NCARB Scholars of Professional Practice

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

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

C Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. This week, we've created a special episode to take you behind the scenes of the NCARB scholars of professional The 2023 cohort included 16 professional practice professors from architecture programs across the country who gathered at Ball State's satellite campus in Indianapolis. Participants represent a diverse number of academic settings, including a community college, an HBCU, a participant from the GSD, international perspectives, as well as a variety of professors from both public and private institutions with small and large class sizes. The purpose of the event is to provide educators with a supported venue to engage with their peers and critically examine the content within their course and their delivery of the material. This episode features 10 voices who will share the story of this event and their individual perspectives of what they gained. We'll start with an introduction to the scholars program featuring Jeremy Fretz, David Henson and Daniel Overby will transition to the scholars featuring 5 of the participants who share their narratives about their experience. Evelyn and I will then discuss questions that I asked the participants to think about in advance about the future of practice.

C We'll close with a look at the farther future with Dina Prostos, chair of NCARB's Futures Collaborative. Our first speaker is Jeremy Fritz, Assistant vice president of experience in education at the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. Jeremy will explain more about the program and introduce you to some of our speakers.

D What you'll be hearing today are some excerpts from our NCARB scholars event, and that is an event that we host Annually now for 5 years, which gathers together professional practice educators of all stripes, of all different experience levels, all different course types, whether they're teaching in graduates level or undergraduate, and allows them to learn from each other and to learn from some of our expert facilitators. The scholars program was born out of really 2 points that came together. 1 was a request From educators who gathered at our licensing advisor summit, and they really liked having a chance to come together and compare notes. And And they said, boy,

E it would be great if we could

D do this in more than a 1 hour workshop. And the second is the research that was done by NCARB at ACSA, which really looked at where and how professional practice is taught. And that research found that it is widely variable In terms of who is teaching, their level of experience either in teaching or in practice, as well as, you know, whether it's a 3 credit hour course or whether it's multiple credit hour courses. So there was this real need to ensure that there was some consistency and quality. The other piece is frankly that often because it's only a 3 credit hour course or a small fraction of an architecture program is that it often is overshadowed by Design studios and other priorities. And so, you know, these are faculty and content areas that sometimes are neglected in programs. So it was very important to the council to undergird and support the education in this content area that's of particular interest to, to the council.

E So there

D are a couple of goals in the program. 1 is to connect faculty to one another, really, to create that community of practice, Hopefully, to help them, you know, talk to each other outside of our event. Another goal is to provide a a model experience where we try to both demonstrate and teach some learning methodologies, some teaching methodologies because not everyone has had you know, whether you're or even a professional educator, you may not have been trained how to teach. And so we try and insert a bit of modeling and explanation of, you know, how to use adult education principles to teach students. And then the other piece is to very Specifically, focus on content, the content areas that they teach and make sure that they are you know, understand or have access to resources for those content areas and have, you know, innovative. And then blending it all together is making sure they have you know, they're able to deliver that content in a way that students learn the most about it and or learn the appropriate amount about it. And so a lot of that opportunity for for peer discussion Has a huge impact on the faculty that attend.

C Next, you'll be hearing from David Henson, one of our speakers for the event. He'll share his perspective on why the scholars program is important to educators.

F My name is David Henson. I'm at Auburn University, and I teach the professional practice class for upper division students in the architecture program. I actually began my teaching career about 31 years ago in Philadelphia, and my first course was professional practice At Temple, and then I've began my teaching career here at Auburn in 1997. And Among my teaching responsibilities was was pro practice. And so over the last 25 years, pro practice has probably been the most consistent of my teaching assignments, I would say not every year because I'm I was an administrator for some period of that time, but I'd like to say I've been teaching professional practice for, Yeah. Over the last 30 years, so a lot of experience with with that course. I love the scholars event. When you walk into that room At that event, suddenly, you're in a community of people that are all pretty equally passionate about teaching this topic really well.

