 Good evening everybody and thanks for joining us tonight We are as you know wasting no time in kicking off our spring public lecture series here And I mean that in more ways than one our guest speaker Just flew in from the West Coast this afternoon to be with us And I want to say quick. Thanks to women leadership network here at the school for Thinking to invite Rosa and we're really happy that she's here So let me just say a few words to introduce her It's obviously my pleasure to introduce Rosa shang She is a respected architect with over 24 years of experience on Really a variety of award-winning projects including among others some that you might recognize the iconic Apple stores She recently joined a year ago Smith group JJ are in San Francisco After a 20-year tenure with Boland Suwinski Jackson also in San Francisco She was a founding member of that firm's San Francisco office in in 99 Her work really bears kind of a mark of aesthetic sophistication But while also kind of engaging really robustly issues of sustainability But Rosa shang is also a really prominent prominent thought leader She's been president of the San Francisco chapter of the AI for four years now and Through that I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just this year and through that Was the founding chair of equity by design Which is a kind of national movement created by the AI San Francisco to advocate for Equitable practices and pay in architecture. So equity bid by design. We'll hear about more. I'm sure but uses data among other things to understand what She calls pinch points or the factors kind of leading Or in the profession that contribute to what's seen as a kind of a very precipitous drop Especially in among female architects between graduate school and practice and we'll hear more about that tonight. I'm sure Rosa's led to National equity in architecture surveys, which are these far-reaching surveys from which data is called authored an AI national resolution served on the equity for Sorry served on the equity in the future of architecture committee for the past three years She's presented her research and perspectives Many of which I'm sure will hold to here tonight in cities like Boston, New York, Lisbon, Atlanta Philadelphia and Seattle and now Bristol Her work has been featured in architect magazine architectural record Wall Street Journal TEDx Philadelphia NPR and the New York Times and I'd say just Her lecture here at Roger Williams is really timely as we're in the process that kind of as an institution of Raising awareness and engaging in discussions around equity and diversity even with our own institution So please join me in welcoming Rosa shang Thanks for that awesome intro So forgive me if I seem a little tired I'm gonna rev up here I have been up since 2 30 a.m West Coast time because I was just so anxious that I wouldn't miss that plane because if I miss the plane I wasn't gonna get here. So thank God everything worked out That being said We're gonna start off. I think this is a very good-sized crowd to have a conversation So this isn't as much a lecture as it is a discussion in a conversation So there's gonna be a lot of back-and-forth questions. First one is The word equity and equality have been used interchangeably and there's been a lot of confusion about the word And there's no right or wrong answer But how many people think that they have a good understanding of the difference between the two if you do raise your hand Okay, that's usually the number of hands I get from the audience and that's where we start the discussion Where we start the framework before we get into any of the Survey findings or the background story is that equality traditionally means giving out the same resources Regardless of the outcome which is in this meme on the left side. You will see equality with the boxes so if you're thinking about this as a framework of People looking over a fence to the world series. What have you tall person doesn't need the box But they get the box anyway in the equality framework if you think about it in an equity framework It's the idea of minimizing barriers to maximize potential for success. So in essence different resources for different needs But maximizing the positive outcome so in this case everybody can see over the fence the tall person realizes in this Case they don't need the box in another situation They might you know be too tall to get something in the small person would help them, right? And then I've heard people say well, what if you're always the tall person giving away your box and the bigger kind of Reflection point is at some point in your life. You're going to be the short person chances are very likely Especially these days with all the natural disasters that are happening Unexpected consequences in your lifetime. You might be the shop, you know the small person so rather than having a mindset of Me first it's this mindset of we first if we have each other's backs if we can work together To get to the problem-solving of what the challenges are within practice in the future of architecture We can get there faster and we could make a better Sustainable practice for us all so the question starts with why equity matters Then why does architecture matter? I think that's kind of a little bit rhetorical within our student and Practice discourse, but it's healthy to talk about it. So when I grew up I grew up in suburbia and All I knew were malls and Truck homes as architecture that was my framework for architecture and it wasn't until I went to go visit my grandparents in I'm gonna fast forward for a second In China that I had this idea. Wow. That was an architecture at all. It was actually These significant buildings and my grandfather said, you know, it isn't just Architecture isn't just for a person's lifetime. It goes beyond the lifetime of that person It's actually to capture civilization the culture. It's a time capsule, right? It's more it's meant more as this physical manifestation of Profound impact on a given society at any given time in perpetuity So that was like a wow moment, right all in Chinese, of course, and I'm trying to understand him as he's spewing off these things. So How I wanted to become an architect at the ripe old age of 11, right? That's when I went to China and I had this amazing time I went to go see the forbidden city and the Great Wall and that was architecture to me and I wanted to have profound impact as well and then so I'm gonna go back to this slide, which is You know 20 years later after I went through training in architecture school and all that I got to a point where I wanted to quit architecture. I wanted to leave the profession So from the point that I wanted to become an architect to the point. I wanted to leave the question goes Why right and that's what we're going to talk about today But also that's not my story only that is the story of many in our profession So I love Lucy how many people know this video of just keeping up how many people feel like they're just keeping up They're keeping appearances, right? You're hiding you're really not keeping up, but you're pretending you are Well, at some point it's gonna all catch up with us if we keep pretending So we had to start talking about these problems more openly because we you know, we want to look strong We want to look invincible But unless we uncover these challenges and have an open dialogue, we're never gonna solve You know what's really hurting us or it's preventing us