 Before welcoming our wonderful guest speakers this evening, I would like us to take a moment and acknowledge as we have for over the past 18 months that while we are dispersed virtually today, we gather in the Lenapeh hooking the unceded ancestral homeland of the Lenapeh peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Lenapeh community, their traditional territory, elders, ancestors and future generations and acknowledging our role as an institution, a city and a nation in the exclusions and erasures of many indigenous peoples and their histories. Tonight I'm so pleased again to welcome alumni Jason Pugh and Pascal Saint-Blanc back to the school, their powerful leaders who are continuing the legacy of the critically important mentoring work of NOMA founders, including Jay Johnson who graduated in 1958. Jason Pugh is a 2021-22 president of the National Organization of Minority Architects. Jason is both a licensed architect and a certified planner, a senior associate architect and urban designer at the Answers Chicago office. He's working across scales, programs and typologies in the US but also internationally. Across his projects, Jason applies his design thinking to constantly explore new methodologies towards creating stronger designs and solutions at multiple scales. His favorite projects directly engage with the extended community and end users as he oscillates between the macro and the microscales to progress projects from preliminary master planning concept through full construction documentation and construction administration. Jason also has a passion for developing underserved communities and is actively engaged in several community-based programs and organizations on both a local and national level which are centered on education, mentorship, diversity and community service. It is this intense focus on supporting, on mentoring and expanding access to licensure and the profession to increase representation of minority architects and minority-owned architecture firms that he is bringing to his new role as the national president of NOMA. This is, as we all know and as I hope all our students know, a nonprofit organization with a focus on the recruitment, retention and advancement of minority architects and students within the field and which we will learn more about this evening. Vezquette Sabran is an associate at Adger Associates where she works on the practices extensive projects across all scales and types around the world. As the 315th living African-American female architect in the U.S., Vezquette's leadership role in the field cannot be understated. From her extensive lecturing and speaking engagements across cultural and educational institutions as well as professional organizations to her founding of Beyond the Built Environment which uniquely addresses the inequitable disparities in architecture by providing a holistic platform aimed to support numerous stages of the architecture pipeline. Vezquette's work is effective, important and necessary. Beyond the Built Environment elevates the identities and contributions of women and BIPOC designers through exhibitions, curated lectures and documentaries that testify to the provided value of their built work and its spatial impact. Amongst them, the 24 state loud exhibitions which were all paired with relevant programming speaking to the mission. She has been recognized for her contributions to the industry with several awards including the 2021 AIA Whitney Young Junior Award for her advocacy efforts and she has ascended to the AIA College of Fellows, the youngest African American to receive that honor. And in 2020 Pascal was voted president-elect of NOMA and is the fifth woman to hold this position of leadership in the organization's 50 year legacy. Pascal holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and a Master of Science in Advanced Architecture Design from our school. Tonight's response, as I said, this is a unique event and amazing conversation. Tonight's response and conversation will be given by Kimberly Dowdall who plays a leadership role in HOK's Chicago studio on strategic business development and marketing initiatives as well as acting as a mentor to HOK's emerging leaders. In 2021 Kimberly joined the board of directors of the Architects Foundation, the philanthropic partner of the American Institute of Architects. She also joined the board of the Chicago Area Central Committee which works to shape the city's growth, equity and quality of place. She has been a board member of Ingenuity Chicago which increases arts education, access, equity and quality since 2019. Kimberly is the immediate past president of NOMA and a 2020 AIA Young Architects Award recipient. She was recognized for her activism efforts by architectures record 2020 Women in Architecture Awards. Kimberly is a member of the Urban Land Institute. She initiated the concept behind social economic environmental design and organization that she co-founded in 2005 and was a 40 under 40 honoree in both Crain's Chicago business and Crain's Detroit business. In 2019, Kimberly delivered the 19th annual Dunlop Lecture at the Harvard GSD. In many ways with this lecture I'm very excited, we are excited to broaden and deepen GSAP's relationship with NOMA. I want to thank Jason and Pascal as well as Kimberly for their focus on developing the next generation of world-changing designers. Please help me in welcoming them. So we diving right into it? I wasn't sure. You dive right into it. Okay, sounds good. Well, I'll start off super excited to be here. It's funny kind of going into this. This was something that myself and Pascal talked about. We were really excited and wanted to do, we wanted to find a way to come back to our alma mater, to come back to Columbia and kind of do a co-presentational lecture. So really, really excited to be here. And it's even awesome, more awesome to have Kim actually moderate and serve us for this lecture and for this important conversation. But again, really happy to be here. One of the things that we'll do very quickly, myself and Pascal, is we'll quickly share some of our work as both advocates and also as architects and planners. And then we'll also talk about our position and leadership within NOMA. So we figured we would actually kick it off by first sharing some of our former immediate past projects and I will kick us off. So again, the theme for the presentation is past, present and future, a focus on NOMA's leadership. One of the things we wanted to do was find an opportunity to give you kind of a quick snapshot of our work as both advocates and architects from the past, from the present and the future. So this slide is actually one of my spring semester design studio presentation slides from Columbia during my time as part of the Master of Science in Urban Design Studio. And so the project actually was in Asia. It was in Seoul, Korea and had a chance and opportunity to travel to Asia for the first time, traveling with classmates. And we went through both Tokyo and Seoul and then spent about three weeks in Seoul, really doing a lot of site analysis on a very, very important and transformative site which was near the Dongdaemun Stadium, near the Chonga Chong River. And so I won't go into too much detail but in short, one of the things that we did was we created this palimpsest map, pulling together archive data that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years starting to layer this information on top of each other. And what we started to realize was there was an actual a wall, the old boundary barrier wall to the city which was in between two of the gates. And so as we started to play with that, we came up with the concept of how you can engage with this wall along different routes, along different paths and this wall would kind of meander through our site. And so there will be these moments and these opportunities where the wall would be something very intimidating and large and big whether it would serve double duty as a retaining wall and also as a boundary of physical barrier. But then other moments where the wall would transform and it would change and be something as small as something you would kind of step over or almost trip over that was just barely raised off of the ground level surface. And so really, really cool project. Like I said, one of the first times I had an opportunity to really to travel through Asia and then also start to learn about the importance of just responding to urban contexts instead of going through with what is the Westernized Tabla-Raza approach to design. Something that has definitely I think served me well as a design professional. What a lot of the work that I do now and underserved in marginalized communities here in Chicago and throughout the US. So some fun, quick photos. From the advocacy piece, with regards to my past, I would say as a professional, I've always been focused on developing mentorship at the next generation of architects. This has been, I would say, supported and facilitated through both NOMA, working and expanding their project pipeline architectural summer camps, both in Chicago and across the country. And also through the ACE mentorship program, which is they have chapters as another nonprofit organization that's focused on introducing high school students to career opportunities in architecture, construction and engineering. And through that, I've been a co-instructor during the summer, working with students and actually for a design build workshop and program where we would work with a nonprofit organization in different parts of the city on both the south and west side of Chicago. And we actually, it was an eight week program working with students and we would give them an opportunity to not only design, but actually build their project and their urban installation. So amazing experience. I really owe a lot, I would say to my own experience and also to I think my drive and passion to both NOMA and ACE within this regards. In terms of my work currently within the present, I serve as both an architect and urban designer, a senior associate at Ginzler here in their Chicago office. I do, I oscillate between scales as mentioned in the brief intro and bio, working on a lot of large community based master plans on the south and west side of Chicago. And then there are even opportunities where I get to do some of the first phase architecture. I would say that the majority of my projects are usually some type of community master planning base that's in an underserved marginalized or distressed community and neighborhood as along with affordable housing, mixed use residential projects, TOD projects and residential high rises. These are three very, very different projects that I've worked on here in Chicago to the left as a community master plan for a former Chicago housing authority, public housing development that's just south of downtown Chicago. Harold Ickes in the middle is one of the first residential high rises. It was a luxury residential high rise project that I worked on designing all of the residential units. This is in the suburbs of Chicago in Oak Park called Lake and Forest now called Vantage Oak Park. And then to the right is an interesting project. It's a mixed use supportive housing, mixed income project that was actually part of a TOD and it was actually spawned from a larger community master planning project where we did a full assessment of the Woodlawn neighborhood community and through there really zeroed in on a couple of potential sites where there were opportunities to build catalyst developments. So this was a little bit of some of the current work that I've touched and worked on today. In terms of my advocacy work currently at the moment serving as the national president of NOMA, there's it's really twofold both with them at