that what does that mean for the owner developer client. What does it mean for the inhabitants. What does it mean for potential future uses of the building. We aim to prepare our students to question the brief and interrogate the boundaries. Every decision that architects make in their work has an ethical dimension and by framing the content of our pro practice courses through this lens. We hope that students will take this perspective with them into the workplace and challenge how architecture is practice. Through the assignments and class discussions we aim to identify the systems of power within which we work and the range of injustices that we as architects are complicit in. Can we find a way for the architect to say no, can we do something differently. And if so, when and how does that need to happen. The system of capitalism until under which we as architects work and under which we struggle wants to be invisible. It thrives when it is unseen. Our fundamental goal in our pro practice curriculum is to expose it. To expose the struggles are being waged against it and give our students the tools to actively engage in those struggles every day, whether they're interns at a multinational firm, or they work for themselves. Briefly the challenges. In general, most of our challenges right now involve reconciling the conflicting values and expectations placed on pro practice courses by Nab, Woodbury, the students and the profession at large. And all of the Nab requirements placed on the pro practice courses while also pursuing this more critical approach to practice. How do we respond to the extremely low ARE pass rates by our students and graduates, many of whom identify as members of underrepresented communities within the profession. Should we be teaching to the test. How do we make sure that they all have CVs cover letters and portfolios and the compensation negotiating skills to quickly secure a good job after graduation to start paying off their massive student debt. Instead be focusing more on teaching industry prerequisites such as Revit to get that job to start their career. And as always at the heart of any discussion about architecture education inclusion is the very high cost of education, low starting wages and generally very low return on investment of architecture education. So what are we supposed to do there. And on that summer note, I'm really looking forward to all the questions and the discussion. Thank you very much. Great, thanks. See if everybody can come back on the video. And I see one question come in we'll give maybe a couple minutes to have a couple more questions filter in just in case. And I'll take the opportunity to ask, ask one myself building on sort of where Megan ended with those very difficult challenges that I think are at the heart of certainly how we're thinking about this and I, I found myself thinking about during questies presentation about the sort of broader view it's a ski ski. I'm wondering about basically for dealing with attention, you know between what architecture is and what architecture can or should be. I've been thinking about professional practice as a, as a crucible for that kind of tension. You're all you know you different versions of bringing in outsiders to teach to me speaks very directly to some of the things Megan was just talking about and also like that 11% number I shared at the beginning that people, you know, firm leaders are generally on consider the professional practice education that their, you know, entry level architects received to be insufficient. So obviously there's some kind of an obligation to address that. But like you said is teaching to the test the answer if we're trying to change those expectations and what the field does so I was thinking about some of those challenges challenges when we're talking about basically for talking about where architecture is and where it should go. I'm struck by the, where architecture has been the historical layer as being somehow key which seems, it might run across the difference with the way professional practice has been kind of, you know, various small and a b requirements get grouped together in these courses and kind of like shoved off to the side of the curricula, and become become a checkbox types of courses. And it's, it's nice to think about how that might be disentangled and spread back across curricula but I'm wondering sort of. You know how you all think about that question of integration. And you know what gets packed in these specific courses and how these courses do or might do relate or and might differently relate sort of the curricula more generally considering these inside outside pressure so I know that's like that's that's a lot but just the history specifically for example is something that isn't it's required by an a b in a certain way, but not typically as part of professional practice education. So what of those two things coming together you know what might we learn specifically from that, but also about other possible integrations, or maybe there are disadvantages to that way of thinking as well so thoughts. And so I think that part of it is helping students understand how you can, at the end of the day you got to figure out how you can go living, right. So understanding how what the pathway looks like to explore different components of architecture, particularly ones that have a social then to them. And that's when we think about the idea of professional practice it doesn't say that professional practice and you're going to go into a large corporate architecture firm. It's saying, I am going to instill within you the architectural process of being an architect and help you understand whatever it is that you're being valuable from a social standpoint. You know if you feel there's a social responsibility that you have for this work, then let's help you pack that unpack that, and then add the tools for that you can go forth and doing that work. I believe a lot of that also is rooted in the instructor, understanding the, you know, the constellation of opportunities as an architect to engage in this work. I mean, my question is, what do you