Redesigning Professional Practice

A What if you could start a movement to change the bill's environment? How would you help the architectural community come up with new ways to build a better world where people come together to live, work, and play in elegant buildings made of cutting edge sustainable materials? Stop dreaming. That opportunity is real, and it's at the American Institute of Steel Construction. They're looking for creative architects to reimagine the way our profession approaches structural steel by developing a program to help us harness structural with innovation today and tomorrow?

B Learn more at aisc.org/architecture. That's to

C aisc.org/architecture?

B I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry of architecture is changing?

A Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to the current challenges while elevating the value of architects? Welcome to Practice Disrupted. Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine.

B Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. Over the last 2 years, I've been working with a group of professionals from across the country through the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards on a program called the scholars of professional practice? This is a dedicated group focused on ensuring that educators teaching professional practice in architecture programs Have access to the resources they need to help students succeed? The NCARB scholars and professional practice program is a multi day intensive professional development opportunity? Help annually by NCARB, the event has been hosted at colleges and universities across the country. Professional practice courses are an essential part of architectural education. During these courses, students learn critical skills that will prepare them for a career in architecture, including project management, business management, how to understand and apply laws and regulations, and how to navigate professional ethics? As we'll discuss in this episode, the teaching of professional practice varies widely across architecture programs. Accredited programs may only have a single course covering this broad spectrum of content, and faculty assigned to the course can vary widely in their tenure and experience? That's why professors teaching this course find this cohort environment so rewarding. It's a chance to come together and discuss the curriculum that they teach, the coursework, the challenges, and the opportunities. Last year, I traveled to Stillwater, Oklahoma to join 16 professional practice professors, the NCARB staff, and my cofacilitators at the 2022 program.

B Today, I've invited 2 participants from the 2022 program on the show to help us kick off a new series within the podcast focused on speaking with professional practice professors about the business education of architects?

A We're thrilled to welcome Karen Williams and Nilu Vakil on the show as our first to visiting professors of professional practice? Anticipate more to follow. Karen joins us from the University of Oregon School of Architecture to an environment and works for Pivot Architecture in Eugene, Oregon?

B Anilo joins us from the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Design and as a principal architect at in situ design and international practice? Welcome to the show. We are so thrilled to have you guys here to help us kick off this series.

D Hi. Thanks for having me. Karen Williams as mentioned, and I'm really excited to join you here from Eugene, Oregon. I've been teaching professional practice for the last 10 years for the university, and I've been practicing for about 18 years. Originally graduating from Florida A&M University, it was a surprise to me to have the opportunity through teaching Revit to then have the opportunity to teach professional practice? And why'd they pick me? Because I have the ability to wrangle a big crowd of a 130 plus students, and it's So fun to teach them about the exciting springboard into the practice.

C And I'm Nidi Kiel, I'm very excited to be here joining Karen and Evelyn and Janine on this podcast. I am a female immigrant architect from the Middle East? And it is just a unique situation and a position to be teaching professional practice, which It's typically not taught by a person that has my identities. I'm also a principal architect at Institute Design, which we Work on a lot of housing projects, civic projects, and community based design. I joined KU School of architecture and design in 2017 as a full time faculty member where I established a program called interior architecture and design. This was a parallel to the architecture program, which draws a lot of similarities in the profession. We work hand in hand together, And that program also required, professional practice. So I ended up starting to teach this course in 2019 And changed it quite a bit because the way it was taught was very different than not what my vision was. So The reason I'm I'm teaching this is because I'm trying to insert some of the values that I think that are missing in the profession and need to be part of the profession into this course? And I also think that, like Karen, I can wrangle a class of 100 students and successfully stand in front of them and talk about some of the deficiencies that we have in the profession and the ethical issues in the profession?