nine to five, working at Gensler and then of course serving as a national president of NOMA. Right now is this pivotal moment. Obviously EDI was already sweeping through the industry well before 2020, but I will say that George Floyd last year really gave this initiative and I think this focused a booster shot in a lot of different ways and really started to amplify I think just more of the, the focused energy and conversations around how we really diversify the profession and work towards just a more inclusive industry. And so through that, there's been a lot of growth. One of the things that we just hit was a milestone at the beginning of the year where NOMA reached over 2,500 members. In fact, we're actually zeroing in we're approaching 3,000 members now at the moment. So again, another milestone marker, but it's just really a sign of the times in how important organizations like NOMA are at this critical juncture to lead and facilitate some of these really difficult conversations. And then within my role and responsibilities at Gensler, in addition to serving as an architect and project architect and urban designer, I'm also helping to lead the firm's five strategies to fight against racism. And there are five specific strategies and I'm leading strategy four, which is focused on creating more opportunities for black architects across the industry and profession. And so this kind of goes hand in hand with a lot of the relationships that I've been building as a national president of NOMA. The last thing that I want to touch on and this is just my own presidential platform from the next two years. I have a focus to educate, elevate and empower our membership base for NOMA across the industry. In terms of some future work, these are two projects that are currently currently on the drafting board and really waiting for the next steps to move this forward. The first one is Cabrini Green Redevelopment Master Plan. You see the master plan to the left and some quick 3D renderings in a streetscape section down the center. This is a project that I've been working on for a little bit. We actually submitted the PD with the city of Chicago. Very excited to work on this. As I mentioned before, I've worked on several community master planning projects with CHA, Chicago Housing Authority, and Cabrini Green is by far one of the most notorious public housing developments in the country. And so to work on the next phase of that development, which consists of approximately just shy of 500 units, a residential tower that you see in the middle, some mid-rise developments down a major arterial street and then wrapped with public space and then also low-rise development town homes and three flats on the backside of development. And then to the far right, you see another project that I'm currently working on, which is a mixed-use project that's a ground-level grocery store with the Children's Museum above. And so this is taking place in North London, which is again, another distressed and underserved community on the west side of Chicago working for a private developer and a couple of local community stakeholders. So again, two very, very different projects, but again, focused in the type of communities that I really love working and engaging in. And then last but not least, when we talk about just the future for my advocacy, my passions and work, it's really still, again, tied to, I think this really pivotable watershed moment where we're focused on ways that we can transcend and build and really diversify the profession. I think that the advocacy and the awareness that we have in this moment, there's an opportunity for us to really move the needle in an impactful way. And so I'm hoping that through very strategic partnerships, we'll be able to do that. Again, focused on what does NOMA look like in the next 10, 20, 50 years, right now when the Prout were in this very special moment where we are celebrating the last 50 years, the 50th anniversary of the organization being founded in 1971. And so as we look both back and reflect and then look forward to the next 50 years, it's important that we find ways to not only engage, support, and I think bolster our future leadership, but also the next generation of architects as well. And so we will do this through expanded initiatives like Project Pipeline. And then of course, my successor, Pascal Sablant, who you see pictured in the image in Dead Center, again, working with her media past president, Kimberly Dowdell, to really expand and build upon the amazing legacy and work that has been done today. Thank you, Jason. That was incredible. And sorry, my camera reset, so I'm me zooming in. But that was great to see and I appreciate the shout out in the picture. And as a fun fact for those in the audience, Jason and I actually first met in 2014 when we attended the NOMA conference in Philly and was asked to stand or come up to the deity if we had just become licensed. And Jason and I were the only two that year I believe who got licensed. And I met my architect brother on stage and I've been bothering him ever since and it's been great. And then to find out that we both went to Columbia one year apart, it's like just missed him. So I think we're destined to always kind of be together. And I think it's great that I would also kind of follow his footsteps here when it comes to NOMA organization as he follows Kimberly. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen. So forgive the transition for a second and share. Let's see, move this over so I can see. So for me, I've also oscillated between the identity of an advocate and architect. And so I start my story in the past in terms of my architectural kind of journey. I always knew I wanted to be an architect. That was the answer when someone asked me growing up and I often tell the story about my first slash second week of school at Pratt. Professor asked me and another student to stand and said these two will never become architects because they're black and because they're women. And that was a shocking moment for me that a professor would make such a strong proclamation without even knowing my name. It also wasn't lost on me that in a room, a classroom of 60 plus students, there was only two of us who complied with that, those two criteria. And also the silence of my peers. And that was the moment when I realized that I would always be representing more than just Pascal. When I walk into a space, I'm representing my gender, my race, my ethnicity, and I had to show up and show out. I didn't want my presence or my actions be a deterrent for the next to come following me. And then when I got to Columbia, you are looking at the one and only black person in the entire School of Architecture program, GSAP, the AAD program and the MRC at the time. And so this idea and this kind of understanding and the weight of what it means to be in these places and these spaces and as well as the luxury of being in them, right? So being able to study architecture is a luxury and a privilege. And what does that mean? And so I too, similar to Jason was inspired by really giving back and joining ACE mentoring and allowing a lot of my identity to come through. So in 2010, there was a horrific earthquake in Haiti that decimated the country and ravaged and killed a lot of people, including a lot of members of my family. And being an architect, I was tapped by an organization to design a new campus that would be for elementary and high school students. And I was able to leverage me being an ACE mentor kind of work with the kids and design a school. And so it was pretty dope that as our ACE mentoring project, team 22, we were actually working on a real project that got presented to clients. They had the budget for real renderings and all that fun stuff. So that was part of like the joy there. And that's us hugging and celebrating after our presentation at the top middle. And then I wanted to make it full circle. So this was a space and a place that was told that I was not good enough. So when I became president of the New York chapter of NOMA, we were able to host a young designers conference at Pratt and actually invite high school and college kids to come in, participate in seminars and conversations, lectures, panel discussions, as well as a design competition. And the importance of that moment is that I wanted to teach college students that you are already in a position to mentor, right? Where you are, your space, what you've learned already allows you to reach behind you and pull the next generation forward. I'm pretty sure those high school students had way more meaningful conversations with the college kids that were there rather than me who graduated like a billion years ago. So it was a really powerful moment, but I really definitely want to say me as an advocate started when I started architecture school and studying. And thanks to Jason for encouraging me to go into my hard drives and pull out my Columbia projects. As you know, I was only there for three semesters. So there wasn't a lot of projects, but one of the few that was really powerful for me was the traveling project was in Dubai. So I got to go to Dubai. So our project with a professor, Frederick Lorette was a designer skyscraper and my concept was static movement and how you capture movement in a built form. We also, this is also the school where I really learned how to render and model. And so that's the ultra real class, I think. That's what they used to call it. And we had to kind of create this anamorphic experience. So I had this cathedral start to transform into a spider at night. So that was pretty dope. And then for the first time ever, I had a black professor. Shout out to Professor Yolanda Daniels. She had the most incredible studio and she basically said, what if architecture was a reality show? And every week we had a different challenge. Every week it was a different medium. Every week I had a different jury, but the most incredible part of that process is that this is the school of Columbia is really where I learned how to be an advocate. Really not to be able to trust in the confidence of my talents and my skillset, but really defining a concept and then having enough power to see if it has the weight to last and then also say, is this project what's right for this community? And so at the end of that semester, we had multiple projects that we were able to publish in the books and we had this one big publication that kind of captures it. So these are some of the pages from my projects. So it was a really amazing time, powerful time for me to understand and to be able to see what architecture could be when I started to engage technology a bit more and also to see what it could be if I challenged myself in terms of pace and rhythm and also to challenge myself in the ways that I communicate. Sometimes the projects were presented as a typical pinup. Sometimes it was an animation that had to play by itself. Sometimes it was like a competition board where you weren't allowed to say anything and the jurors had to go around and kind of give their assessment of what they thought you said. So I thought the strategy of really showcasing various ways of communication was really powerful and something that I still leverage and utilize in practice today. In terms of present, I am the founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment. We host a series of different programs and initiatives. One of our most famous is the state loud exhibitions where we elevate the women and diverse designers of communities. And so if it's a state loud New York, we're elevating New Yorkers. If it's a loud Illinois, we're elevating people in Illinois. And it's not just a matter of kind of a series of headshots but really you're able to see their face, hear their voices and feel their