want to participate in? Maybe if you turn your camera off, you can still speak. Yeah, that's better. Not really, I can try again. Maybe you can put some things in the platform chat. Sorry about that. You had another reason to miss gathering together which hopefully we will be doing again soon. Yeah, anybody else on that? Sorry about that. I want to jump in on related but also tying back to a point that Megan just brought up. So, as someone who is relatively new to teaching but leads a firm of 30 people, this question of what do new graduates need to come out having in terms of the skills that you check on the CV versus graduates who understand and think deeply about the big issues is a huge question, right? Because these are two very different asks that we're making of our students. I mean, there are different asks obviously that we make of ourselves as architects, right? Because we do have to have certain skills to practice our craft. But we often can find ourselves in a bit of, I'll call it a pickle when we are trying to find new people, right? Young grads with sometimes what can be a disconnect between the skills and the ways of thinking that they may have acquired in school and our desire to bring people in who think big, right? Who have this kind of broad perspective and are interested in addressing big social, environmental, etc. issues. And the mere fact that the making a living as a firm, you know, bringing in the work, getting it done, executing it well to get repeat clients depends on us being able to do that. So, you know, how much time, effort, etc. can be put in for someone who say does not know rabbit, you know, can't walk into the office, he dropped into a team and just kind of start to go from there. But and so that I think is a continuing pressing issue for the, for all of us to just to think about, you know, how can we try to bridge that gap? Maybe I'll a refinement perhaps of the question I was trying to ask comes in sort of in response to the way you were just framing it Rebecca but from Kendall Nicholson. So he says from an educational perspective I appreciate the opportunities for student autonomy. I want to talk more about how that student directed approach complements or contradicts accountability, especially as it relates to social justice so sort of like what's the flip side to what you were just saying Rebecca but in the classroom. You know, letting students drive some of this in a more, let's say critical inquiry approach, but there are also sort of certain. Some would hope clear directive things that students are needing to learn, not just vis a vis rabbit, but also sort of about social justice and some of the other topics you're talking about so maybe, like what are some of the curricular challenges or maybe just relative to your particular courses on the syllabus how you're thinking about those pushes and polls in terms of student directed initiatives versus other more top down projects. I'll respond to that maybe first. Thanks Kendall for the question it's a really great one. I maybe like in our curriculum or our course. We five years ago needed to renovate the course for all the reasons we've talked about here, but also because the students were just like every year, more and more complaints coming in about this being an irrelevant class. They're the ones who are bringing these questions, important questions about equity and the environment to us and partly it's because the department is directing them in that way, like we have a department where they're kind of being. So would they come to us at the end of the curriculum is being kind of predisposed or already oriented to understanding architecture as a social mission. And so they get to the professional practice class and are yearning to kind of find out how that transitions to the next step. So when we this year added this individual reflexive sort of assignment. A surprise to us at how much that was really relevant to them as students because we had had been intentionally making the class about group work, because architecture is a collective act and like we're always working with other architects and other stakeholders into like, but we had this individual assignment, knowing that there was risks of like, you know, slipping into this sort of studio mentality that they often have a lot of institutions where it's all about the individuals work right and not about the social good. And so we were but we were surprised that students who are already kind of geared up for understanding architecture is needing to meet these, these needs. And they're ready to really talk about how they can trend transfer that energy to practice. So it's a risk. I see in his question but like I think if you're preparing them along the way before they get to you it's, it's, it can be a very, very powerful question to pose to them. You can hear me now. It's a little better. All right, I moved. I just, I did just want to add that, you know, working with a chair who really kind of wants to also pull this through the curriculum, I think is also really important having someone to kind of partner with you so that, you know, pro practice as it has historically been because of catch on moment we've been talking about. So that I think is also really critical. We also have kind of over the last, you know, we've been doing this will be 16 years this fall have gone back and forth between a group work dynamic and then an individual work dynamic for the pro practice curriculum. And we find that in moving down to the fourth semester and then also coming off of their fourth semester when it used to be placed in the fifth semester students are coming off of their group work or coming out of their integrated group work and they want to kind of think deeply and check themselves about where they want to participate in the practice and participate within the profession. So that kind of individual moment for them to kind of develop and be able to come back to the group and be able to come back into the profession is actually really critical time for them. And we're able to do that again I think because our numbers are kind of a bit smaller