F I learned so much from the other participants, and I pick up so many ideas, you know, from them about, oh, I'm gonna as soon as I get home, I'm gonna try that. Right. It's such a rich exchange of great ideas. That community is not one that sort of gets in the room and argues with each other about what we ought to doing. It's a group that really says, man, we all are passionate about this. Let's kind of share and learn from each other. Having a space like that for this particular community is pretty wonderful. If you think about in architectural education, there are plenty of Events around organized around people who are teaching beginning design or people who are teaching architectural history or people who Kind of focus on building technology.

F You know, they're they're all little communities for those those teachers and scholars. The NCARB program is really the only thing I know of that is a kind of a community room for people who teach professional practice, and that's incredibly valuable. You know, I've had an interesting conversation with a number of people over my career about what their experience of professional practice class was like. And While some of those recount positive stories, not everybody does. And, you know, I I guess, I just wanna Say for me, my first challenge as a teacher in this space is to Give my students confidence and about this domain of what their professional futures look like and to and to generate excitement about it. You know, to empower them, you know, to say all of these topics are part of the equation that creates great design. And don't see these as an outlier to design process. They're part of the process of what makes it happen.

F And you need to be equally good at this In order for that kind of standard of of practice to be the outcome. Right? So Just approach this as as if this is another set of muscles that you need to develop in order to be the kind of architect you wanna be. And if if there's a day where I walk away and say, well, I scared them to death today, that's a bad day. Right? I shouldn't be doing that in the classroom. That's not my job. And in fact, that's been done too much to architecture students. I really want them to be excited in about, you know, getting out of school and getting into practice and Starting that next phase of their journey.

D The feedback we get from the participants is great. We hear a wide variety, but it's generally along the lines of This is changing how I'm teaching right now, or this will if you even had an individual who said, I came away. I'm gonna change how I teach. Very seasoned faculty member who came away convinced. He's like, I'm gonna change how I grade my classes based on things he had heard at the event. We hear positives about the opportunity to hear criticism from one another and to actually talk to people who know the content. For some faculty, it's even their first time, and they you know, they're heading into teaching professional practice for the 1st time, and this gives them a an opportunity to hit the ground running with some real expert coaches behind them. It was especially fun for me this year to host the event at Ball State, my alma mater at the Indianapolis Center.

D And I think Ball State has, faculty who I knew as young faculty, and now they are leading the charge in the future of education in in the department of architecture in the dean's office. And so it it was really great to, to be work with them and to celebrate The future, and that is also the place where I first got invited to attend some workshops on improving education and participate, actually, as an interviewee in the the famed the Boyer report on education and practice. So it felt like coming full circle for me.

G I'm Daniel Overby. I'm an assistant professor with Ball State University, and I've Taught the pro practice sequence there for about half a decade, and I'm also the undergraduate internship coordinator. I learned to the scholars of professional practice program about 3 years ago, applied, and I was fortunate to be accepted in the 2021 class. And I was completely blown away by the program. Practice is changing so rapidly. It's difficult for any teacher of professional practice, even adjuncts and those who are licensed architects and have been Teaching in the field for years, there's so much that we're trying to offer and impart, and we Never have enough time to cover everything we want to cover. Effective means of teaching, getting creative, making it engaging, Making it dynamic, it was so refreshing to be surrounded by a peer group that have the same struggles, Can relate, but also just had so many amazing ideas and the peer sharing was extraordinary. So after I went through the scholars program in 2021, I knew immediately that I wanted to Show off the Midwest, show off Indianapolis, show off Ball State.

G We had an opportunity to submit And host through our Indianapolis satellite, which gave a great opportunity to host right in the middle of downtown Indianapolis On the near east side and just have these practitioners and teachers of pro practice from Across the country, just a symbol in in our backyard, and because Allstate has this long standing Tradition and resume of community engagement and I think that's an important thread through pro practice today And it was an opportunity for us to also just give back a bit. I valued my opportunity to the scholars program. Ball State supported me there. We we had an opportunity here to host and bring everybody to Indianapolis, and and it was great to do for a few days. And I I feel like it it went well. Practice is changing. It's changing quickly. It's a Constant challenge to be conversant in an ever expanding field of tools and Trends and issue sets, and anytime you have an opportunity to engage in Peer feedback, I think that is extremely valuable.