impact through their work. And as previously mentioned, we've hosted over 24 exhibitions so far and have gathered so much information that I need to find a safe space to hold it all. So I also launched the Great Diverse Designers Library where everyone who's ever been featured in a state loud exhibition is in this library and it's organized by location as well as by alphabetical order of last name. And as of this moment, we have 665 featured exhibitors from all over the world which is pretty powerful. And then we're also leveraging this incredible content to do other kind of auxiliary programming and initiatives. So we're also working on a children's pop-up book called Learn Out Loud where we're taking the best of the best of each state and creating caricatures of each of the architects and 3D pop-ups of their projects with the affirmation words I can too. So as little kids look about these projects and see these structures in 3D, they will practice the words I too can be an architect I can too be an urban planner and change the world. And that self-affirmation process is important so that when their teacher tells them to stand and tells them that they're not good enough, they're already grounded in the understanding of how stupid that is. We're also kind of developing an augmented reality app in camp where what we do is again, leveraging the content of the library to identify projects in your vicinity and proximity that are designed by women and BIPOC designers. You tap it, you'll tell you who the architect is, headshots and names and then you're able to create art, capture it on your device and see it on the building at one to one scale. I'm excited about creating this authority for everyone to feel that they can imagine and design their space. And that program is really geared towards preteens and teens and also presently it's part of like this idea of how do I leverage this one mission and all this resources that's developed from it and making it part of the process moving forward. My presence, I currently work with Sir David Ajay OVE and work on some incredible projects from all over the world but I wanted to give you a snapshot of some of the products that I've done in the past. One is Bronx Point, which is a 542 affordable housing project in New York. It has a community center, a retail shops and the first ever brick and mortar hip hop museum. I often kind of, half people take a look at this and say, you know, the tones of the brick are grays and blacks. We really show movement in the windows. The concept of the project is hip hop because we wanted to really amplify the culture and identity of the local community through this built environment and to create a piece of architecture that reflected self pride and really make sure people felt like they were coming home in those projects. We have the Cleveland Foundation headquarters, which is in Ohio. This is an organization that hired our firm specifically because of the advocacy and the design justice stance that I take. And with this program, they actually created half the program dedicated completely to the community. So community spaces, multi-purpose spaces, galleries, restaurants, outside access, public park, really an institution that wanted their architecture to be representative of the mission that they carry forth with the work. So the whole ground floor is really open aside from some back of house spaces for loading. And then the second floor and third floor is what's really dedicated for the office spaces. And so I thought that was really powerful to really think about our structure and then in that being a catalyst for how we engage the Huff community, created that as an opportunity to also push for beautification and redevelopment of the streetscapes and how a pedestrian would move from the Huff community down to our project and to Euclid. So this is another great project that had hundreds of community engagement events where we were able to kind of identify and ask the community to share what are their aspirations and hopes and then also what are their fears? And what's incredibly important is once you start to engage a community and ask them to share their truths, that requires us to hold a responsibility to address those things, right? When we design, it cannot be in a vacuum for our pleasure. It has to be in a sense of a way that we're addressing and elevating the community that it's looking to serve. And that person isn't necessarily just a client. It's anyone who'd come in contact with your structure. And that's really what I also wanted to take a moment and make room to discuss is really creating space to discuss the idea of what is your client? Who are the people that you would be engaging and who are your focal points and who you engage in your process? So when you do your next site visit, it's not just Google images and some pictures of the corner and the landscaping, but it's really also about asking those who are walking by and asking them, does this site have any significance to you and really recording and documenting that and using that as part of your inspiration in the way you develop your project. And the center lower is the African Bear Ground National Monument. This is a site where they're gonna build the else yet another federal building. And during their excavations, they started to come across African remains about 420, I believe. And the story is a few of those remains were being tossed out until a construction worker kind of whistle blew the issues. And then Howard University came and studied the site and was able to identify the remains and the different ranges of age from a few months old to 60 plus years old. And what was really powerful about this site and about this project is that we were able to identify that the full extent of the African Bear Ground actually holds 20,000 remains. And they're not just built or laid to rest in this one lot, all of downtown Manhattan. So on the side of our chamber there, we actually inscribed the full map of downtown Manhattan and the extent of the Bear Ground so that we can educate those who visit the structure to understand and keep history the significance of the site and the spaces. That is not just this corner, but all of this area. And that also means the federal building to our west, the federal building to our north, to our south, city hall that's further south of us are all built on the backs and bones of our ancestors, which also means when they're excavating for their foundations, they saw our remains and decided to build anyway. So again, this was the moment where I really learned how architecture had a responsibility to keep history and to teach next generations to understand the atrocities that happened to architecture in the built environment and typically try to find a way to right that wrong. And then lastly on the right hand side is 888 Boylston which is the highest performing speculative office building in all of New England. It is a lead platinum project with 12 wind turbines at the top. Photovoltaics, really, really great powerful glazing. And it was a really powerful project where I got to explore environmental justice. So again, how do we push the needle forward in terms of creating architecture and structures that give back to the sites and not just extract resources from it? So this is part of like my presence in terms of my architecture and how I see even my ideals and values and ethos and those that I'm learning from David how they manifest into the projects and the work that I'm doing on an everyday. And then lastly, my last slide, I actually combined because one of the important kind of processes that happened in my future or in my present is that David's allowing me to not have to subdivide. Up into this moment, I've had to be an architect by day and an advocate by night. And it was always these two identities that I would wrestle with. And coming into IJ Associates, it was like, no Pascal, we want you here because you fight for justice. This is important that you continue to do work and have a firm and a leader that supports that effort. And so my future is actually not subdivided. My future is combined. I'm an advocate architect, point blank period. And that allows me to continue to do the work in terms of advocacy, engage NOMA and its membership. And a lot of that work aside from being its president-elect I'm also their historian because you can tell like I love to document and keep history and record of things. And so really creating opportunities for testimonials and creating these resources that you all have access to to learn and hear about our stories. Participating in Project Pipeline with Jason had these great photos of all the great work that he's done in Chicago and here are some that we've done in New York. And if you're anybody in the audience virtually and physically wants to ever participate as a mentor, please let us know. We would love to use your brilliance and inspire the next generation. And then lastly, I want to say with the sale out exhibitions on these two maps that you're seeing, all the locations indicated in orange are all the places that are reflected and represented in my past state-loud exhibitions. And what's been really powerful is to have a good representation of the country, right? Where it's not just a few cities that turned out really great projects but there's amazing projects and incredible talent all over. And it also breaks the boundaries of the US, right? We're able to kind of see work of global designers and how they manifest their culture and identity in the built environment. And so that has afforded me the opportunities to speak and have engagement and speak to a lot of world leaders in that capacity to talk about design justice, to talk about representation, documentation and financial justice for those who are indigenous to their countries and to their spaces to allow them to be really in the forefront in leadership position of architecture and their built environment. So with that, I say to you all, I'm really excited and proud to have this conversation with Kim and Jason. And I can't wait to hear your thoughts. So please do not be shy. I hope that we get a few questions in the Q and A. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you both, Pascal and Jason. I'm excited to get into this conversation. I'm gonna start with Jason and I'm gonna kind of go back and forth between the two to really animate our topic, which is leading with the future. I think it's probably no surprise to people that we're some of the younger presidents in Noma's history. Generally it's people who've been in their forties or fifties or maybe older. And I was asked to do this a few years ago and it was a little nerve-racking but knowing that Jason was behind me and Pascal was behind him, I felt really excited about the opportunity. So I've had my time 2019, 2020, they're wild and crazy years, 2021. Here we are, Jason. Now that you've had I guess now nine months to kind of settle into the role, tell me what has surprised you about the role and also tell us a little bit about your E3 platform. Absolutely. So one of the things I'll say and really I owe it to you, Kim. I mean, you wanna talk about just an impactful presidency. You really did an amazing job of kind of paving the way for me to really focus on expanding the organization, building the strategic partnerships that we've talked about and seizing this critical moment when we have this spotlight and focus on EDI across the industry. You did that in an amazing way by really doing a lot of the grunt work that really doesn't get praised, the infrastructure that we needed to sustain. I mean, we took on staff for the first time as a nonprofit organization, which was all volunteer base for the last 49, 48 years. You brought on staff to really help us really respond to the growing needs of our membership base. So there were a lot of things that you did that really I think kind of positioned and supported me to really narrow in and focus on the big ticket items, which so thank you for that. Also, 2020, geez. I mean, you got hit with both George Floyd movement and the rise of Black Lives Matter and a global pandemic where we completely shifted focus. We went from being all in to all inside. And it was, I mean, so honestly, that was a lot of prep as well for me, just kind of watching how you navigated that really, really tough, those tough conversations, those tough decisions. I mean, we had a lot of things planned to go to Oakland for the 2019 conference and then to pivot and go to a virtual conference, something that we've never done before. That was really all through your excellent leadership. So, I say this all the time, but for me this year and next year serving as national president and being sandwiched in between you two amazing powerhouse women, I really can't lose. I mean, and I'm being honest, when you know I love you both as friends, but I also love you as mentors who inspire and challenge me as well. So, I gotta say, not saying it's a cakewalk because it's far from that, but I would definitely say that I was prepped last year serving as your president-elect through a very tumultuous and difficult moment for the organization. With regards to my presidential platform, and I won't talk about it into too much detail, but I thought it was critical that it tied in with your presidential platform, with your all-in platform as a national president during your term. I wanted to make sure that we were in lockstep, that we weren't completely starting over. We were able to build off of that foundation you created. And so, the focus of all access, the focus on our legacy, the focus on leadership that you really provided. And so, that for me kind of prompted the three Es to focus on the education, the elevation and the empowerment of our membership base. And across those three pillars, we have an opportunity to have very important touchpoints with all of the tiers of our membership, whether it's our legacy members who have been part of this organization for three, four, five decades to the young student members who have just started and just joined NOMA and are trying to find a way to be engaged and how to get involved and if they fit in with this organization and with this culture. So, there's a lot kind of packed in within those three. So, I don't, like I said, I won't dive into it into too much detail, but I will say that we were able to appoint co-chairs to lead those initiatives. And each of those co-chairs have a student intern that's a NOMAS member that's also helping them. So, I think that kind of structure, that kind of support, just to ensure that things are focused at their top of mind and that they get done is critically important, as you know, especially for a volunteer-based organization. So, yeah, I think we're off to a great start. There are a lot of things we were able to do in this first nine months in terms of getting some of those initiatives and programs off the ground. And there's a few more that we're gonna be rolling out over the course of the end of this year, this last quarter and then at the very beginning of next year. And my hope is that a lot of the things that we're establishing, similar to the same way you were able to create the NOMA Foundation Fellowship and President Circle, that the way that those programs have kind of continued and rolled on and been refined and expanded during my term, that the programs I'm creating will be able to grow and continue and expand during Pascal's term as well. Well, speaking of Pascal's term, Pascal, what are you most excited about, when it comes to you taking on the kind of mantle of leadership in 2023 and 2024? It feels like really, really far in the future, but it'll be here before you know it. So what are you most excited about? What are you looking forward to? What does that look like? I think it echoes into how my experience has been with NOMA so far, which is just the congregation of familyhood and development of that, right? That to be part of this coalition of individuals that I've been fighting for justice on all these different scales and have been really geniuses in developing different programs and just being inspired and learning from a lot of these local leaderships who've created these programs, initiatives that speaks to the bespoke nature and the bespoke challenges of their community and then gleaning ways and how we can leverage that on a national scale. And so my most excited about this role is really being a student to everyone in the NOMA family to really take in their brilliance and their expertise to multitask. I'm gonna learn how to multitask. It's gonna be there, I can see it now. But also I'm excited about not creating any new program. I think between the incredible work that you've done, Kim Dodell and Jason Pugh, what you've kind of initiated, I think we've covered a lot of bases here and I wanna just kind of dive in deeper. I wanna create metrics of keeping record and recording it and using it as a marker to keep us accountable to it, right? There's a lot of people making a lot of promises right now, which are great, solidarity is always fun, but I wanna see the longevity of it. I don't want it to be a spotlight, I want it to be the sun, right? I want it to nourish us as well as move us forward. And so through kind of tracking and creating and understanding intimately the programs that you all have implemented and seeing the great work that our members in our chapters are doing with that work, really then I'm just going to continue to elevate, educate and empower everyone about the great work and then really just continue to push for more support kind of following the blueprint, see what I did there, that you both have laid forward for me. Well done. And in fact, I'll pivot back to you, Pascal, because you also served as historian for quite some time. And just for those students or even others in the audience who aren't familiar with NOMA's history, don't necessarily give us like the full history, but tell us why that history is so important. This is our 50th year of existence. And I'm hoping that you can maybe just shed a little bit of light on why we came to be in the first place and how important that is to what we're trying to accomplish today as a profession. I think like all things, not like all things actually, through a lot of my historian research, I realized how much erasure is such a big component and how detrimental it is to our story and how it's prohibited the inspiration and kind of aspirations of other future architects and designers to join the profession, right? And so documentation and record keeping is something that's part of the injustice process that we didn't learn how to do it. And so my personal passion is historian work. And if you look at Beyond the Built Environment, the root of it really is about documentation and but creating this opportunity for you to be the author of how you're presented to the world rather than somebody else doing it. And so when I look at NOMA, the organization, when you're an outsider, you're not part of the organization, you talk a lot of stuff, all they don't do anything. And then when you're part of it, you're like, oh, we're only doing these things. But then as you grow, as you participate in the programming, as you go into the volunteer and some of these initiatives, you start to understand the really complex nature of the issues that we're trying to solve, right? And so to understand and to really forcefully dismantle a lot of those oppressions, require us to continue to build and learn on the knowledge that our legacy members who have been fighting for the past five decades are able to grab that baton and move it forward in that process. And so in general, PSA moment is really, documentation is important and it matters. And NOMA needs to be recognized for that great work. And so by creating this platform as through my historian work is in terms of documenting our story, biography when we started in 1971, the founders who they are, this resource that we've been doing for our exhibition and for kind of counting down to this very important anniversary conference was the first time that anyone had really pulled all that content together. There was images we were calling family members, nieces and nephews to find an image of. And that's important that we do that work. And so by creating that, we created these every month, a new founder was introduced to our membership and to the world, right? And to allow their great work beyond what they did with NOMA, but also what they've done in their legacy and their careers to be highlighted and celebrated as well. And so through that building of understanding who our past presidents are, we can say, what are we doing? What are we tracking? Where are they? I think we lost Pascal. But I do think she was maybe wrapping up her comments, which were helpful. And so my next question luckily is for you, Jason. Kind of contending me on the thread with NOMA, were you involved with NOMA or NOMAS while you were at Columbia? And what was that experience like? And then more broadly, because we're speaking primarily to Columbia students, can you talk about the role that your Columbia experience played in your advocacy, your activism, your leadership of NOMA? Welcome back, Pascal. Welcome back, Pascal. But before I take that question and answer, I don't know, do we want to let Pascal end her last point? I know she was kind of wrapping up, but... I feel like that was the virtual Sandman telling me that I was talking too much. So I'm a little... I'm a little bit of an end right there and I'll answer the next question as much power and rigor. But thank you for that response. I thought it was really helpful to kind of set the stage. Now, Jason, the NOMA, Columbia and then Columbia, more broadly, question. Thank you. Absolutely. So interestingly enough, when I was at Columbia, when I was a student in the grad school program at the MSUD, I was not a part of NOMA. The program, those three semesters, they were just so intense. They were just so, so, so... They kept me so busy that there was really no room to kind of really tackle, absorb anything else. And so, even though I had served as the student chapter president at Howard and undergrad, and was very involved and connected with the local DC chapter during undergrad, when I got to Columbia, when I got to New York, unfortunately there was no capacity or room to kind of take anything on. So I actually dropped off and was not a member of NOMA that year, unfortunately. And it was really a missed opportunity because that was an opportunity to engage with the Nicoba chapter, which is one of the largest, most robust and historic chapters that we have across the country between having some of our principal founders that are there, that were located in New York, just, I would say, the history and legacy of that chapter. And so, it's one of my biggest regrets is not being involved or connected with the Nicoba chapter when I was there. And also, there was no NOMA chapter there on campus to engage with either. Pascal mentioned before about being the only black student in the graduate program, for I think, I believe you said, both the MSUD and the AAD program, right? At that time. And so, for me, there was one other black student who was in my program. Now, what was interesting about my program is I remember I stepped foot on campus and I needed some money. I mean, Columbia is expensive. And so, I go up to the school, I'm talking to different admins and folks and I'm trying to figure out, hey, is there a minority scholarship that I can apply for? And