B I think that's actually why I picked both of you to be our 1st guests On this series is because I noticed in learning about the curriculum that you're both teaching, You've approached this differently and you've looked at it with fresh eyes. First of all, you both work in practice, but also I think that you're You're really considering what are the new shifts that we need to be introducing to students to have a longer term impact on transformation in the profession? And so I thought we could talk today about that and talk today about the evolving nature of professional this and how we might possibly catch up and hopefully positively shape the business education for future architects? So why are you interested in teaching business education and professional practice? Why is this important to you?

C So my interest in teaching the business of our profession is driven by this holistic View of the architectural education and just a commitment to empowering the next generation of architects architects to be able to rapidly adapt themselves to all the issues that we're facing in the future? So just as I mentioned with the different identities that I Al, as a woman architect and immigrant, I think and a Middle Eastern immigrant, I think those are sort of the complexities that I would like to instill in the students those cultural competencies that typically are not brought forward in the business of the profession? I think the profession, it stems from a very Eurocentric, notion of there is one way to run a business? There's the apprentice, and then there's the there's the lead of the firm, the person who draws in the back of the napkin, and everybody else needs to make it happen, Which is very much the way I practice architecture when I was an intern and working as a junior architect too. I still currently See that in what I do or what I see around me, helping students actually navigate this kind of stuff. So so just having that vision of getting students prepared to facilitate and to design for a bigger audience And also understanding that a business is also has its own challenges. I mean, what we teach here It's really about the business of architecture, but it comes with the complexities of ethical issues, sustainability issues. Whether we, you know, choose a neighborhood Or work in a neighborhood that is being gentrified can be really changed the course of how we practice and educate our clients. Those are the issues that I really care about and wanted to make a difference in the architectural education at least to the capacity that I have? That was my interest originally.

D I'm not sure I can really pinpoint the one place where my interest in teaching professional practice came from. My professional practice instructor, professor Valerie Goodwin, back at Florida A&M, Provided us with a space for us to understand what firms look like. But in reality, when I graduated from school, I knew nothing about of firms themselves really functioned? And it wasn't that she did a disservice in the way that she set up the course. It was just more that When I got into practice, there was no one that looked like me, and so I didn't really mention my identity characteristics. I find that I don't necessarily lead with that because when I enter a room, they hear me before they see me. And so I am a black woman architect, and I hail from England. And so my lens about the international lens about practice is still delivered to me through from a American perspective Is one that I feel like you wanna have a global lens as people springboard into the profession because we're not creating buildings for 1 person? We're creating buildings for communities. And so what's important to me is for people to understand a bit more about how they should Facilitate connecting with communities and connecting with people and humanizing architecture.

D I think we talk a lot in architecture school about the buildings themselves, but not the people that are gonna be living within them and living around them? And so we're not always we're we talk about it, But we're zoomed out from the value that is created in creating not just good buildings, but also Being reasonable professionals and that really just there's so many layers to that. And so my interest in teaching this class Really came from the person who hired me and just said, you you are the right type of person to teach this course. And then as I have evolved over the last 10 years, what I realize is that I have the opportunity as a voice, as a black woman standing in front of a room of a 100 plus students to provide some of them with the opportunity to see someone who looks like them stand in front of the room, but also to provide them a lens that is open to dialogue. I'm open to conversation about this profession, open to where you you yourself might want to take it, and then Willing to discuss the experiences that I've had.

B One of the pieces of conversation that we had in the 2022 program was The idea that professional practice is such a small part of an architect's education, and yet it's it's meant to Fill all of these learning objectives of transitioning from academia into practice and then being a competent Project manager and negotiator and person that understands all the fine responsibilities of an architect in in their professional realm? I wanted to kinda just pause and talk about what is required in professional practice so that you can help us understand all the things that you all are responsible for teaching?

D It might be a good time for us to actually just both Throw out some thoughts because we have to teach everything. The requirements, it's it is really interesting that this course is one that many curriculums Push the course to the end of the time that students are in university, and it is something that should be more of a foundation To allow them to better understand what they're getting themselves into? I think that's the the biggest question mark for a lot of students is I I I didn't realize that the profession was going to be like this. So we have to teach them a variety of understanding about business, Teams, project management, finances. I don't touch on codes. Some of the courses touch on codes. What else what else do you teach?