from succeeding So fast-forward love architecture went to architecture school went to Syracuse University studied mainly Eurocentric Architecture didn't really study Asian architecture until my thesis project when I started questioning Why were we just learning about a very monoculture? architecture if you will and At that point I decided you know that I was gonna be this great architect I was gonna change the world, you know still very optimistic at that point graduated during a recession And my first job out of school is actually drafting bathrooms and designing malls in America back to the malls, right? How did I go so far away and then come back to the place where I started and again a question whether or not I should Leave the practice of architecture, but a friend of mine called me up She worked in the Pittsburgh office of Boland Swinsky Jackson and she said hey Why don't you come out to Pittsburgh and interview for a job? We're working on this great project for this company called Pixar animation studios And at that point nobody knew what Pixar did because Pixar was a brand-new company The digital animation age right was at its nascent point. So I said sure that sounds like fun Something new something different went out to Pittsburgh then we started flying back and forth to California And an interesting thing happened We were out there the client had us out for dinner and then they told us, you know It looks like we're not gonna finish on time with the schedule Is there anything we could do to Change how we're working make the project go faster finish on time and have a great product and I had a couple of drinks and I Lost my inhibition. I said well you can move the entire team out to California and Everybody laughed at me, but lo and behold Three months later the entire team was out in California we ended up establishing the San Francisco office for Boland Swinsky Jackson out of that project and It was a lesson learned and not being afraid to say the stupid answer or ask the stupid question, right? Why not? You know, why are we doing things the way we're doing? Can't we do better? Fast forward again. So after the Pixar animation studios project I had the pleasure of working with Steve Jobs as he was coming back into Apple at that point He was had he had this crazy idea of having all Computers all his stores, which there were none of at that time Selling Apple computers and Apple products at that point. They're sold through third party. Everybody laughed and said there's no way You're gonna be able to have an entire stores that sell Apple computers. There's only 2% market share, right? But he had this vision reality distortion field and he asked us to believe suspend disbelief So that we could actually build these stores. He wanted all glass staircases no structural steel again Never been done before it did not exist and he challenged us and to the point where The team that worked on the project with the structural engineers with the glass fabricators from Germany because nobody in the US wanted to touch it Fittings manufacturer in Boston try pyramid structures. It was this think tank We are in this reality distortion field and we got there now ubiquitous Glass structures, you know of staircases skylights, what have you? Amazing, you know large pieces of glass that you would never think of before because he challenged us So that's a lesson learned right suspend disbelief when you think nothing can be done to solve a problem So the last story I'm gonna tell of this kind of positive trajectory before things start getting a little weird is that last story I worked on was the Apple Cube in York City before I sort of retired from the retail stores I got married as you saw in the last photo and Was pregnant with my first child when this project was being designed I was flying back and forth and then as the project was being completed. I had my first child and I thought that's it I'm done with Apple Steve had been a very good champion for me at the time and he asked well Why don't you come and have dinner with us in the team? But I only have one spot for you and I don't have any spots for your family Can you come alone and I said I couldn't because I was nursing at the time I couldn't tell him that So I declined and I thought stupid chance of a lifetimes who turns down dinner with Steve Jobs Of course, he came back again thinking that that was a little crazy for me to say no, right? So he said okay, you could bring your husband But you need to get a babysitter no kids coming tonight can get a babysitter and again I graciously declined I wasn't gonna leave my kid behind nine month old and then at the end of the day Amazing thing happened. So the whole store is crowded. It's the first day. It's open Parting of the Red Sea Steve comes walking over and he says this Okay, the kid could come but she poops pees. She cries. She's out Wow, what an invitation right So here's the photo This photographer took at the moment that he's asking me with the daggers in his eyes going Ah, and then Katie cotton his publicist is fighting her fingernails like just say yes I've been trying to change the reservation three times already today I said yes daughter came was on her best behavior. Thank God and At the end you said, you know, your daughter is really great. She could come to dinner with us anytime But the lesson learned there was that somebody believed in me to have me at the table Not just that night but before that he would always ask for my opinion at the design table and it showed me and reminds me that we all need champions In our work in our professional development in our life's goals We can't do it alone. We reach points and stumbling blocks and we need people to be our champions And not only do we need that we need also to be champions to other people We need to pay it forward Because those people that are struggling with whatever difficulties there are we say oh we just bootstrapped it because we did it that way Well, we didn't really do it that way We had champions help us so remind yourself of who your champions are and then as you go forward in your careers Become that champion to somebody else Fast-forward. Okay 2009 who remembers 2009 Probably it was not so relevant for students, but for professionals. It was a bad bad time recession At that time, um, I was finishing up a project Which was an amazing experience for a women's college in oakland It was meant to it raised awareness about the fact that there are less than three percent CEOs women leaders In business and their mission was to build the business schools from startup Where they would train women to be seasoned business professionals and they were committed to this idea They got a donor a lori i loki who is um the head of business wire He believed in that mission and he invested 20 million dollars in this building So they were seeking architects and they asked us to come and interview and they picked us because we had a team of Not just diversity, but women in leadership positions. So women in the structural Engineering role mechanical engineering even the superintendent for the construction Company was a woman So we had a blended team men and women But we were making sure that what we heard from them was that they wanted to walk the talk They weren't only going to build this business school for women. They wanted the building to be built By women as well. So it was an amazing experience And nazi thornbrough she passed away last year, but she again was a