they're like, minority scholarship? Like, the majority of our students are minorities. And they were taking it from a position of, I think there were 40 in my class. And of that 40, I think only seven or eight of us were from the States. And so, we had a lot of international students. But when it came to black and brown as the students, as we know, those numbers were really, really, really low. And so, it was unfortunate that there wasn't a NOMA chapter that I would be able to engage and I didn't have the capacity, unfortunately, to try to start one on campus during that moment as well. I will say one thing that it did prep me for, my education, my experience at Columbia, one of the best things I really, really enjoyed about my time at Columbia was every single project that I touched. And this is very, very, I think it's indicative of the MSAUD program. Everything was a group project, which was very, very different than undergrad, where every design studio was an individual project. So, that was probably one of the best things that I took away and one of the biggest lessons because it was really preparation for the real world. Very few people graduate from grad school or undergrad, go on and they're leading design presentations or projects, right? You're always working on a team. You're always collaborating with others. And it's through that collaboration where I think you're able to really foster and build upon the power of design. And so, it's also through consensus building, engagement. Those kind of leadership traits in terms of getting others to be motivated and supportive and idea or a concept. Those are things that I learned and really start to build upon for the first time at Columbia. Things that were really, really critical years later once I became president of the local iNOMA chapter and even now as a national NOMA president, right? It's about being, I think, strong with your position and with your vision, the projection and trajectory of the organization. But then also to ensure that you're not only, I would say delegating or directing, but actually leading by example as well. And so those are definitely, I think, some of the skill sets that I learned first at Columbia. Thank you. And so Pascal, I have basically the same question for you, but I'll repeat it quickly and then I'll add an additional question that's actually in the Q and A and remind everyone that if you have questions, please put them in the Q and A and we'll get to them for the remaining about 30 minutes that we have. So Pascal, the question is, were you involved with NOMA while you're at Columbia? And then also, what are some of the things that you learned while you're at Columbia or that you are taking from your Columbia experience both as a student and even as an alum, that informs the work that you do. And then the bonus question is, could you speak a little bit about the work that you showed that's in Sudan? It was highlighted on the orange map, so a student was curious about that work if you can fit that in there in your slide. Sure, so I'm hoping everything will stay and if I lose again, my bad. So I didn't know about NOMA until I was working. So I did my five year bachelor's degree at Pratt, did my one year at Columbia and had no idea of the existence of NOMA. And it wasn't until a coworker of mine asked me if I was going to attend the memorial for J. Max Bond Jr., who had recently passed. And I was like, why would I go? I don't work at Davis Brody Bond. And they said, because he's one of the most prolific black architects in all of New York. And I had no idea he was even black. And they were shocked by that. And I said, well, when are we ever really taught about architects of diverse backgrounds? I had no idea. And so I went with my coworker who had once worked at Davis Brody Bond to this memorial and walked into the Center for Architecture and saw a room of hundreds of black architects and minority architects. And it blew my mind because I had never seen more than one or two of us in a space at a time. And so this was a really critical and important pivotal moment for me where I literally, pre-COVID, gave everyone a hug, shook everyone's hand and was just so excited to be there. And in those discussions of engaging people, I met some of the executive board of the NICOBA chapter. And that's how my journey into NICOBA and NOMA began back in 2009. And so it really wasn't until two years after I graduated from Columbia that I even was introduced to Columbia. But I think between Jason's kind of story in mind, I think it creates an opportunity. And it really actually when Jason said that so much of the student body are international students, that I think it would be really powerful to have a NOMA's Columbia chapter that will allow that support because what these organizations do is really provide opportunities for internships, for mentorships, for really helping introduce you to the profession and create a community of support that really does transcend. There's no award on my resume. There's no position in office that I have achieved that hasn't been a direct outcome from me being part of NOMA. Point blank period. I could not have achieved any of this without being part of the NOMA family. And so to create that kind of opportunity for the Columbia students, I'd actually would love to kind of recommend that that's something that you guys think about. And then in terms of the project in Sudan, if you go on the website in the Great Diverse Designers Library, and the reason why it's called Great Diverse Designers Library is if you Google the words Great Architects, Google banner comes up with 40 names and faces. In that banner, there's one woman, Zaha Hadid, and the list ranges from contemporary, currently practicing architects all the way to Raphael and Michelangelo. So really long breath of time here. And so only one woman's listed and zero African-Americans are listed. There's a few minorities. And so when I went to Google's headquarters in New York and asked why is this the result of the search, they told me Pascal is not enough content that actually lists you all as great. So far. I make a library. We're all great. We wouldn't have these amazing projects if we weren't great in the first place. So if you go to my library, the Great Diverse Designers Library and sequence it by location, you'll be able to see the work and the products of people from all over. So we haven't done a Say It Loud Sudan exhibition, but we do have designers from there that has featured their work. And you get to see their faces, their work, what inspired them, where they work and their contact information. So I highly recommend it as a great platform and resource for the students, as well as for the professors who are trying to diversify some of the content and the materials and the architects and the designers that you want to introduce to your students. So Kim, I have a question for you. But let's kind of flip this over. What about the Sudan question? Oh, she answered it. She answered it. Oh. That was within the website for the project. That was, she was providing the link. Got it. Okay, sorry. No, all good. So I have a question for you. We would love to hear, I think your position to take on this. So as the immediate past president of NOMA, what are you most proud of during your presidency? And do you have any regrets or initiatives that you wish you would have been able to accomplish during your two-year term? All right. Well, that's a good question. I just put in the chat an article about my term, just so that, yeah, I don't have to like go through everything. But to answer the questions directly, I have to say that, so to back up a little bit, how did this all happen? So I actually joined NOMA as a student. So back in 2004, I entered the student design competition and then I was asked to be on the board right after I graduated. So I'd been on the board earlier in my career and then I got off because I wanted to get licensed and it's just really hard to study for exams and be on the board. It was too much. So I got off for a few years and thought, you know, okay, well, I did my four years, it was great. And then I get a call from Brian Hudson, who drives physically from Chicago to Detroit to take me out to dinner. And he said, and I was 33 at the time, soon to be 34, but still 33. He was like, it's your turn. And I was like, turn for what? He said, it's your turn to be president of NOMA. And as I mentioned earlier, it was sort of unheard of for a younger person to be in this role as always someone who had a little bit of gray hair. I mean, I have a few pieces now, but at that point, they weren't there. And so for me, I think what I was most proud of, well, really, I mean, towards the end, especially, was having the courage to say yes, because I mean, I did have the option to say no, but I felt- No, you didn't. I mean, I could have said no. And Jason, I remember we talked about this around that time. I was just like, is this the right time? I feel like, am I really ready? And so what I try to encourage younger people to do is think about, basically ask yourself the question, why not me? Why not now? And so really having intentionality around, not just saying yes to opportunities, but also to really do the darn thing with it. I could have just kind of come in with some very basic goals, but I said, I wanted double the membership. And at the end of my term, we had 273% more members than when I started, which, and again, I won't take full credit for that, but I think you have to have leadership that says, I wanna do this, and you have to actually lay out a roadmap for how to get that done and rally people to help you accomplish that. And so I would say I'm most proud of, one, saying yes in the first place, and then two, really laying out a vision and being clear about what I wanted to help Noma accomplish so that I could hand over the keys to Jason, and it's in really great working order. And then he'll do the same thing for Pascal, and I'll just continue to build upon that legacy. So that's my short answer, but for those who would like more information about my accomplishments in 2019 and 2020, check out the chat. So is that what I need to do? I need to create a link or an article to my presidency. I can just direct folks instead of responding. That's how you do it. I mean, I gave a full response, but I didn't want to take up too much of the time. I mean, this is really about you and Pascal, as Columbia alumni and- No, I think it's more than that. I think it's about the past, present and future. So I see that as this kind of transition and leadership. Like I said, you were able to, I think really kind of set the course for the organization and really just kind of expand our visibility across the industry in just such a great way. So how am I able to kind of build on that and carry that forward during this pivotal, pivotal important moment in time? And then how is that going to transcend and move forward with Pascal? So I think that's the conversation. I think that's why the three of us were selected. Yeah, well, thank you for saying that. And I would be remiss if I didn't actually share that. I like to say I stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm the 33rd NOAA president. And so there are 32 before me who really built this organization. Yes, help with getting our numbers a bit higher and led several new strategic partnerships with other organizations with an architecture and funding and those kinds of things, but have that infrastructure not been built by the 32 presidents for me, it wouldn't be where we are. So I want to acknowledge that. And then to say, I'm excited about what Jason and Pascal have up their sleeves. Jason, I know that things got off to a little bit of a bumpy start with just the pandemic still