C I teach contracts, so the AIA contracts are a big part of what I teach. And along with what you said, You know, the management, financing, staffing, how to actually get a project, how to present yourself as a professional. How do you run a firm if you have 5 people or if you have 50 people? You know? What are the differences in the scaling of, the business of architecture. And just pulling from my experience, they're really 2 different, monsters. You know? They're both really different from each other, and they're really both. They need their own way of management and financing. So the requirements are a lot. And now we have If you have if you're teaching in an accredited program, that's also adds the ethical issues of architecture within us.

C So the way we have renamed our program ethics and or the course ethics and leadership and professional practice, so just ethics, leadership, professional practice, that By itself is really 4 years of granulated teaching that happens in 3 credit course as Karen mentioned, and For us, it's 4th year. And I don't know. Every institution does it a little bit differently, but typically at the end of their education. So there's a lot of requirement. And these days, I think last year, there was one added layer of really addressing diversity issues into the profession within that, which also has to be aggregate part of everything that we do and everything we teach? That became an added layer. Yeah.

D Which the equity issues or equity, diversity, inclusion lens is kind of like is an additive that is not Not defined by how you teach it or what you teach. And I think the interesting thing for the 2 of us is that We we can we can lead with our own identities when we teach these topics and with our own experiences. And so what when we go to have conferences to Talk about for professional practice teachers, some people are not really sure how do you even lead in to those discussions, and I think that's Been quite interesting as the NAAB requirement have evolved. Exactly.

A I wanna say listening to you list list off things is both so much, but also so little, like, in so many ways because I feel like A lot of what Janine and I also talk about is kind of this expanding nature of practice too. Right? So it's it's not How do we just run our firms? But it's also what stones are we not turning over as firm leaders that we should be turning over to look at expanding and increasing the value? So how are you guys seeing you alluded to it a little bit with the addition of, like, equity, but It is 1 you know, how are you seeing the institutions evolve, the list of requirements that you Have to teach too, but also how have you seen the change? And, Karen, you said you've been doing this for, like, 10 years now out of, like, what the students are misaddressed and learning about 2 out of 1 hour seminar?

D So I should give you a bit more details about my course itself. So my course is twice weekly for a 10 week term? So I don't have a 15 week semester, which is typical. So at 10 weeks, really 9 because their last week of the of their Our term is not a week where they have regular coursework. So 9 weeks with 2 hour lectures Twice a week. And then in addition to that, they have a 1 hour discussion section, which is an opportunity for the graduate educators to draw out more dialogue for the discussions that have started in the lecture? So those are lecture courses. And The thing that I see evolving and the thing that I see that most students are interested in is equity, diversity, and inclusion. But I usually tag that to the be the later part of the course. And right now, I have added it to be around the same week where I talk about ethics? Because from a lens of ethics and the right and wrong and what's considered to be moral, it has been really helpful for me to have that foundation in place and And then to allow people to press on their own comfort zones to talk through equity, diversity, and inclusion.

D And I find students get very excited around those topics. I think some students perceive architecture to be not really any different than someone managing and owning a business, which is Quite true. Though most architecture professionals never go to business school. So we don't get the foundational lens about how to run a practice. You run it by Observing someone else doing it? We don't teach them all of these topics, I believe we introduce them to these topics so that they have a framework to have a discussion that is educated about Utilizing these terms, the terms as in project management, leadership, business practice, business finance, they have these terms, and then they better understand them once they have the example of moving into the profession?