champion She had this committed belief and by hooker by crook. She was going to get there and she built the school literally from nothing With 10 students It was about 10 years ago the anniversary and today there's like 150 students who are Committed to social responsibility. That's also um A theme of the the building which again is a starting point for me realizing that architecture Can affect people in many ways that we don't communicate very well We know it as architects But the people that are experiencing it don't know it unless we communicate that to them And as you can see here, there's a diverse body of students who go there now, not just women But um people of color those that are under represented in business today. So they're really committed to that mission Okay, fast forward the recession I had my second child at the beginning of the recession and as I came back there are a lot of layoffs and It's I was very depressed about my career trajectory because it wasn't going to be anything Close to what it had been in that first half that we had talked about So this quote from lynn menwell randa sticks out to me As this motivational moment in that we all grapple with the paradox that tomorrow is not promised But we make plans anyway. So we can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow We can't predict the fact that somebody is saying that the jobs that we have today will not no longer exist Tomorrow, you know in five years. We're going to have completely different jobs A lot of people are still in disbelief about that and fear about that But we should embrace that and we should make plans to kind of envision the future together Of what architecture will be in this new world that's evolving with technology advancing so quickly and we need to keep up as well So at that nascent point of me debating about whether or not I was going to leave architecture. There's a lot of things happening Tangentially there was a architect barbie came out of nowhere. Why architect barbie and who cares, right? But it was it started that debate about why it wasn't important To have the discussion about women as architects or the lack there of women in architecture there was the pritzker prize controversy with The the two petitioners from harvard gsd women architecture Who were lobbying for denise got brown to be recognized with robinventory? They weren't successful, but they were successful in bringing the issue To a larger discussion in mass and then lean in was published. So there was a lot going on And we at that point I went to a symposium. I participated as a panelist And at that point people said we need to do something. So we said, yes, let's do something It was called the missing 32 percent. Some of you might have heard that statistic before where in architecture school You graduate men and women nearly 50 50, but by the time Women get to licensed professionals or owners. They're less than 18 to 12 percent in the industry and that still holds true even though we're improving slightly So we committed to Um starting this committee in ais a san francisco called the missing 32 and it became equity by design And at that point, uh, we were all gung ho that we're going to do something amazing We were looking for research and there was none out there to kind of Navigate us of what problems we were trying to solve. So we said, well, there's no research We're just going to do a research project. We had never done a research project before and I felt like I'd committed to eating a whale I don't know if anybody has heard this poem from shell silverstein about a little girl who claims she's going to eat this Big giant whale and everybody laughs at her because they say of course you can't do it Because you're this tiny little girl and there's a big fat whale So at the same time I felt chagrin about claiming we were going to eat this whale and doing this survey that we had never done before I also realized that we couldn't get there alone that we needed partners We needed people to come to the table with us to grab a fork and to eat that whale with us So if we all collectively were to solve the problem together, which we see today We're finally getting that critical mass. We're we're doing our third survey. We're hoping to reach 10,000 people We have buy-in from a lot of the ai chapters, but also university is interested in the research So we're getting to be these multiple fork holders of eating that whale We need to um, also acknowledge that at this pivotal point There was an article written by alexander lang architectures lean in moment talking about the challenges We have in architecture not being recognized for our work The eroding kind of services that we provide the fact that the community does not understand Very well what architects do and that related to this kind of challenge situation of of My whole disconnect Disenfranchisement with what I thought architecture was going to be So she said we need to create a new set of best practices that will be a design project in and of itself And then based on research and examples and interpretation And then getting partners we are going to solve the problem together So that was the aha moment of we needed to do research So in 2014 we launched the first survey. We had a group in the committee that talked about um What were the challenges in discussion? But what were those things in the course of your life as an architect from when you graduated to when you retired That could cause you to leave we started with this linear approach which talked about pinch points. So From graduation, you know finding the right fit getting the right job if you graduated during a recession You know people questioned. Well, why did you get a job in something else and then come back into architecture? You know that kind of framed whether or not you would be successful if you graduated during a boom period or a recession And a lot of people left during that 2009 recession that we're never going to get back And then there's paying your dues, which is the idea that again, we suffered through this long Apprenticeship if you will internship everybody else has to suffer with us, right? We're we're gonna make you draw bathroom details until you know The end of time until you're ready and then you're gonna take your licensing exam, right? And there was this long arduous process of taking the exam It's still a challenging but NCARB at least has acknowledged that and they've in the last five years made amazing strides to Address that pinch point which we brought out in 2014. They've got the axp program. They have got a lot of digital resources So we have seen a lot of positive things coming out of this awareness of what the challenges are The fourth pinch point is working parents which has turned into caregiving because while we started focusing on Mothers and fathers we realized that caregiving expands beyond that to self-care Caring for parents elderly loved ones your spouse etc. So it's not just caring for children And then finally the glass ceiling which talks about implicit bias issues not just for women or people of color but it could be um anything from um The fact that you have a physical disability or a mental disability etc What are the biases that are preventing people from getting the opportunities to succeed? So fast forward 2016 of we expanded the survey and its reach Into this concept of career dynamics. So career dynamics Is another layer of challenges if you will but they don't happen in