G And even in a less Formalized way through the scholars program where it can be more of a conversation and be a bit more fluid. I think that is extremely valuable And very productive, I would say, to anybody who might hear this and might be considering Joining the scholars and professional practice program that they should just dive in when the application window opens up, Seek the support you need from your institution and jump right in. It was an extremely valuable experience for me, and I would encourage Anybody to take the plunge and engage in the program.

D In this next segment, you'll be hearing from some of our attendees from this year as they share their experience firsthand from attending the program.

H Hello, everyone. My name is Tad Heidgerkin. I'm an architect from Detroit, Michigan. I'm an associate professor at the School of Architecture and Community Development at the University of Detroit Mercy. I've been teaching The professional practice course, which is part of a 5 year master program at the University of Detroit Mercy since 2019, and I took it over from my predecessor And slowly been modifying the course over time. I've had a sabbatical this last year, and I'm taking the opportunity to revamp the course. So I'm hoping At the our meeting today is gonna be very fruitful for this opportunity. It's perfect timing for me.

H But, also, I'd like to maybe discuss some of the strategies I'm taking to discuss some of the difficult topics that the course presents to students in in a limited amount of time that we have with inside the semester. As I mentioned before, the class is part of a 5 year accelerated master's program, and it always comes into conflict with Their thesis work. And so I've been trying to tie the thesis work directly into the course to try to find ways of them overlapping some other interest in through the use of creating a business plan as a tool for them to investigate how they might be successful in the future practice. And I found some really interesting results from this process, including results from a questionnaire that I had recently sent to the students that have recently graduated. Some of the highlights of the course are Firm visits, an exercise in which the students create cartoons that reflect positions between The contractors, architects, clients, and the community, as well as the aforementioned business plan, which is a group project that Students seem to really connect with. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and becoming part of this community as I think it's an important Aspects of the education that most of the time gets relegated to a class that is not seen as important by the student.

I Hi, everybody. Vanessa. Alicia Achiukchi here. I am a equity in action, A presidential post doctoral fellow at Kean University, Michael Graves College School of Public Architecture. I'm in my 2nd year of that fellowship, And I'm I'm teaching undergraduate studio and professional practice, which is in the 1st year of the M. Arch program. We have a four plus two program. Background wise, I graduated from the City College of New York in 2005 and with a bachelor of architecture degree.

I And, shortly thereafter I got very involved with AI New York and NCARB as a IDP coordinator, now licensing advisor, A former professor of mine and my first boss, Gary McNeil, a black architect in Harlem, actually was the coordinator for the professional practice class at CCNY. And that was my 1st sort of exposure to it. I was an unofficial TA from 3rd year through 5th year and a few years after graduation while I was working with Gary. And, it was just a wonderful experience. I was excited to inherit the course for a few years at CCNY, where I taught professional practice. I I was the licensing adviser, and I also taught a co op internship class for quite quite some years, I think about 10 years. Most recently, I'm now at at Kean University. Professionally, I am a registered architect in New York and New Jersey.

I I got my license in 2010 in New York state, and I was working at Dettner Architects On a lot of affordable housing, sustainable affordable housing projects in New York. And after hurricane Maria, I became interested in, resilience And, community based design, energy equity, and that's what I'm focusing on in my research now.

C Our next speaker is Daniel Overby who will share his on participating in this year's program.

G In some ways, it's an expansion of Some common thematic elements that go through the Practice Disrepid podcast where you and Evelyn have talked about Being vulnerable at this moment, we're all struggling to get through in professional practice. No big surprise. Our teachers and our students are struggling as well, and I think there's a conversation that's not being had. And When we started to open up in the scholars program, you find that we're all dealing with These issues and it's okay to be a bit more vulnerable and to Acknowledge the difficulties. Acknowledge the failures that we've had. And I think when students See us as teachers or as architects, it's really easy as we're we're we're doing a little bit of performance art. You know, we're trying to make engaging, and I think it gives this false impression that our career trajectory was up into the right the entire time, and It it never ever is, and I think in those moments when we can acknowledge And unpack opportunities to have conversations about failure and what that was like That the students, I think it's actually encouraging to them. They they receive it well.