C Yeah. I completely agree. That's That's a very high level of interest that the students have. I also noticed that the evolution of teaching The course has fallen slightly behind the evolution of what the practice is doing. I think we're still stuck in This sort of idea of, oh, you know what? What is the principal in a firm does, and how much do they get paid, and what's their hourly rate, and how is the the hourly rate of an intern, but that's really not the conversation that and the introduction level needs to happen. And I agree with Karen that this is not we we are only introducing these topics for more of an educated conversation, not necessarily getting deep into them. I think When I asked the questions, how do you see yourself in 10 years or 5 years? Do you see yourself getting licensed or not, and why not, and what's happening with that? Majority of the students wanna start their own business. They're like, oh, I'm gonna be out of school.

C I'm gonna start my own business. There is a level of naivete in that that is actually fresh, at the same time scary to me? And I appreciate that because I think everybody wants to have that independent, You know, life of decision making as it aligns with their with their values and aligns with their interest. But at the same time, we know that in our profession, You cannot get license or even stamp a drawing without having that, you know, deep understanding of what, you know, how to coordinate with a structural engineer or, you know, the the exams that we take in AXPs? So all of that is part of that. So I do appreciate the naivety, but at the same time, I think I've become sort of a break for them that says, wait a minute. No. You won't be able to run a successful firm without having that education or the discussion or the conversation or really finding yourself where you are in the profession? Because we they all have this nostalgic idea of, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, build buildings, but we know that Some people have to do bathroom details for 3 years before even they get to, you know, sit in front of a client or do any of that. That's a reality of our profession? So the evolution of the education has fallen behind the profession. And, so often we See really talented designers and talented architects not being able to use that talent because they are just not familiar with the business of architecture? So that evolution, those 2 need to align.

C And I think as institutions and the associations like, You know, NCARB, and NAB, and all of that, we need to sort of come together, which we're trying, you know, with the scholars with the scholars program that that we have. That's that was a fantastic way of bringing those challenges close into the perspective to address them, or at least have a discussion about it.

B I think it's a good point that this is really a 1 on 1 class and an introductory class. So often I hear in practice, People point to professional practice and say, ma'am, we didn't learn this in that class, but I hadn't really thought about it as a one on one. You're right. And so I guess that makes me wonder, do you think that professional practice should be expanded? Are there things that you wish you could fit into your curriculum, but you just don't have space for? And if so, what is that? In what ways do you think that we could expand the education around these topics to better support future architects?

C I have an answer for that, which I'll share, and maybe that helps us A little bit with deepening that conversation. I think what I like to see first of all, expansion is great, But also we know that a lot of universities are really trying to reduce the number of credits that the students are taking. That's very, very much a trend? And we're becoming more and more specific and single dimensional about what we teach or how we approach our majors. I really want to see more cultural competencies integrated into the professional practice because if you have that skill of being able to relate to humanity, to your clients, to the neighborhood that you're practicing in, to engage, the residents of your environment and the context that you're designing in, that involvement and engagement Needs a cultural competency and a curiosity that is maybe not there. We are not teaching that or there's no space for us to teach that Because we have the checklist of I have to do this and I have to teach that and the legal issues and the, you know, the finances and the management and all of that, which I'm not sure if it's if it could be something that is within that course, but also, realistically, I think that cultural competency has to be Exactly integrated within everything they teach in architectural education. It's not just about 1 course, but how can we talk about the ethics of what we do within the framework of cultural competencies because that is what gets us jobs or bring repeated clients back or People starting to trust you to design something for them that serves them instead of being sort of a an egoistic Process. So I think that part of it is missing from the conversation of business and professional practice.

D Yeah. I very much agree. I've observed that it's interesting the amount of content that we have to teach in the professional practice class. It's interesting what the students want to hear about. It's interesting what people find to be the most important in their curriculum and in the courses that they teach. IE's Design Studio, I think that's a collective. But when it comes to the actual practicum, the component that is going to allow you to be professionals, Less time is put and attention is put into that piece. I would envision that we would have A course that teaches students the foundation of how to present themselves, portfolios, resumes, so on and so forth, so that then it's not necessarily also still in the professional practice course? But I'd also like to see The integration of professional practice into the studio courses.