this linear progression They actually could happen to you at multiple times during your career Um, they could happen at the beginning or the end. They could happen Continuously for some people unfortunately So those topics are finding the right fit um work-life integration um Sorry professional development, um beyond architecture and finally pay equity Those are things that could happen throughout your the course of your career So in 2016 we had 8664 respondents I'm going to focus on that survey finding data The 2014 is available on our website as a report work on the cusp of publishing the 2016 report in the next couple of weeks And then we're also launching the 2018 survey at the beginning of february So a lot happening, but a lot of this information will help you wrap your head around what it is that we're trying to study and get at So we had approximately 50 50 men and women take the study. We did ask the question about gender identity We didn't get that many people answering Of whether they're of another gender identity. So we only had six people and therefore we couldn't do any study We're hoping to get more people in 2018 that answer that so we could do a little bit of analysis there We also had with race and ethnicity as a new topic area. We didn't have that in 2014 But we thought that was important in studying the challenges and barriers that architects could face in their career lifetime Sadly, we only had we had an accurate representation of Who is an architecture? So you could see a lot the majority of people are In practicing architecture are white and then non-white is an accurate representation of who is in the field Again, we're trying to get more outreach to noma and other organizations representing Different race and ethnicities so The other thing that was interesting is we had more younger responders who are women and older responders who are male Some of that is trending with Who is coming into architecture? But that is also a course correction in how we Had distributed the survey to our survey partners Some of them such as encar had 4 000 people respond and they are licensed their record holders or their AXP so they're younger as a population and again self-selection bias We tried to control for that But more women were interested in the survey than men at that point We're again trying to balance it out because we're trying to reframe the fact that this is for everyone This survey is uncovering the challenges that everyone faces not just women Um And in that comparison we course correct by showing by years of experience Knowing that we have more women in the younger categories younger categories of experience answering than the elder So starting first off the top reasons for leaving your last job The biggest reason people said was better opportunities, but um, you could see that not far from that follows No promotion low pay lack of opportunities for advancement or meaningful work In the um The next category of predictors of firm culture and success and retention We found that people who thought that their values were represented and aligned with the firms that they worked at People who thought they had a seat at the table And people who felt that their work was meaningful their day-to-day work was meaningful to their long-term career goals Were more likely to stay at their jobs than people who had no preparation for professional development And also no friendships. That's something that's going to come up again and again Which we found surprising that it had such a strong influence on retention, but it actually does So another question that we asked is do you ask for um guidance? And if you do um in your day-to-day practice, who do you ask? So as far as senior leadership in my firm more men asked than women slightly and then um, non leaders someone else so peers Friends etc women slightly more than men tended to ask their peers and friends and family and then um From that information the impact though was pretty amazing. So those that did receive senior guidance a guidance from senior leaders and their positive impact you could see on Each of these trajectories whether it was better retention probability whether it was um More energized by their work whether it was work life flexibility or focus Women tended to have more even though that they were slightly less likely to ask for senior guidance when they did have a good relationship To ask for senior guidance. They were more likely to stay and and had positive attitudes overall So that shows us something that we're trying to talk to firms about which is do you have a mentorship program? Do you have access to senior leaders? There's actually two groups who are focusing on that right now one in boston and one in dc Called girl uninterrupted. So it's kind of a play on words, but it is focused on this particular finding that we brought up The next one is metrics of success and this spectrum of burnout and engagement Which is a corollary to business school findings about burnout engagement. So on that spectrum There is all these different questions that we asked the respondents from autonomy satisfaction Whether or not again meaningful work whether or not they've had a seat at the table, etc. And we found that Again more more men were answering in the first range and were thus more engaged but This was kind of an interesting spectrum in the next series of findings that you'll see So those that answered that they were more likely to be engaged in their work They believed that their day-to-day career goals men and women Were relevant again to their long-term goals And then the other thing was that they had Feedback from ongoing feedback. So not just annual reviews, but monthly or quarterly reviews Constantly from those senior leaders So those were the people that were more likely to stay those that were less likely to stay and more likely to burn out Didn't know the performance evaluation criteria in their firm, which was really important You know the promotion processes and how you get ahead. It was usually Un It was informal and it wasn't written down and then also that they didn't know They didn't have any friendships at work. That was another factor of burnout Which again seems really kind of intuitive like of course you would have friends but A lot of people have professional relationships, but they don't have strong friendships people to turn to when they have that challenge In terms of salary and pay equity We do see that there is a pay gap starting from when Um architecture students graduate All through the career, but the calzone widens as it goes forward. So from zero years of experience It is a three thousand dollar difference between men and women Debunking the theory that well, it's because you know women work less because they you know take time off to have kids or whatever it is There is some bias in there that we haven't figured out yet But we're going to get to that dig deeper in that in the next survey We did cross analyze Average salary by licensure status as well And there is a positive benefit to being licensed the people that were licensed did make more than their unlicensed counterparts Of this is cross of analyzed by race and ethnicity and gender So this actually correlates to a lot of information that's out there in business school Which is that white males make more than their Counter parts and then it tears down So people color male men of color and then white women and then women of color in that range What that correlates