being here. And then we thought it was over and it's like just kidding, it's still here. But maybe Jason, you could talk a little bit about just the remaining time that you have left the year and a little bit of change. What do you see as kind of the legacy of your presidency? So I talked earlier about this EDI wave that's sweeping through the industry. And right now, I think NOMA has been tapped by so many organizations, entities, firms across the industry who are trying to find a way to get engaged, get involved and really help us move the needle forward. I will say that during this opportunity while we have the sun as Pascal kind of, I'm still in that pro Pascal, I said spotlight, you said, I don't want to spotlight, I want the sun. I love that. But while we do have I think this focus and attention, I think that it's critical that we build very, very strategic partnerships with the right entities and groups. And unfortunately, not everybody falls in that category. There are a lot of organizations, entities who honestly at the end of the day want to check a box and they want to have something to point to. They're like, we care, look what we're doing. We partner with NOMA on this, we're doing this, right? But then after two or three conversations, you realize that it's really surface pillow talk. They don't want to roll up their sleeves. They don't want to dig in their heels and they don't want to do the difficult work, the hard work that's needed in order to really move this thing forward. And so that's the biggest challenge is in this moment, kind of filtering through some of those conversations, because everyone's reaching out to NOMA. I think when everything hit the fan last year, we were the first organization everyone turned to because we've been in this space. We've owned this conversation. We've been talking about this for decades, right? And so it was an easy natural choice to kind of reach out to NOMA first, throw in your presidency and say, hey, we want to be involved. We want to support. We want to find a way that we can carry NOMA's mission forward. But as I mentioned, you have to be strategic with the people that you work with and the time that you spent. And so I think for us, it's just being a little bit mindful of the overall mission of the organization. We talked about it before, you help us double our numbers in terms of the membership base. We are on course to have to hit over 3,000 members this year, which is gonna be a milestone record. And so with that fast growth, you have to kind of keep your eye on, are we still following our original mission of the organization? Are we still working towards the original goals? Where are we in terms of reaching those goals, right? Pascal was talking about tracking metrics and really understanding where you are, right? Kim, you would always say you can't manage what you can't measure. And so it was really, really critical for us to start to get a handle in our head around where we were in terms of those numbers in terms of the representation for licensed minority architects, for licensed black architects. And unfortunately, as you know, we've barely made a dent. I mean, we've flat lined with our numbers. And in fact, in some areas and in particular, the number of MBE of black-owned architecture firms across this country, we've actually dropped, right? We have less representation in terms of firms than we did in 1980s and 1990s, right? So there is a lot of work that we need to be doing. And I think it's critical that we keep that top of mind as we bring on these members and we continue to stay focused and inclusive because I think it's important to recognize that, you know, if you are behind NOMA's mission, you are definitely welcomed into the NOMA family. But we still have our original targets and our focus, which is to carry on that mission for the 12 founders of NOMA. Great, well, so I know that we've got some audience physically in the audience questions and then there's also some Q&A digital questions. So let's go to the young lady with the microphone and then we'll figure out how to get the other questions into the discussion as well. So I'll hand it over to you. Okay, hello, my name is Tiana Cooke-Sea and I am a current Columbia student, I study architecture and urban planning. And I'm also here representing the Wisconsin chapter of NOMA, West Conoma. A lot of us are on the line right now, so hello everybody. I just wanna give a shout out because we are launching various initiatives including our diversity, equity, inclusion challenge and we're looking for strategic partnerships and just people who can partner with us. And you all gave a great presentation about leadership and creating lanes. So I want you all to talk about some of the pivotal moments and resources you tapped into, especially when it comes to creating new lanes and creating new opportunities for other people and how do you sustain those? Sure, so I'll start. So one of the things that I felt was really important when it came to bringing more resources to NOMA was partnering with other allied organizations or organizations that are well positioned to support what NOMA is doing. And one of those groups is not just the American Institute of Architects or AIA but also the AIA Large Term Roundtable or AIA LSRT. And the LSRT represents the 60 largest firms, architecture firms in North America. And so essentially, so the CEOs of all these companies get together several times a year and work on all kinds of issues that are being dealt with by the profession. And just before I became president, so these conversations happened under my predecessor, Brian Hudson. But I was able to help really finalize our MOU or Memorandum of Understanding. And so that group, they actually provided financial support for NOMA to actually launch our NOMA Foundation Fellowship Program, which basically ensured that students who are either near their final year of architecture school or just graduated are actually paired with firms for internships. Ideally, those internships would evolve into jobs because really looking at how do you promote economic opportunity was an important aspect of that Foundation Fellowship Program. So that was one example, but also NOMA was, we asked to actually have a seat at the table with the AIA, with the ACSA, the AIS, NCARP and NAB, which was the five gladiatorals. And so NOMA said, hey, we need to be a part of this. We're a 50 year old organization and actually is having an impact. And so just this past year, we were included as a sixth collateral, if you will, to actually help to give voice to issues around diversity, equity, inclusion, injustice in our profession. So those are a couple of examples of just really building bridges, building coalitions so that NOMA can have access to rooms that we previously didn't have access to and access to financial resources to pay for more of our programs that actually help to empower more of our students. So those are a couple of examples, but Pascal, Jason, I don't know if you wanna add anything else. Absolutely, I talk about being part of NOMA as being part of my collective responsibility and really participating on a local level really helped me to understand who are the key players who are pushing for change and actually who are the players who are trying to stop it at all costs at the same time. And so by being part of an organization and volunteering and participating in a meaningful way, it allowed me to fully understand the complexities of what we're trying to solve, of the injustices that we're trying to dismantle. And so therefore that's when it started to, through that work, that consistent work, that consistent engagement, that's when I started to see the gaps that I felt that the coalition and the group also thought were to be important, but just didn't have the capacity and bandwidth to kind of handle at the time. And so that's what really inspired me on the build because I felt like we were working so hard to dismantle a lot of the oppressions that are within the profession and the built environment, but we weren't spending enough time elevating and promoting and celebrating the great work that we've done. And that's how I kind of deviated and created that. But in creating that foundation and that formwork of really engaging with NOMA, engaging with AIA, engaging with ACE, I also created this network of advocates who really fight for justice on all platforms. And so another method of building bridges was actually volunteering and supporting all of my peers' initiatives. Shout out to Mike Ford, who I see is on the line here, who's in attendance, we participated in being mentors and leaders in his programs, right? And when Brian Lee has this program, we jump on board there and really we support and share the resources that we're creating and cultivating because we're all trying to fight for justice in result and approach. And so the idea is working together, creating a coalition of people who are like-minded individuals, who are like-passionate individuals, who are brilliant, is really been an important part of the bridge, that you don't always have to be the leader in the conversation. You can absolutely be the follower and from a fundamental place, create a great impact in that work. And the kind of lane that I'm trying to establish now or trying to really define is just starting to break out this idea that we're restricted to the United States. There is this issue of design justice and equity, Jedi work that really is a global conversation and we should be participating to share our knowledge and our expertise from this 50-year legacy, but also to glean some of the resources and the understandings of the other methods that have been happening across the world. And so I think between all the say it loud exhibitions and all my public speaking, it created this unique opportunity for me to create another bridge for NOMA that will allow for our discussions and our presence to really take a global stance, a worldwide stance and really to create this mission and come together globally. I mean, that was summarized beautifully. I mean, excellent points, Pascal. The only thing that I can stress is also finding more ways to collaborate across multiple chapters, right? Across multiple organizations, sharing best practices, successful playbooks, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel. There's a lot of amazing work that's been done already. So finding where you can kind of pull from those resources and share those with others. That's something that we're trying to do at the national level. We're really trying to raise a performance bar of all of our NOMA chapters across the country. We have a lot of large and small NOMA chapters that are doing amazing work coming up with really, really creative ideas, groundbreaking ideas. And it's really us finding a way to kind of really kind of put a spotlight and amplify those opportunities and really voices to do it at a national level. And so that's one of the things we're focused on. Again, you don't have to be, as Pascal mentioned, you don't have to always be the leader and you don't always have to come up with something and create it from scratch. There's already a lot of important groundbreaking work that you can build on. Great points. So we have three questions left in our virtual Q&A. I don't know if there are any other questions from the physical audience, but I'm just gonna jump into this first question here. The person said, oh, Michelle, said, I was incredibly excited to see all of you speaking tonight. Thank you for your service to NOMA thus far. Welcome. And what's to come? Jason had brought up that the killing of George Floyd was a pivotal moment in his personal and professional life. I imagine that tripled into the organization as well. Can you speak to