D So I think what Nilu was just speaking about when it comes to cultural competency, A lot of design studios extend their coursework into the community, but they don't necessarily think about the ripple effects of getting the community excited about an opportunity or creating something without having a natural budget behind it? So often, design studios will take a project into a community and say, we're gonna build you a new art, fill in the blank. Like, fill in the blank, not an art anything. Right? So we're gonna give you a new fill in

C the blank.

D And They get the community around it. They get their opinions. They get their thoughts. But in the end, the deliverable is just a poster board. The deliverable is not actually turning that thing into an actual project, providing an infill into a gap, into something that the community is seeking? And so we think it would be nice for the professional practice course and components of it to be inserted better into the overall curriculum? That's what I'd like to see. In addition to that, something else that I'm noting, and And I don't know where we're gonna be able to fit that in this conversation, so I'm saying it now, is that my observation of looking at the people who are teaching professional practice courses Is that their age is quite, quite removed from the students that they are teaching. So, they Are very much reflecting on a time when they might have used ammonia to copy sheets of paper and make blueprints. And the 1st time that their office had a catheter, but distinctly right now, students are moving into an environment that has chat gbt.

D Might not even have said that right. Right? So they're using leaning into a system where someone could talk to their phone and say, How do you design me this building? And the computer creates it, like creates a list. It's a completely different timeline, And we need to talk more about the value of us as professionals and have room to talk about that, and also to just envision what the future looks like. I think we talk so much about the past? We use all of these historic context, historic books because the profession takes so long to change that In the now, when we're thinking about who they're gonna be in the future, we don't have room to teach them who they're gonna be as future techs.

A Continuing on with that line of thinking, Karen, you're obviously in deeper conversations with NCARB and ACSA. How responsive are they just literally to kind of the last few sentences that you you ran through and and The need for the curriculum to evolve, kind of where professional practice shows up in the curriculum, and then also how it adapts to a more contemporary landscape?

D So I think some of the The the evolution of practice, the the modifications to the curriculum specific to ACSA, And NCARB's lens about testing and supporting candidates so that people can move towards licensure, They're all interlaced into one another. So years ago, this is like 8, 10 years ago now, I was on a committee, Equity committee that was putting together equity guides and really from a board lens making a decision to commit to equitable practice. So that spearheaded a variety of other changes and protocols and preferences that were exuded by the board. And then that somehow took hold, and then all of these different bodies are now proliferating that throughout those different organizations? So ACSA has put out a variety of different papers specific to where are all the different black Kendall wrote these. Where are the different Black architects, Asian architects, Hispanic architects, really just thinking about a lens of why are all of these different racial ethnic groups not being drawn to the profession, and that has been something that is continuously shown as a lens in not only NCARBS by the numbers, but also what NOMA has extended with their belonging campaign that they did within CARB? Each group has tagged on to a lens that equity is important to the profession. What I'm still seeking to completely understand Is how do we get people to actively commit to functionally not just saying, oh, yes. We need more diversity. We need more diversity.

D But what are the action items that we're gonna take? If the profession is more inviting to people, they will be a part of the profession. Professional practice is an opportunity for us to ground students, ground future candidates of ARE Into understanding that they're designing buildings and designing spaces for people, and when they move into the profession, They're working with teams. Like, they're working with humans. We're no longer just master architects working by ourselves. We have Other humans that are accountable to each other. And so it's it's interesting to see the new conditions that NAV created, which has been a ripple To now there's, like, a requirement for equity and diversity and inclusion throughout the entire university program system as a whole, But also specific to how that program is responding to those conditions. How are you making your university and your program inviting to people and supporting them as they make their way through the profession? Very interesting to see. Encared by the numbers, it's just really interesting to see that that the the different numbers of candidates in multiethnic racial groups and gender.