to is a Research finding about racial bias Not only in resumes, but in promotion processes. So How do we address those biases? How do we raise bias awareness of harvard has this implicit bias Center and they do these quizzes and workshops that help to uncover that And I think that's something that we've done workshops on and I think that's something I highly recommend that you try to integrate in your curriculum if at all possible because I think that starts not only to shape workplace attitudes but also attitudes towards our future clients and who we work with Also, the interesting thing for pay equity is an analysis across roles and firms So from principal and charge design principles Etc. Our project managers. I highlight with an arrow design principles because that is the biggest gap as you could see at approximately 30 to 40 thousand dollars difference between the two roles or between the two genders and That correlates to a creativity bias study done by duke university fuqua school of business Where they actually simulated an architects portfolio. They did five studies. The first one was having to be architects architectural portfolio They gave one group the name as a male the other group female same exact portfolio same exact resume and Both men and women rated the male Portfolio to be more creative than the female portfolio They did the same for fashion design, but there wasn't that gap. It was more equal. So this image is a google search of Architect if you type in architect, this is what you get So the biases are being reinforced not only in society through media through the internet But by ourselves as well. So how do we have that course correct for that discussion about? Making sure that we acknowledge Who the creatives are getting more women in design roles, etc. Etc. So that we can combat for that creativity bias Average salaries by caregiving status is also interesting in that it correlates to a Harvard study of dubbed That fathers make more than mothers, right? So in our study it correlates similarly where of male parents make more than their non-parent counterparts, but female parents make the least And again that brings into question the biases we have of who is supposed to be the primary caregiver And who is supposed to be the primary breadwinner traditionally When compared uh, this was an interesting question about negotiations. So when we asked if They're satisfied with their salaries. And if they weren't did they negotiate for a higher salary? And time and time again men and women less than 40 percent Negotiated less than 35 percent actually negotiated for a better condition. So that tells us something about how we're trained And the perceptions we have about negotiation being taboo, right asking for money So we started doing negotiation workshops and kind of debunking those theories of because we negotiate for our design We're very strong in our opinion about what we believe about design But when it turns into money all of a sudden we You know get a little antsy and awkward about asking for more money And that's something that if we don't ask for more money in our fees and services And lobby for our clients in change orders in the construction field Then we lose our value and we can't pay We can't afford to pay the salaries we need to pay to keep architects in the profession So it's all tied together in this whole system. How do we change that? Salary negotiating salary by number of years experience you could see This is just a more finite kind of division of Who gets paid more Assuming that the sad thing is that the females that did negotiate Still made the same or a little less than the male non negotiators at critical points in the career That was the takeaway from this particular slide So how do we again change those perceptions about women negotiating versus men negotiating as a bias Likelihood of being a principal in this case The interesting aha moment is that non white males are less likely least likely to be principles Than there are other counterparts in the profession Again, we need to do a deeper dive study into that cause And we're going to ask the same question again and see if we get the same answer in 2018 And figure out if we can figure out why Gender balance among leadership in firms the perception is that most firms are mostly male in this survey response It was validated So how do we change that and in Luckily in smith group, they're acknowledging that that is the case and they're trying to promote promote more female leaders into leadership and doing a More equitable system of promotion. So rather than having just principles promote other principles There's a kind of nomination system among peers among people you work with So opening up that nomination systems helps bring more candidates to the table as an as a way to solve the problem most of the leaders are in Principles are in smaller firms and that's true of the industry But you could see that there's more male principles in larger firms than female principles And then early versus late career perception. So this is something that you should be interested in in the things that uh the early career Respondents answered was that they had more positive outlook about their workload and their overall career optimism and their work life Balance, but they are feeling very negatively about meaningful work Their sense of involvement the seat at the table whether or not Their projects energize them and whether or not they're likely to stay at their current job and again the top correlations between Early likelihood of retention versus leaving those that were more likely to stay again had access to senior leadership One-on-one coaching that was really important and the performance evaluation criteria Knowing exactly what to expect and how to get to the next part of your career and being mentored to do so Those that felt like they were ready to leave They had no performance evaluation processes They didn't have any Friends at work and there was no preparation for additional roles And also they didn't know what the process was. So even if a firm had a promotion process They didn't know what it was. So that was even worse than not having a process, which is really weird um The value of licensure again a lot of people question whether or not licensure is Valid or whether or not you need it because you work at a larger firm somebody else stamps the drawings Why do I need a license? It's a lot of Challenge to go through the process and get there. What is it worth right? Trying to figure that out a lot of people's the top reasons people got licensed in our survey It was the ability to call themselves an architect The ability to practice independently If they chose to start their own practice and then a heightened sense of professional standards um, again as you could see for licensure the The biggest challenges were long hours of the high cost of licensure lack of rewards and The difficulty of the re's and other life challenges, right? So the lesson learned here was As soon as you're as soon as you graduate as early as you can Or even with the new program where you start taking the exams in school where they start offering that there's certain um Universities that have collaborated with n carb to offer exams during the time that you're in school to cut down on that What if time because the later it gets in life happens The more challenges come up and the less likely you are to get licensed But we have found the that there are