G And it's Also, some other thematic elements that we've always known for developing clientele and to build your your firm that you need To really lean into relationship and build trust, but I feel like that's One of those lessons that comes through experience. You can hear someone say that, but you really value it when you do it And, over the course of time and people that were closer to your life in certain seasons and what that meant and the that flowed through that, and I I think when there's a chance to talk to students about the importance of building relational capital, That's, again, something that maybe doesn't come up in a basic conversation about contracts or firm management, but it's so important. It's the lifeblood of everything that we do. And it was really great to through the scholars program, get that reflected back and that we're we're all dealing with these issues, and it's A constant hot mess. We're having to recalibrate, figure out how to navigate uncertain waters, and it was Refreshing and encouraging to get that feedback from our peers that we're all going through this together.

J I'm Kate Coefer. I am an architect at KKT Architects in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I am adjunct teaching at the School of Architecture at Oklahoma State University, And I'm doing right now the practice management class, so the architecture practice management, the 5193 course that they have there for graduating seniors. My class at OSU this semester, it's actually 42 students. 40 of the students are in class With me, we're doing kind of a hybrid virtual and in person due to some extraneous reasons, but 2 of the students are actually not enrolled in the class or some study abroad, I believe, in Italy. But we're doing some of the criteria with them on the side kind of, I guess, to make sure they knew all the NAB criteria for the graduation. So my class is very diverse. We have a lot of Younger and, I'd say, older students mixed together from all different backgrounds here in Stillwater, and it is their final semester of class.

J So a lot of them are getting ready to graduate, so I think everything in the course is gonna be very relevant to them, and they seem very interested as we just kicked off the semester to Talk about all these subjects and topics. So I signed up for the income scholars program because I heard really great things about it, and the head of the program. Suzanne Babisi really encouraged me as a new adjunct faculty to go to this conference to learn more about the practice of architecture programs and what's happening across the country. This is the 2nd semester that I've taught this class. The previous instructor had been teaching it for 25 years. He was actually very excellent. He was my professor way back when also and has written several books about the ethics of architecture that have actually been used for this course as some of the other the cohort of faculty at the conference mentioned. So it's It's kind of a large undertaking to come in and try to teach this class after having someone taught it for so long, And I'm just kind of looking at how things being in practice, I got to see how things may be more relevant, less relevant, and so it's Kind of a leap of faith to readdress the program of the class.

J And so this conference is a great way for me to learn about what others are doing, how they're reinventing it, and kind of what they're teaching just to make sure that we have the most relevant and interesting material that's gonna be helpful for all the students at Oklahoma State. Well, I kind of have a love hate relationship with the teaching and the class. I'm sure you've heard this before, but I was really intimidated to put together one of I said bring one of your class PowerPoints to teach to the other people attending in the conference attendees, and I'm thinking this is all these faculty who are teaching, you know, like, at Harvard and all these other Amazing institutions. I've been teaching it for years. Most of them are full time faculty, and here I am adjunct putting together this Of course, I'm making a PowerPoint and trying to make sure it's, I guess, as compelling as what they would be bringing. So it was really anxiety filled for me to put that together, and in fact, I way overthought, like, every image that I pulled into the PowerPoint and putting the slides together, but I did Find from that effort, just kind of going through that part, having that lesson prepared, and then hearing all the feedback, And then also watching everyone else speak to their kind of areas of expertise. And in our session, we had a few people that talked just about their syllabus And thing is they were doing to reinvent the program altogether. It was just it was the most interesting, I think, for me to then directly take those little nuggets of, tools that I've learned and to bring those back directly to the classroom, and in fact, I've already kind of applied those.

J The other thing I found really interesting was actually the homework. So we had this homework that was put together for us, and I had no idea signing for the conference that I would have to do any homework. And, And of course, the easy parts were like, hey, write your bio and bring your, you know, headshot, and those are things in practice that we have ready to go. It was, you know, easy to put that together, But then we are getting assignments. I'm gonna watch this, pick from these 3, you know, webinars or watch 2 of these, you know, podcast, Listen to these podcasts and then give your feedbacks or feelings or what's missing or how would you teach this, and it really made me start thinking about How we could, you know, reinvent how we're doing assignments, first of all, but then also how we can get more material and have access to more different viewpoints, and dialogue in what we're teaching too. So I thought that was really relevant as well. Well, I mean, we've already implemented some of the things. So one of them was the assignment about reading for learning.