in the cohort development between kind of the graduate master's program versus some of the numbers in cohort development that we have in the undergraduate side. So I'd like to present talk a little bit about a one of the projects that we have in this new pro practice course we've created pro crack three which is in for the last semester in the BRC program and you know I've talked about this before at the ACSA development prize but what we have the students do is prepare a business plan that looks at you know first we teach this is how the business of architecture generally works, you know for management structure. This is where money comes in thinking about you about work and marketing and how you're going to kind of formulate this whole business plan. But then the meat of the business plan is actually, okay, take one social justice issue that you care about, and take one environmental justice issue and tie it back to me. So that means that you have to think more holistically outside of architecture about what people are doing about these issues because within architecture we're super behind on addressing so many of these things and they're things that are being addressed across businesses and platforms and in all kind of walks of life right now. And then formulate reformulate your business plan into okay if you care about gender equality, which you know many of my students did and do. How are you going to write that into what you do on your day to day operations, how are you going to write that into promotion, how are you going to write that into organizational structure and marketing. If you care about reducing, you know the use of concrete in your work, how are you going to then write that back into your business plan so that, you know we get out of this cycle of just saying you know we're architects we don't have agency therefore we can't do x, y and z that we care about. And I find I mean as all of you do so many of my students come into the class saying oh my gosh I want to change the world I'm so excited to use architecture to do all these great things and built environment. And you know if we don't kind of give them the tools to analyze what they're being asked to do in practice or what they are doing in practice against those goals. You know so many people drop out of the field, because they find they can't do what they want or need to do for themselves. This goes back to ideas of value. What value do you have are you being taught in school and what values are being expected of you are placed upon you within practice and they are not the same values. And I think the more that we can prepare students for that transition I think the more that they will survive that transition and thrive and change the profession. And that's what Megan just stated. I think that's, I mean that that's key. Right. You know, first we, we have to provide the students with the skills. So, for instance, with our professional practice course, the students have to come up with your own design philosophy. They have to come up with their marketing strategy and how they're going to be able to do the business of architecture they have to do support a brochure. And this is who we are as a firm. But that is like, that's the goal of the teacher to say I have these skills for you, I have these products that you as the student don't know about in order to do the work. But the students should be, you know, in that question it was this, you know, there was a question that stated, what is the role in how do you bridge that relationship between the student directed and this kind of top down approach. And that's it. Like, the students should know what they're seeking to do, and they're coming to us as the teacher for the guidance to do what they're trying to do. Otherwise, we're wasting their time, and their money, right. If after four or five years, the student is does not have the acumen to be able to say these are the issues that are important to us, and we've kind of failed them. One of the things that we tell our incoming students and continue that conversation into our fifth year is what is something that's been an issue for you coming as you've grown up. We're not here to teach you all all about life, we're here to teach you the skills of architecture, but for you to bring the challenges that you've seen as you've grown and walked around. We'll go to the table, and we'll show you how to use these tools the tools of architecture to address that. And we've been successful, and are in the court that's coming into our fifth year where they take the professional practice class will be the first one will be assessing how the change in our curriculum shapes the kinds of thinking that they have about architecture firms they're engaged that they're seeking to develop. But I think the other component is the internship. You know, within the professional practice like, you know, who are you bring into the classroom, and then what types of internships that students engaged in. I've connected them with interns with firms that are doing social justice related work or environmental related work that's tied into architecture, or construction companies that have a really strong push towards sustainability, or are you sending them into very general places of architecture, for the bottom line is, you know, to get the work and whether it's all profit, or it's just to stay alive. You know, are you putting them in a place that they can see someone looks like them, doing the work that they want to do that lets them know that their idea is not far fetched it's actually very doable. Great yeah I, another question has come in and the q amp a that everyone I hope can see all of these so I'm just going to read the question that said at the end of the comment, which is from Julian bonder. And he says how can these practice courses help instill the desire to reestablish and recover grounds for architectural action in the public sphere which I think is a relates obviously to what we were what what Megan and basically we're just talking about. I'm just wondering if that if it, if it draws our attention to like, is there attention he's