D That I think 20 years ago, that content was also important. But at least with you're seeing the numbers and you can track the numbers, It makes people accountable to something. So, all of them are doing something. They're bringing conversation to the table. I think In the inverse, we need individual architects to think proactively about what what can they do in their own communities.

B So coming to Scholars last year, that was my 1st interaction with a group of professional practice teachers. I was Curious if there are other forums outside of that where professional practice professors have a chance to come together and collaborate. Had that happened before, or is that fairly new?

C I think it's fairly new. I think previously, the You know, you have the NCARB licensing seminars and conferences, which just happened in Kansas City last weekend. Those are that was the only venue that happened every 2 years, which sort of was always either in Chicago or Miami. And now they're actually Going around the country and and bring a little bit more, you know, different locations on different venues to it, which I appreciate. But as far as that, the and the NCARP Scholars, it was, for me, the first time that I knew that a group of, The professors got together and had a conversation. You know? It wasn't about these are the requirements of licensure, Check mark. Check mark. Check mark.

C It was about, let's have a conversation about how do you teach this topic? How what are the challenges you see in the classroom? So it was a dialogue versus just a one way conversation. And I have to say that, personally, it was eye opening for me that, You know, we can all teach the same topic from different points of view, and they're all valid and they're great to be able to have that cohort to say, I I learned that, you know, teaching staffing is important, but teaching staffing this way, it really connects with the students because everybody wants to have their own firm. So all the students wanna have their own firms. Or how do we have the discussion about The job titles that don't exist right now and it will exist in the future, and how do we teach that evolution of our profession our students that they will adapt to, you know, a job title or a a profession that we don't we can't we don't have a name for it at this point in in, you know, in the history, but 20 years from now, we will. Similar to what we went through maybe 3 decades ago with BIM, You know, there are no BIM managers in firms, but every firm has several BIM man BIM managers right now. Or in the future, will we have an AI management or AI technician, somebody who could assist with really understanding that technology and how do we deep don't devalue our profession, but complement our professions with the new digital tools that are out there. So I'll I'm curious to see how we can have more of these dialogues just like the one we had last year at at NCARP Scholars and and how do we continue those conversations?

D Nothing needed to add there. I mean, I absolutely agree. We don't have a lot of different means for the community They get together other than NCARB licensing advisor summit like the one that we just had this past weekend. And then that's been happening since 20 2009 or 2010, and then scholars has just been in the last 8 to 10 years maybe. And those are it's a smaller group, and it's it was fantastic. So having that opportunity to now have a network of people That either they're like minded or not like minded, it's just really great to have these dialogues where we can push against each other and just perspective. And it's respectful and it's awesome?

B Because otherwise, you kind of come in and you just you either have access to the prior curriculum from the professor that taught before you? You might have somebody that you can reach out to through ACSA you can talk to. But, otherwise, you're probably on your own figuring a lot of this out. I wanted to talk about my observation that with all of the students, All 16 professors, you know, you're right. They had a different point of view. They had a different approach to the curriculum or what they thought was important in what they were teaching? Can you share a little bit about your approaches to evolving the curriculum for your schools and where you found success in maybe bringing some of these unique ideas into the way that you're approaching it?

D So interestingly enough, I had the opportunity at the very beginning of teaching this course to team teach it. And so I taught with someone who is I think he's like 20 years ahead of me in in his professional practice, But he also is a firm owner. So by teaching with someone who was 20 years ahead of me and he Had his own practice. He brought that lens to the profession, to the professional practice course. And so I, As someone who was, like, in my early thirties at the time, I was able to bring in experiences that I was having now as a young architect. And, yeah, really young architects, because I just got the young architect award. Like, that like, young young architect. And we could just push against each other based on, like, norm like, how he'd practice for however many years, decades at that time, What he was accustomed to, approaches that he was accustomed to, and then my lens of, like, learning Revit from almost the very beginning of practicing And the approaches to teams and how we set teams up, we just we did that together.

