Diversity Committee

Promote the value associated with engaging diversity as an essential component of firm culture.

Goals

-          Understand Barriers to Women and Minority Progress
-          Raise Awareness of Diversity Issues
-          Provide Education, Mentoring and Support to our students through professionals
-          Review and implement the guidelines and recommendations of the AIA National Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Commission Document. 

committee co-chairs

Gwen Howard
Kristie Gerace

Committee Members

Lesley Loo
Shannon Phillips
Nancy Redeye
Timothy Rider
Rishawn Sonubi
Timothy Ung
Ed Watts

FRIENDS OF DIVERSITY

Gender Institute
AIA National Diversity Council
BEAM - Melissa Delmonte
NOMAS – Local Chapter
NOMAS – NYC Chapter
NOMA
AIA Women’s Leadership Summit
ECC Architecture Technology

related links and documents

Diversity in the Profession of Architecture – Executive Summary 2016
AIA National Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives – May 2016
An overview of gender and ethnic diversity in the professions of architecture and planning
Equity by Design (EQxD)
Why equity is good for your practice

At the October 8, 2019 Diversity Symposium “Diversity Breeds Success, A discussion with Payette”, hosted by the AIA Buffalo/WNY, our guests from Payette mentioned several websites and resources during their presentation.  As a follow up, we have secured links to all those resources, which are included below.  We hope that you enjoyed the symposium and can use these resources promote equity at your firms, businesses or future firms.  Thank you to Sarah Lindenfeld, Andrea Love and George Marsh of Payette for sharing Payette’s journey with us.

Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
100 things: https://www.3percentmovement.com/resources/100-things

We used this list as a resource to create our first EDI goals list

Parlour Guides to Equitable Practice: https://archiparlour.org/parlour-guides/
AIA EDI Statement: https://www.aia.org/resources/24301-equity-diversity-and-inclusion
AIA Guides for Equitable Practice: https://www.aia.org/resources/6076046-guides-for-equitable-practice?editing=true

 General equity articles (not architecture-specific):

https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2017/03/30/colleges-need-language-shift-not-one-you-think-essayhttps://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/ambition-office-women/523443/https://hbr.org/2016/03/women-and-minorities-are-penalized-for-promoting-diversity

 JUST label: https://living-future.org/just/ 

membership

The Diversity Committee welcomes all to participate in its activities. We also highly recommend that you become a member of the American Institute of Architects.

The Diversity Committee works to help students considering architecture as a profession at the high school level as well as a cohort that are currently in college at UB SAP and need support staying in the program. We know that promoting diversity is important to you and hope that you would consider serving as a mentor to a student in one of these groups.

We are looking for mentors for these students:

Hutch Tech High School: These students are entering their senior year, in a dedicated architecture/engineering four-year concentration. They are all from underrepresented groups in the profession. They are considering architecture school. You can make this experience what you would like it to be. Talk about what school is like, look at their portfolio if they need one, help them understand what they are in for and mentally prepare. If you get to know the student well, possibly write a letter of recommendation if you are so inclined. The time commitment might be an hour a month (or more if you want to, or more now and less after college applications are submitted). Our committee worked with these students previously on career presentations and design projects and they asked to have a mentor so that they could learn more and hopefully get into architecture school.

UB School of Architecture: UB has developed a multi-tiered mentoring program in cooperation with the AIA. These students have taken or are currently taking mentorship training and have been paired with other students entering the program. They will be working with these students, helping them stay in school and navigate this challenging program. In exchange, student mentors are paired with a professional mentor as they begin to navigate graduation and job seeking.

Thank you for considering this very, very fulfilling opportunity. If you’re interested, please reach out via email to Gwen Howard at GHoward@foit-albert.com.