talking about instilling desire in students so is there attention between, you know responding to a sort of plan of action that the students have coming speaking of student autonomy coming to the courses with. You know on gender equity specifically helped me figure out a way to do it versus, for example, steering steering students who might for reasons we all are all too familiar with to have a have a more narrow understanding of what architecture is based on the way it's advertised out in the world, ie some kind of a you know individually driven sort of star system kind of practice doing cool projects that make the magazines toward a kind of practice that say more publicly oriented but like literally working in a city planning office, for example, what's the role of, I think we all, you know, I understand and I think we all would understand the general like, you know, role of a kind of liberal or humanities education in affecting those kinds of projects for undergraduates. But what is the role of something like professional practice education and graduate education. How does that plug in there or does it or is it entirely responsive to to sort of student desires that are that are baked in at that point. So I don't know I hope that's not a butchering of your question Julian but that's what it was making me think of. I just say for, you know, outside of teaching right now my number one activity is trying to get our planning department in San Diego to actually have a design review process and design guidelines because we have nothing actually. So in terms of students graduating, you know, I found this last semester in particular. One of my students were thinking about traditional practice, actually, you know, and this was by their last semester they all were already know I'm going to do a hybrid with this or I'm going to do. I know I think they'll take a social media class and they're really excited about like out the boundaries of architecture everyone to talk about the boundaries of architecture. And then the other thing I kind of found myself saying, okay, that's fine but you've got a six figure debt, and you want to be licensed right and then you know, half of them said no that's waste of time, you know so we talked about that. And then, you know, and then basically, you know the reality is is, it's not bad to go into a traditional practice for a few years, get some money, get some hours and then and then decide what you want to do. So I was more of the traditional kind of towing the line of, you know, try out traditional practice see if you like it before you become a social media star. And so I found that just, you know, my experience and maybe it's different for everyone else but I found just my students were eager to test the boundaries. They wanted to those are the firms that they looked up to you right now. So in terms of public work, yes they love the idea of I want to design a park, oh I want to do this kind of public outward facing work. But I know that in the reality of the context in which we work and live right now in our city, that doesn't exist. And so, actually this goes back into advocacy and talking to the students a lot about modes of advocacy how to get involved in the fact that, you know it doesn't exist here but it does exist in London but only after the certain group started working on it, you know, I mean, kind of also telling them where the mark, you know, kind of informing and working together to see like what are you interested in, where are those margins those boundaries and how can you, then, if you want to do that work and we need that work to be done. Where can you use your skills as an architect because you have five years of experience don't sneeze on that like I'd say worth something. I wouldn't tell you it's not because you don't know rabbit. You know, where are the boundaries and where can they work through that process. Oh, sorry, I'll go quick because I know I can hear me. We, you know, in our micro micro series where we bring guests in. We have folks who have taken many different pathways. We've really honest conversations with students about what does this look like for you. What did it look like five years ago, 10 years ago, what does it look like today, because they need they want to know how did you do that. And I think there are kind of two scales and practice that we don't openly talk pretty much about one is the process of development of yourself. I'm kind of in and around this this moment. And then we also talk about the process of what it means to kind of work within the built environment enough like the stories of firms are closed. How they work how they procure work what that starts to look like and there's this kind of inherent tension where we don't necessarily share those moments so we try to bring folks in and have really honest conversations, and then also then expose the process, what was successful what worked and I know success is one of these odd words we need to be careful of. But again, it's kind of about understanding what their passion is and understanding how they want to participate because that's what we're here to do is to help them find that voice in that moment, so they can go out into the world and make it better. Yeah, so that. Super super fast to pen to that real quick. I think the other trick to explain to students and I think this is one of the things we tried to do with bringing in speakers who work in different ways is that practice does not exist only within the office to your point. It's like, it's what you do in your everyday life. It's you as a citizen, you as a person, you know and how you take everything that you're doing in your practice out into into other parts of the world. Yeah, and also I think we have to realize that that conversation has to happen. You know the professional practice class, whether it's happening in the fourth year of the fifth year. It's that it's towards the end of their career. So if you're not having this conversation very early, where do you want to go, how do you want to get there. Then, yes that student is going to go with that very traditional, quote unquote, traditional