the transition or change of NOMA's mission statement last year and to a renewed focus on activism and advocacy? So, Kim, I actually think you should maybe kind of kick this off only because, you know, you actually put out a very timely response immediately after the murder of George Floyd. You put a public statement out as the leader of NOMA, you know, to the public. And I thought that that really kind of got the ball rolling and got us into a deeper conversation. That really spurred us to go back and reevaluate our mission statement, which I believe hadn't been updated in nearly over a decade. And so, you know, that was actually through your leadership and I think initiation. So maybe you can kind of start and then I can talk about how we're kind of refining it, at least with our aims and objectives. Sure. So, obviously, I think we all remember when, you know, when George Floyd was murdered, it was May 25th, 2020. And on May 31st, after taking a little bit of time to just regroup and figure out what was going on, I felt that it was important that NOMA put out a statement. And there had been, you know, some statements that were made that didn't quite go far enough in terms of, you know, what I think, at least my membership needs to hear. So I wrote really from the heart, like what was I feeling? What did I want people to take away from my message? Like what's our, what do we do? Where do we go from here? And so that's when the brave statement came out because everyone knows I love acronyms. So, you know, basically like be brave, you know, and banish racism, reach out to those who are grieving, advocate for the disinherited vote in every American election, which was especially important in 2020 and engage each human as you'd wanna be engaged. But in addition to that component, which has the graphic of people, you know, there's like a whole sweatshirt, which is great. But I think what's also really important from that message was the fact that we actually finalized our revised mission statement really that same day. So we had been working on, we had a whole strategic planning process that happened before any of the George Floyd, you know, before that news hit. And it became very timely that we finalized, that we really take the time to finalize the different drafts of mission statements that we've been working on weeks prior to this event. And essentially we, you know, we were pretty close. And we said, we have to do this today because I didn't wanna put out a statement and then say, come back later for our update mission. Like it was like, we have to. So I appreciate the board for, I remember it was a Sunday and the board just kind of like came together. We dropped what we were doing. We said, we've gotta figure this out. We're very close with the mission statement. And it has to really, I mean, what happened with George Floyd really underscored how important that advocacy is and how important activism was. So our new mission statement really zeroed in on that. But, you know, it was still a progression of what had been happening over the previous week. So I mean, that's what happened from my perspective. But certainly Jason and Pascal have been opening it up for you to kind of share your input too. Yeah, I just, I remember kind of going into work and this was following, this was that Monday, following all of the protests and the riots that took place across the country. And in Chicago where, you know, they kind of really kind of tore through downtown Chicago. There were, they had to raise some of the bridges for those of you know, Chicago, they had to raise some of the bridges to restrict access to certain parts of downtown and magnificent mile. And so I remember going into work, that, well, we weren't going in, we were virtual, but we were still hosting our virtual meetings, our studio meetings, our Monday morning meetings. And just disconnect with some of my colleagues who just were completely, I think, not in tune with really the magnitude of everything that was going on, of what had happened. And maybe one or two of them even kind of mentioned how, what an inconvenience it was to get around town with the traffic and everything that we can. And so, you know, for me it was really, really tough because I, you know, when you work at a large corporate firm and in some cases where you're the only black professional in an office, you know, it was interesting, it was, you know, you had to compartmentalize your feelings, your emotions, everything you're kind of dealing with that you're struggling. You know, part of you is upset and angry and you kind of want to break something. There's another part of you that is like depressed and sad and, you know, discouraged and not necessarily, you know, you're ready to give up but it's just, you know, just this frustration that's just kind of building. And then you had to go into work on Monday and, you know, put on the happy smile. Act like everything's okay. Act like, you know, it wasn't your neighborhood that got tortured or trashed, you know, this past weekend that, you know, it wasn't your friends who got arrested or, you know, that you weren't impacted in any way about, you know, once again, another senseless murder of an armed innocent black man. And so that was really, really, really a huge struggle for me. You know, posting something on LinkedIn and I don't even, I was reluctant to do that because even my bosses, some of my bosses follow me on LinkedIn and so it even took some like minor courage for me to post it on LinkedIn but I was like, you know what, I don't care. I'm going to post this, this is how I'm feeling and it was something along the lines of, you know, it's Monday, you know, try to, you know, you know, you know, really suppress your feelings and emotions from this past weekend and focus in on that, you know, project deadline that you have now for the work week and just completely compartmentalize your feelings and emotions and, you know, you have to separate yourself as that professional and as the individual and then even separate yourself from the culture and so that was hard. And then that whole week, and then once they realized that this was an issue and we need to talk about it, then there were all these conversations. They wanted to have like, oh, let's have a studio meeting about it. Let's have an office meeting about it, right? And then everyone is looking at you to lead these conversations. I didn't call for this meeting. Like, I'm sick of being the advocate and the voice and the person that always has to speak up and address these issues, you know? And so there's even that piece, that kind of fatigue where, you know, you're constantly the person who has to lead this charge, who has to volunteer who gets the shoulder tap, right? And so there's even, I think, some of those challenges and struggles as well. But what I will say is what happened, what came out of that, though, is I think through some of those really tough conversations and through really some of those safe spaces that we were able to create came, I think, honest dialogue and came a deeper understanding. Not only for, I would say, for our non-black and brown colleagues and peers, but also for other black and brown employees, colleagues and friends that we work with, right? As we were starting to kind of grapple and really understand our own feelings and emotions around these like difficult issues. So, and that is just, I think, kind of continued. And I will say, you know, tip of the hat to all the NOMA members and leaders across the country, across all of our chapters who were engaged in these very, very deep and important conversations at the national and local level, whether you were serving on panels and giving presentations, or you were leading these discussions in your own firm, if you were leading these discussions in your own communities, you know, NOMA really stepped up, I think, in that moment and we really became the voice, at least across our industry, which I mean, just I was blown away by the way we let those conversations. So for me, similarly, kind of jumping onto a Zoom and people kind of complaining that they didn't get a chance to, because of COVID didn't get a chance to barbecue or get a haircut. And that actually was a really important moment for me because I did kind of turn off my camera so that I could cry for a little bit before I turned it back on and continued the agenda for the project for the day. But I recognize a lot of my code switching. I recognize a lot of like my appearance switching. My curly hair is professional hair. I don't need to change my language to make people feel comfortable. My comfortability wasn't something that was really top of mind for others. So why did I feel burdened to do that for other people? And so that was something that I really started to just kind of lean into. And then also, I started holding people accountable. That you can't manage what you don't measure. That sentence that Kim came up with has literally pushed me through. Huh? It's Lance Collins from SoCal Network. I credit him. So I joined. Good to know, because I credit you. So this is good to kind of continue this loop here. But it's really powerful because when somebody said, or organizations would say, we're here for you, my answer was, my question was how? How so? What program? What are we doing? How are we doing it? And all these boards and all these positions that I serve on outside of NOMA who are having these Jedi conversations. Okay, but what are we doing? What's the program? We've talked about this for years. It's not that it's important now. It's always been important, but now you're in the conversation. What are you doing? How are you been injuring this conversation? Cause they know what they're doing. I need you to kind of figure that out too. And so in leveraging my positions of power, one example is with AIA, New York, I was able to have the board pen a statement against jails, prisons and places of detention and take a stance on that, which has really huge implications to the Rikers Island kind of revamp and creating these burial-based jails that they're trying to place in and are really addressing the atrocities that's happening through the architecture in the built environment and having the largest AIA chapter take a stance against it was powerful and huge. And so again, I have been really pushing for people to hold accountability to these statements of justice. And I'll even say as of today, I was asked to review a design jury committee for its diversity. And I said, no, the gender balance and the ethnicity balance is not there. This is not just. And I got the statement of, oh, we wanted really good known names that will allow for credibility. I said, did it ever occur to you that these are the well-known names because they keep being the ones that are being elevated where black and brown and women who are equally as qualified if not more as being put down as second string? You're perpetuating it. So if we're gonna talk about justice, let's do it. Let's get it. It's gonna be harder. It's gonna be more difficult. It's gonna require more search. But you said you're with me. You said you're about dismantling racism and oppression. You said you're about justice. Let's do it. And when I step into a fight, I don't expect to come out as pretty as I did going in. I'm gonna lose a tooth. Some hair will be pulled out and that's okay. We're putting ourselves, our bodies at risk to make things right because honestly every Baha'i really creates that risk when they walk out. Talking about all these emotions we were feeling when George Floyd was lynched. Yes, I'm very particular about my language when he was lynched. Fear, fear was the number one emotion that I carry and I still carry that. And we need to recognize that our architecture perpetuates