corollaries between the importance of licensure and career success in our respondents Oh, this is an interesting one. So we're going to shift to work life Um, we asked the question. I have do you have time to pursue? your interest outside of work and It was kind of interesting to see those that thought that they did Believed that again their day-to-day work had a relevance to their career goals And that they saw that their firm leaders were actually taking the time off that they were walking the talk That that wasn't just a policy you have work life flex, but they're doing it too so they could model it And then those that said they didn't have enough time to do their work didn't know Of what the performance evaluation criteria was in their firm. So they were kind of afraid to you know, take time off They worked more than 44 hours a week and Again, there was no work life flex policies in place to help them manage that time off When asked What if you had a challenge with work life flexibility? Where did you take the hit? On your professional side or on your personal side and as you can see here Overwhelmingly most people took the hit on the personal side of their lives Rather than taking it on the professional side, whether it was health or personal relationships. What have you? Whether and then the interesting shift for childcare as you could see is Again back to that idea of primary caregiver More women of our respondents answered that they were the primary caregiver versus the men and even to You know the newborn birth of a child the difference between one and three days Of the male respondents versus the three months of the women responding And how that correlates again back to the salaries of caregivers, right? So there's all these structural things happening and challenges How do we create policies that are equitable to support families and to support mothers coming back to work whether it's The you know the lactation room or whether it's a ramping on or ramping off process That allows flexible work to happen whether it's technology that allows computers to go home And to be able to log into the server So we're brainstorming all these things at smith group But also there's other firms doing that as well So Perkins and will these larger firms are trying to pave the way to solve these challenges that we're highlighting So a lot of information I only gave you kind of the tasting menu The full video of all the findings because you'd fall asleep right now Is online and at our website eqx design.com and again it has I'd say 75 of the findings the full findings book will come out in the next two to three weeks And they do the deep dive into the pay equity We talk about temporal flexibility the perception of butts in seats that you're only as valuable as The time that somebody can physically see you in the office Versus the value that you could create by being out there hitting the pavement Making new client relationships Coming up with new ways to practice architecture. So how do we shift the value system of I see you you're valuable. I don't see you you're not valuable, right? Big questions We're going to shift the discussion to why our equity matters beyond architecture. So we heard from the census report the us census report that by 2045 the majority population in the u.s. Will be actually Under represent today's underrepresented Race and ethnicities. So I have this diagram kind of representing that idea That scares a lot of people. We're seeing that kind of play itself out now today in our politics The immigration debate Who has The right to education who has the right to opportunities and resources That's coming to a head right now. Whereas two years before nobody believed that We're dealing with we're still dealing with racism that we're still dealing with sex sexism You know, those were kind of what do you mean? Those things are gone And now all the sudden is the scary realization that those things aren't gone and that we have to be even more present in these discussions So how does that affect architecture? It affects the places that we live and the resources that we have access to Whether it's schools, whether it's housing whether it's The distance that you drive from your job where you can And the house where you can afford to live that distance is becoming a longer and longer commute for many people Who can't afford to live ironically in the cities that they work in? so There's an amazing resource called the equity atlas that talks about the power and the potential of If we could again minimize barriers to maximize the potential for success We would create this economic prosperity groundswell. So more people being prosperous would create a stronger economy and therefore feedback into it Health and life expectancy. So this was really startling to me realizing that the zip code that you live in could affect The you know number of years that you're expected to live and again Because certain people couldn't afford to live in a certain area or other people had to live in an area where there was more toxins between like five I think nine years difference if you could see and it's not even like a 10 mile difference in northerlands And then even between the different race and ethnicities there was this study done that was on mother jones about the nitrogen of dioxide pollution in our In our air, right and again where we live Of why equity matters for basic human needs? This has been a debate, but it's also an opportunity of the all gender restrooms whether it's a law whether it's We can't do anything because the code tells us we can't We see this as an opportunity for architects to be problem solvers in designing bathrooms that aren't based on gender But are based on size or resource or need There's this woman named us first Berber in york who did a video about bathrooms by size so How do we create different sizes of bathrooms to address not just transgender folks, but also Caregivers for those of the opposite gender Those parents with multiple gendered kids, right? So all different people need different things How do we address that with that's a design problem that we as architects can solve and be the leaders of Where is the and then why equity matters for mothers and families? Where's the support and dignity for what we expect of mothers if you know We're to continue with our population growth. We have to continue with our population growth because that supports the economy However, we don't support mothers and families. We shame them when they are publicly breastfeeding We don't provide resources for them when they're coming back to work to be able to just support their families and There's this kind of divide even with those that are seniors There's not a lot of safety resources for them in public areas. So at night We expect those that are you know, young or old or frail or weak to be home and not in the streets You know, because it's not safe. Why is that when in certain other cultures? It's safe to be out at night in the public square because everybody's out there and that's part of the culture, right? How can we learn from that? Finally a really fascinating thing is about why equity matters for humanity designing justice and and designing spaces is a project by diana van vuren an architect out of oakland california who is challenging the justice system and restorative justice and whether or not prisoners can be rehabilitated using Design to improve their current spaces, but also give them a way to communicate