D And Otherwise, I would have been starting with nothing. And so over that 10 years, working with him, bringing on new team members each year for different resources with purposes either to teach interior design or something and then getting to the point where now I'm the lead on the course. I can now take it in a different direction that feeds into the things that I'm interested in. So, one of those things is that I want there is a lens about equity in every component of every lecture? So that means if I'm talking about business finance, I bring an equity lens. If I'm talking about how teams are set up, I want to bring to the lens about what's the difference between a homogeneous team or a team that has multiple voices to it and why that's valuable? How your team reflects to the community that you are working with. And so Just being able to impart and pull in current events, current experiences, voices from across the country, All of those things have been a part of the way that I've steered the class in a different direction.

C That's a really interesting question. I think I'll I'll Step into how Karen sequenced her way of teaching. So I was given this course to teach Really 2 months before or a month before the course was due. So I was a little bit you know, I had to ramp up really quickly to not only grasp the content, but to just evolve it to something that I wanted to become In a very short amount of time. So that change for me happened by really looking into the community of architects, around me and my network of my practice and say, I really respect and value the way these professionals Practice architecture, and I it's really important for me to have their voice and their experiences being heard in this class. And, actually, the assignments became a secondary to the course for me. So the primary way of approach was to invite people who I respected in the community of architects to come and share their experience, Their interest, how they run their business, how to get the next job, how do you how do they deal with with the challenges of not only the profession, but the global challenges, the global challenges that we all have to deal with on a day to day basis? And what is, you know, more of a conversation on the dialogue, which we actually miss I miss a lot having those conversations with my colleagues. So it really became assignments became secondary and people.

C And people like, actually, a physical presence of a person Standing in front of the room and talking about their experience became very, very important to me. So that's how I approached it. And I have to say throughout The year is now the 4th year that I've been teaching this. The cohort that are invited not only change every year, But now they are thinking about how can they contribute to a group of students who will be the future architects' future, you know, shapers of our landscape? And I think that has that group of professionals, which, again, they change every year, Some of them come back, some of them wanna come back, and some of them come with new ideas and new conversations has become such a great, empowering tool for me That to have them in the classroom, to have them participate from women in construction. You know? I I really do a lot of that Invite women who are voices in the construction world to lawyers that really were architects and then eventually became lawyers And how they use that perspective of and the problem solving of an architect into their law practice. So these are very, very in conversations, and it's because I miss them. Selfishly, I wanna include them into the conversations, which sparks a lot more interest amongst the students. And we generate bunch of conversations and discussions based on those those speakers, really.

A We're nearing the end of our conversation, And I think you guys have talked a lot about the breadth that you teach as well as Where you would like to see things head and how it should be more integrative into the curriculum as a whole? If I'm a student And I am entering professional practice or starting a professional practice this semester. What are the questions that I should be asking of my professional practice professor or of the curriculum to get the most out of it by the end of it?

D Now you know that's not an easy question. It's not an easy question because I think that is the 1 piece that's the hardest to show up in space with is recognize is not recognizing that people are from different lenses. It's being able to speak to those different lenses and experiences that each of those students are having? I've probably taught 3 black students. 3 in 10 years. And that's the nature of where I teach. So, It's really hard to lean in to my own experiences to guess at what they should be asking me when it comes to what they wanna learn? I think if I were to turn the question around, I would say, I would want them to come into class being inquisitive. I would want them to be excited about The chance of what this profession has to offer, but thinking about, well, what are you what are you bringing to the table that's unique to you? When I started architecture school, I didn't have a clue. Like, I think I envisioned What my drafting teacher had told me about how he was, like, drawing things and how interesting that was and you could draw buildings.

D But I didn't know that I would have an opportunity to talk to and work with a diverse background set of people. I think they should be asking questions about how to do less harm. How do I go into the profession, Do less harm, be helpful, be excited, and, like, leave the world with buildings in a better way than maybe how I found them. It's not about buildings. It's about people. And how do I how do I connect with them in a way that serves the community?