marketing route. So that you have to have that conversation early, and then also to, to Megan's point. That is real. Right, paying your bills is real. If we can't demonstrate to them what firms or what company or what place they go, that's going to help them get there. Then that conversation is going to end within the classroom. I'm still paying up my student loans. Yeah, I mean, I think what we have to be able to say in that professional practice course is, if that's where we want to, you know, kind of put the exclamation mark on how you can get through doing your your passion. So, you know, maybe here's here's some places that you can work that may have some loan forgiveness maybe there's a conversation about, let's, let's kind of project out your life. Here are some companies that you can work with that will help you get license will help you meet your social desires, and we'll also keep a roof over your head, and we'll help you also navigate. The challenges that you may encounter with your peers who may come out making more money than you, or in five or 10 years. You know, what does it look like in five or 10 years. After you pursued your passion, are you still excited about the fact you went that route, or are you disenfranchised because you realize that you, you know, if money is your only goal, you could have made more money going another way. But I think within that within that course, we are within the program itself we have to open up the space to have these very real dialogue and provide the guidance to the students to map out their course of action, such that they can, you know, they can have, you know, the proverbial have the cake you need it to. Absolutely, and I think what we're working on right now is working with local firms, you know, to, so that we're not doing everything in the classroom, you know, and you know part of it of course is bringing in speakers that are doing certain things but also just finding all ways to reach out and have them come in and us go to them. I think that just helps our students because it exposes them to as many different types of practice as possible but it also exposes the firms the local firms who are hiring to you know this is this is what we are teaching this is the education we are providing. And so when your HR director says well you don't have Revit therefore we are putting your CV or into the bin. You know it's like no you don't have Revit but you learned Rhino in two months you know like you know we have skills and we have, you know, our students are coming out of this you know, ready to work active, you know, engaged with the profession in a very deep way that maybe these technical skills can be brought up to speed you know and we are working with technical skills of course I'm not saying that we are but it's just I think that right now we're and I don't know you know back to Jacob your comment about the history of pro practice is that this whole firms training interns. If we're getting a lot of pressure from firms to not want to put the time, energy and money into training anymore. So they want our people to graduate ready to work like jump into a project and do CDs tomorrow and that's just not how it works, and it's not currently how it works. And so, you know, by bringing in more firms into our sphere and having our sphere go out into the practice a bit more. I'm hoping that we can create more dialogue about that and just say that, you know, there is some investment that firms have to do for new hires like sorry. And the fact that that is not being expected or desired or kind of. Yeah, is not being taken up by firms anymore is just not working for us as well. I'll go ahead. Yeah, just quick to that point. I don't think it's neither or proposition though. I mean those, and this is something that we find in a number of our courses as we do outreach oriented work. You know, as our students are having to produce renderings using the high end technical software they having to produce construction documents. And use Revit so they're not we're not saying, you know, we're looking at these tools as new tools that will help you get the work done. While also meeting the goals that you have so I think there's a lot of this is rooted in the faculty, how how aligned are the faculty with this kind of work how line is their research or their practice with doing socially engaged or environmentally engaged work. And then the firm that you tie them to how engaged are they, and then having building those relationships that's one of the things that's been a real plus for us is the relationship building with firms. So that when the student goes, you know, at least the firms that we're guiding you towards, they actually have them, they see the value and what you're bringing to the table. Because if you bring, you know, if you're a socially conscious student was going to a firm that only wants to build jails I mean, you know, clearly, you're not going to be talking the same language. And the truth, and the both of you aren't going to have. But if you are a, you know, socially engaged student goes to work for a firm that, you know, the last hundred projects they've done have all been lead accredited and have gone or net zero and they pushed the boundaries. Then yes, there's going to be a real conversation and chances are they're also going to be looking for that technical as well. I think that ACSA is running a pretty tight ship here so I'm going to go just bring it to a close pretty abruptly but really, really appreciate all the contributions. And like I said before, know that many other people and institutions are working on this really actively so I think that's really encouraging. I think we can all find ways to, you know, keep the cross institutional conversation going and also the inside outside conversation between profession and or an academy. Keep that keep that live because I think obviously all science benefits so thank you very much to everybody. I'm glad this is going to be recorded and online so hopefully more people can see it and we can keep this going. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks everybody.