their creativity, but also Their their ideas about what house space can positively influence them in becoming better citizens once they leave So she's doing amazing work there with workshops Helping them communicate with these collages, etc about dignified spaces because the amazing thing also is that There was this TED talk from a former prisoner Saying that the most violent things in prison wasn't the other prisoners wasn't the the officers It was the walls Right, so mental health lack of access to air You know, we talk about this all the time in architecture that we need air light views Biophilic design that that's inherent in who we are as humans and we deny that to prisoners Just because yes, they did something wrong But there's an inhumanity in the spaces that they're expected to live in right while they're supposed to be rehabilitated Finally teaching the next generation so hip-hop architecture is a thing There is a gentleman professor by the name of Michael Ford Who has written a book about the history of urban development and its effects on Underrepresented populations namely african-americans He talks about chicago. He talks about la corbusier and the kind of fail failings of the projects if you will and the listening of The lyrics in hip-hop architecture talk about those inhumane conditions And where they live and the outcomes of that The violence so as kind of a twist on that he's trying to use hip-hop which is the language the vernacular of the students and their communities And leveraging that to turn it into a positive thing about them becoming designers or the creators of their own environment How do you switch this kind of disinterest in architecture because it hurts them? It is something that motivates them and helps them solve their own problems And he's been on the today's show. He's done a TEDx talk So highly recommend if you can get him to come here Is very inspiring and he's done a bunch of camps this summer with auto desk And he's continuing into the next season in 2018 so Lot of information Our group equity by design hosts the symposium every year This year it will be in san francisco november 3rd what Knowing this information is half the battle but getting everybody together to talk about and again problem solve eating that whale is the other half So we do workshops. We connect with people across the industry, not just women but men as well We come up with strategies where we ask people to commit to Whatever their passion is what one little bite of the whale they're going to take And commit to that for the year and again, it's kind of exploded into what people are willing to do within their firms Within their communities as citizen architects, etc and then this was one of the kind of 3d Fruitions of those commitments kind of stacked together in this eems house of cards That was also architectural and part of the design creativity of the group Hackathon is something that we've been doing For the last four years. How many people know what a hackathon is? Great, awesome. So we've taken the silicon valley model of design thinking and we've Turned it on its head to solve these challenges. We have an architectural practice. We do a four hour workshop at the ai conference We're going to do it again in new york city This so i'll send out the information if anybody's interested. It's actually free this year of They used to charge for it But we were able to negotiate it to be free so that students could go and young professionals And that's the key to the success is we have a diverse group of people that go It's a way to get strangers together to solve these problems. They come up with a business pitch They pitch to venture capitalists and We haven't gone to the next step, which is actually funding the winning idea But we're trying to get there so each year it gets better and better and Each alumni class that attends writes blog posts about what they learned So we have that on our website if anybody's interested in the learnings of the hackathons So finally, there's a couple recommendations like what can we do to be change agents for these challenges we have One is to support the research not only to read the research but to share it talk about it Share the findings figure out how you when you get into practice measure up to it Um, if it's not working make changes and measure again and then reassess and repeat As far as the meaning in our careers, how do we get that? How do we maintain that making connections? Those friendships that were so vital to engagement Make a concerted effort not just to be friends with the people that you naturally gravitate towards but people who are completely unlike you in diversity of background of ethnicity of socioeconomic class Because that's where we get the richest connections if you will people who would never be friends with become our best friends and Our lives are so much better because of it embrace technology I know a lot of you are digital natives, so I don't have to worry about you But I tell this to the practitioners because they're definitely afraid of technology and twitter But that's actually where we're making a groundswell of movement and facebook and linkedin and connecting all the architects to talk about all these challenges together and again brainstorm and create new initiatives The the mentorship is so important as we've seen with the senior guidance and the influence and the positive influence Seek a mentor be a mentor and cultivate mentorship not only now But in your through the out the lifetime of your career Engage with communities. This is something that's really important that we take for granted We are part of a community, but we don't Share the architecture part with our communities and I'm trying to do that more so I volunteered for My daughters The the board of ed they're building a bunch of new projects for their school system so I volunteered to be a peer reviewer to help them set standards and interview the people that come in and want to be architects or Contractors for these projects because that's important because otherwise there would be no design I there's a group of parents that are architects engineers, etc that believe so much that we We need better schools, but we can't get better schools unless we are involved in the process So whatever you feel passionate about in your community. I know work takes up a lot of time But that critical part is also how you create value and people you get projects that way eventually Is by having those community connections and even serving and You know running for office. That's something that's a big theme right now Whether it's small and it's the board of ed whether it's the council town council start small right Get involved in that lower dimension and then build your way up Finally matrices again connecting with people all over the world through twitter, but they're strengthened numbers and If we're all committed as we saw last week with the women's march and If you saw the new york times article and they had photos from all over the world They had ant arctica. They had Europe they had asia It was amazing to see the number of people who came out With the belief of trying to improve our values and and improving our world together So I think we're in this groundswell movement right now that we can kind of catch the wave and make positive change Finally, um, this is again just a look ahead at what's coming up in 2012. We have the survey Um, next month we have a lot of conference