A I know that was a hard a hard question. I just wanted to say I appreciate your answer because I don't think most students believe that they could by that inquiry within professional practice?

C I agree that's a very difficult question, but I also wanna address that it takes a level of maturity to be able to get to a class to that which is probably one of the most boring classes that you can take in architecture school. But, and then be able to really think it through of what kind of a profession you're you're stepping into. And I think The students should ask about how they can bring value to the ever changing profession on how not to be scared about the future and also knowing that every individual can influence the culture of where they work at. I think that's a key that the students don't feel empowered that if there's something they don't like in a place of their employment? Even if it's on their own, if they're self employed, they have the power to make a cultural change Within their own small environment? And for them to understand that, it's a big accomplishment. If we can Even have them think about their power as an individual, as a human in in their context, that is sort of a To me, that's the biggest answer to the biggest question that is all about the people, and it's about what we do is about Just making built environment better. Therefore, we are making people environment better and human environment better. So that would be something that I will be excited about. That's a conversation that I would be very excited about to just engage the students with.

B I think that it's great that you are creating environments where students feel like they can have a dialogue about difficult conversations and Think critically about not only just what material that they need to learn, but translating that kind of beyond what is being practiced now into what the future the profession might look like. There are definitely practitioners listening, and I guess I also wanna ask the question from their perspective. What's one thing that they need to know? You both are practicing architects. You both work in firms. What should our friends who are listening that are practicing know that they didn't get in professional practice that they need to think about today in the way that with their practicing?

D I think we all need to be realistic that when we when we got out of school, we didn't know everything. And we need to remind ourselves that and set a realistic perspective about what students can potentially know coming out of school. And their personalities are different, and their experiences in school have been different than ours. The resources that they've had and the tools that they're using are different. And so we can't look at students who are graduating and coming into firms and say, well, they need to know this, this, and this, and that. Even between between the 2 of us, we teach courses that are, what, 3 3 time zones apart. Right? So, of course, they're going to be different. Our regions are different.

D So you get a candidate from Florida and you're in Oregon, they're going to be different. And we should all look at that as an opportunity. Look at that student as an opportunity because you never really know What they have to offer until you give them an opportunity to show that to you? And there's no ideal to tech? There's no perfect candidate. I think we just need to be more open to asking people what they're interested in, Introducing them to other topics that they might be interested in and then work together to see how we can make each other into the best type of professionals that we can be.

C Yeah. I really agree with what Karen is talking about, and I think it goes into how do we invest in people. You know? That's That's the major topic. I think we know that firms want to invest in people, but that investment has to come with a level of curiosity that fulfills that individual? I mean, that investment cannot be just an addition to the firm. Right? So I'm investing in you because you bring this and this and this, so therefore, I can make more money. I think it has to be what are your interests into the profession? And what is it you wanna accomplish? And let's have that conversation. Because if you're fulfilled in the job that you're doing for us, We can invest in you more, and you can actually be a happy, productive, and really engaging member of our community, our our firm. So that is a piece that I see in firms.

C It it it's missing sometimes, the curiosity about the individual and that investment in the individual. And I agree that if you're individually happy and fulfilled, you can actually be a much better team player than if you're not. And if you just wanna hop from 1 firm to another firm to find that, it's easy to have those dialogues and conversations. And let's not forget, we All wanna be fulfilled in the jobs that we do. Whatever it is that we do, we wanna be happy.

D Absolutely. One of the most exciting Series of lectures that I do is one about value. And we talk about the firm, like architecture as a profession value, The firm's values and then your value because I think every single individual, every single one of us has so much to offer, And we just need someone to show up and say, yeah. That's important, and I support you in that. And let's see how we can support you supporting us and, like, work together with that value? So I love what you said. Thank you.

B Hi, disruptors. If you like the content from today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practice of architecture.com slash podcast?

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