those fears that we are creating spaces that are specifically designed to keep people out and we're creating structures that are designed to keep people in cages. So you, as the architect in the room, as you, those in a Columbia auditorium ready to dismantle and change the world through your architectural lens, how are you gonna continue to fight for justice through your work? Sorry, I got really animated. Yeah, I mean, that's the call to action. So for students out there and really anyone, what are you gonna do? That's important to be clear on. So I know that we're almost out of time. We have an audience member who has a question physically in the auditorium. And then we have two questions in the chat, although I don't know how much longer we actually have. So I do see one pretty low hanging through question. I'm just gonna quickly answer and then we'll have just two questions left. So Quincy asked, where do you start when looking to empower and elevate future designers advice for anyone wanting to participate in nourishing future designers? I'd say just find them, find them at NOMA, find them at your school. If you're an alum, go to your school, ask how you can help. That's probably the lowest thing for you. There's also the mentor program. There are all kinds of programs including NOMA's project pipeline, summer camp for kids. So all different levels need mentorship and people who can reach out and help to empower and elevate those young people. So that's the quick answer there. And then we'll take the audience question and then we have a final question from the Michael Ford. Hello? Oh. Hello. My name is Arnold Morgan and I am a fellow NOMA Nash as well as Nykoba. So greetings. So during your academic and professional career, how are you able to maintain and face challenges throughout your life in terms of visit family, mentorships? Is there a passion that keeps you together because in architecture, there's always something that always push you back. So probably this is a different answer for everybody but I'm just wanting to get an idea of like how are you able to keep on moving a step forward? What keeps on? What do you remind yourself every day? Like, okay, this is it. This is what I'm here for. So thank you. So, oh, go ahead, Pascal. Sorry, I was gonna say it's a quick story, kind of how I started our kind of conversation today about that teacher telling me that I wasn't good enough. So he became, he just became the power, right? It was, I'm tired, I don't think I can do it. Nope, I cannot prove that professor correct, right? Nope, I don't feel well. I don't wanna go to class. Nope, I can't be the black woman who doesn't go to school or go to classes. So I actually used that really pivotal moment for me to be the generation of resources and energy that I needed when everything's got tough, specifically when it gets to school, because I felt like it was required of me to show that I could, because I've always known that I wanted to be an architect, that it was important that I showed that I could go through that process. And that was really important and powerful for me. And I would say in a professional setting, the time where I really felt like this profession wasn't for me was when I became a mother. And there is a whole slew of ways where the built environment failed me as a person who was pregnant and as a young mother who was trying to take care of her child. That really started to even open my lens of like all the layers of injustice or the flaws in architecture and all the great work that really still needs to be done in the profession through our designs. And so that again was about not letting what's not there for me be the deterrent for me to move in a path that I know is what's right for me. And also this idea of kind of connecting with NOMA, connecting with AIA, connecting with ACE, connecting with all these organizations and institutions really echoed the importance of me being there, being part of those conversations because they gave me a voice. They literally gave me a seat at the table and said, your opinions, your ideals of this matter. And so by stepping away for a personal kind of challenge, I had to understand that I was creating a void. And I know it's a bit unfair to carry but that's how I've been mentally kind of calibrating it and how I've been leveraging it to persevere in the work that I've been doing and really being unapologetic about defining what I need. It's no longer so much about let me not ruffle feathers, watch out feathers, because I'm ruffling it all up because what I'm looking to have conversations with you about are the things that I need to move forward. So I would say also it's about really defining what you need and being unapologetic about asking for it. Kim, do you wanna answer or should I jump in? You jump in, I'll wrap it up. Okay, I'll say, for me it was finding Noma. It was finding my support group, finding my champions, my advocates and it started in undergrad with a couple of just really, really amazing mentors, Harry Robinson, Edward Dunson, Barbara G. Laurie, who really saw potential in me before I saw it in myself who wanted me to succeed and really move forward and wanted things for me before I wanted them for myself. So that was really, really critical. And then as a young professional, it was attending the Noma conference every single year. My very first conference was 2008. That's where I met Kimberley Dowdell in Washington, D.C. And then fast forward a couple of years later, I had so far to date, I haven't missed a conference, a Noma conference. And for me, working at a large corporate firm, my first five years out of school, I was working at H-OK. The last almost 10 years I've been working at Gensler. The Noma conference has always been a moment for me to recharge my batteries, right? It's that moment, it's that special opportunity for me to reconnect with my family, my friends, my mentors, those people who are doing amazing things that are, we talk about iron sharpens iron. So you get around those people that are just doing amazing inspiring things. That was Kim, that was Pascal, that was B-lead, that was Mike Ford, and there's a laundry list of other just amazing impactful people that have like fallen in my life. Tiffany Brown and Taya Nguyen, Azurtega, there's just this group of Noma members who have done amazing things. And it always made me realize, you know what Jason, you could be doing a little bit more. You could push yourself a little bit harder. And you need that, you need that support group. And you build those friendships, you build those strong relationships, and that helps you get through and weather those storms. And honestly, really, really, really does, you know, these are people that you build relationships with over the course of multiple years, and then they become your village. They become the people that you're able to bounce ideas around and they also open your mind to opportunities and things that you weren't even necessarily considering or thinking about that maybe weren't really on your radar. And so that's the power of Noma. That's the power of the network. That's the power of the Noma family. And so I would highly encourage you to find opportunities to engage it. Then the other piece is, you know, put your head down, plow through and just say yes to opportunities. You know, Kimberly mentioned earlier that she had the choice to say no to serve as a national president, but she was brave in that moment and said yes. And she didn't worry about being the youngest female president to ever serve the organization, the first millennial to ever serve the organization. She didn't worry about those kind of things. You know, she didn't worry that she took a departure from serving on the national leadership in order to get licensed and, you know, and go to grad school, go to Harvard. She came back into the fold. She stepped right up and she knocked it out of the park. Right, so I'll tell, people always ask, you know, how did you ascend to a position of leadership in Noma? And I tell everyone, this was never my goal. I never was trying to be the national president of Noma. It was never on my five year or 10 year plan as Kim and Pascal know, because I have a five, 10, 15, 25 year plan. That wasn't listed. That wasn't enlisted in those drafts years ago. What happens is people around you, you know, serve as your champions and they keep asking you to lead. They keep asking you to step up. They want you to do more. You just say yes to opportunities. And before you know it, you look up and there is amazing opportunity in front of you. And that's literally how I got to where I am today. Well said. So I would echo what has been said so gracefully by Pascal and Jason and just for me, two things I'll add. One is my, I mean, my original kind of decision to become an architect was when I was like 11, growing up in Detroit, I saw the disinvestment and the dilapidation of really beautiful buildings around me. I was like, I want to become an architect because I want to fix this. I later learned that's not entirely how this worked, but that's kind of when that kind of bug bit me. And over the years, I've lived in seven different cities and Detroit is still my home and where my heart is, but my mission has now evolved to be improve people's lives by design. So I even used to more recently be improve the quality of people, but quality of life for people living in cities. And even cities, I mean, they're very important to me, but people living outside of the urban context, they deserve great design as well. So how do we figure that out? And it just so happens that the work that I do is focused on improving people's lives. And even though I haven't focused primarily on individual building projects, I'm building systems and building structures in which great design can take place. And then the other thing really quickly, I'll say, which actually ties into why I have that courage to take on the things that have taken on. Frankly, it's faith. For me, it was instilled upon me as a young kid for my grandmother. And basically, she told me anything is possible if you just have faith and if you believe and if you do the right things. And I think for me, that's been really critical and it's been an anchor for me in terms of setting goals and just believing that they can occur. Obviously you have to put in the work, but for me that has been part of the secret. So I know that we are way over time. I think Mike Ford is on the screen here. If he has a question to ask, we'll field that. And then I think we'll probably call it. Yeah, I think, so this is Laila in the auditorium. I'm just gonna jump in and say thank you to Kimberly. Thank you to Jason and thank you to Pascal. I'm just gonna read Michael's comment because it's a comment, not a question, but I think it deserves some space in the dialogue. Okay. Great discussion. NOMA is a huge resource for current and prospective architects, designers and allied professionals beyond these groups. Oh, it is a question. How can NOMA National and Chapters serve as a resource for their community at large? And I think, because we do have to wrap up, I'm sorry, I was like reading that as like a statement. Thank you so much to all of you. I truly believe in what NOMA is doing and want to support your work. And I'm so excited to have hosted you here and to bring you back. And I really hope that as soon as we can have non-affiliates on campus that we get to see you here back at Avery Hall to welcome you home. And I just wanna thank you so much for your service, for your brilliance and for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you for having us. Ladies, it was great. Love seeing you both. Yep, great to see you too. Michael and Sean offline and you too, Walter. Got a couple of questions from Walter.