activities and workshops And we're again trying to do scholarships and make as many of those events affordable To students and young architects and then finally our symposium Which will be the big reveal at the end of the year with the survey findings. Hopefully 10 000 plus from 2018 So eat the whale big fork There's a divide in the road You have to pick a side. You know how to pick a side is just kind of a joke But I thought the fork was kind of funny of one of the uh, the people at the march And there's my daughter with her cat hat I'm trying to instill in her all the things that I'm talking about walking the talk. Thank you I'm usually much faster, but I'm kind of slow today. So sorry it took an hour any questions Or discussions I think we're staying the course. Um, we've always had a very balanced Way of looking at things. It's not one sided. We equity is for everyone And we truly believe that and it's that minimizing barriers to maximize potential for success And that's not gendered and that's not race Polarization, right So we we stick to the that core and we hope that people come in for the conversation We create that safe space to be able to have that conversation because We want people to be heard and we can't say that we hear everyone if we believe only a certain Way we can be mad Of certain values not living up to our standards and we can speak out loudly for what we believe those standards to be But we can't exclude anybody from the conversation Yes, that was me. Sorry. Thank you We're very thankful for that participation It's for architecture schools. Yes, and there's been a lot of Discussion on twitter and social media of people that think that this has nothing to do with architecture right But again, I I think I was trying to highlight in the in the presentation that it has everything to do with architecture because Architecture is for people right architecture is social I think sometimes we forget that because we're so fascinated by the forms we create We forget about the people occupying them and whether or not they find them meaningful and functional and inspiring But we have to kind of reroute ourselves and yes architecture is for people And if we have that idea then At the at the design table People ask well, how what's the difference? What is equitable design right? Well equitable design is getting more voices at the table and we have technology to help us do that People could say well that takes too much time or too much money But we can use survey monkey. We use survey monkey to get 10 000 voices or trying to There's different software and apps that are coming out and people are being very creative The the tech sector is developing a lot of these at crowdsource aggregating Opinions and design, you know for design So we should leverage those to get more voices at the table and say yes, that's another a new way to do things right yes Okay, this is this is pretty funny because one was uh Speaking in front of crowds and presenting at client presentations, right the pitch They I would stumble and I would get really nervous and start shaking and forget what I had to say and they wouldn't want to take me and At a point that the flip was I started talking about things that I was Committed and passionate about and I also had to practice so it wasn't just One day you get good at something right what take whatever discomfort thing skill set thing you don't like about architecture Uh or will not like about architecture and try to turn it on its head so People and I noticed things that people didn't like to do and I always and I didn't like to do them either But I challenged myself to do those things because that created value So people didn't like to do specifications. I said well now I'm going to learn specs People didn't like to do this construction administration processes So I learned how to do that not only learned how to do it, but also advance it technology wise To say how can we do it better? How could we do it faster so that we have less time doing the boring Data crunching things and more that's for you know the machine learning and the AI helps but how can we save our precious time to have the meaningful conversations about How design affects people right and those interactions right so in each case and in my new role at smith group I am a principal and I'm It's part of my role is to get work right so again a lot of people are deathly afraid of going out making the cold call meeting strangers Proposing the value proposition of why you should get hired over somebody else And that's a skill set that I was determined to learn and and overcome You know over time So there's a bunch of things that if you find if you have your laundry list think of it as a bucket list of discomfort And one by one find people that feel uncomfortable with you and then challenge each other and try to kind of pick those things off the list Does that help? Okay And I watched a lot of youtube videos about public speaking Yes and no so They come out of the woodwork, which is great. Some of them actually come back very successfully and re-engage with architecture. So they amplify their message by Showing other people it can be done. So an example of that is jamie anderson who worked for the national gallery She was an architect, but then she ended up doing exhibit design for the national gallery And then certain things happened in her career She got caught on to our movement and then she went back into architecture as a specialist for Cultural projects for smith group, you know, because it was in dc and that worked out And in this past year she got promoted to principal. So that is one of the amazing comeback stories that I like to tell I do like to tell those stories, but there's not as many of those Because again, they're a lot of them are already kind of in their in their career path or whatever wherever they are It's harder for them to jump back in there have been a couple that have tried to jump back in With different degrees of success and we still try to encourage them to keep trying They really want to get back in there's this woman who graduated and had four kids and Was like halfway through her exams Then dropped out of architecture entirely for 20 years then came back took all her exams passed them all learned Revit learned autocad worked did Like 99 of her hours for idp and then somehow dropped off the face of the earth So i'm still trying to find her and say you just have to finish that 2 of hours and you're going to be a licensed architect Right, but life happens. So we try to be the cheerleaders for those people as well, but it is harder after a certain point Yes, it helps. Yeah. Yes, and it's not just the numbers. I think We all tend to fall and get fixated on the numbers but it's actually the The classes that we have The awareness of the issues like having the coursework the curriculum that has implicit bias discussions negotiation, right? Being able to provide faculty tenure faculty faculty positions to more Diverse people right whether it's race ethnicity, etc That represent the thoughts of different people versus just Skin deep, right so But very very admirable that yes, they're actually starting A specific survey for Architecture school. Yes Yeah, so we're excited about that development as well and they came up with You know how there's cards against humanity They came up with cards for equity. So I think that's coming out and it's yeah, they were advertising it that they had published the beta form. So