J I think I don't know exactly what it was called, but just like why are you here? Like, kind of why are people in architecture school, and Were they getting out of school and do grades really matter? And so I actually kind of recast that as an assignment that we had as an assignment to my students. And I graded those this morning, and they had really, I'd say really intuitive feedback, kind of a little bit what you expect, I think, from architecture school, but A lot of them are already focused on the critical thinking and the ability to be problem solvers and learning beyond just the grading. I I think that's inherent in our teacher school, but just kinda having them write it down and say it and, like, gonna make a statement like that, I think is kind of really impactful. And I think that's Also, when I got a lot about this conference for myself was not just, oh, here's, you know, podcasts that you've listened to or here's Books that you might have read or you could read or you can influence material is, like, actually making us go through some of those lessons and do some of that work ourselves. And so we're not just, oh, yes, we know how to do this or, yes, we know how to talk about this, but making us actually talk about that and actually do that has been, I mean, I'm really helpful. So I have changed the assignments to some of these more giving opportunity for people to make a choice. I think that was a really valuable tool to say, hey. If If you wanna read about any subject, like, here might be 2 or 3 places to get that content, but let the students choose where they get the content And what type of content they're most interested in reading so that maybe it's more valuable to them what they get out of it and more valuable to them the impact of what it is they're learning about.

J I was mostly excited to see that I'm not totally off base in the kind of how I reinvented and put the program together. I mean, I've been practicing for 20 years, And I have a role now that's in project management as well as in marketing business development and leadership, and so I was bringing some of these things To the forefront of the class already, but then to find out that we had, you know, lessons at the conference on these subjects Or the dialogue about how to include some of these softer skills or leadership skills or critical thinking. It just made me feel, I guess more confident in what I'm bringing to the course and what the students will be learning. So it gave me a little boost of confidence, which I really appreciated as well. Again, I Don't have my whole, you know, semester to dedicate to prep for this class for, like, next semester. It's kind of here and there, here or missed because I am doing an adjunct. So I always feel like I'm a little bit behind in the preparation. So a a boost of confidence is really helpful going into this semester.

E So my name is Roland Sharf Flores, and I'm an architect and an assistant professor at North Dakota State University. I teach Studio. I am the course coordinator for the year 2 design sequence, and I also teach seminars on the history and theory of architectural representation, And I teach professional practice, and we are located in Fargo, North Dakota. So our students are About 5050 in a sense, half of the students are from North Dakota, predominantly a rural state, And then the other half are from Minnesota. And the bulk of those are from the Minneapolis, Saint Paul municipality kinda area. The The other students that are from Minnesota are from any of the surrounding communities within the the rest of the state. So Duluth, Brainerd, Saint Cloud. I participated in the scholars program because I was interested in learning about how to frame the presentation of professional practice students.

E I was also interested in some content. I come from 20 plus years of professional experience, and those 20 plus years and since Almost intuitive by this point because you've done it so since I've done it so often. So I didn't really know how to distill that and and Presented to the students in a way that they'd understand, kind of in a structured form. So that's what I was hoping to get out of attending this the scholars and professional practice. I would say my favorite part there were a couple, but the absolute favorite part was when we were able to present to each other a particular session that we talked. One, because it was informative. It kinda gave me some content to think about in terms of my presenting that topic in my course. But it's also, you know, in terms of delivery methods, Understanding how different people delivered courses and how they delivered content and how they tried to engage with students was was really, beneficial.

E And it was also good to see that, For the most part, it was good to see other persons referencing the same material that I'm referencing. So in a sense, gave me a little bit of confidence. Okay. I might be in my 1st year teaching this course, but I'm on the right track because I've there's other people who have been teaching this for a while, and they're also referencing the same I think the the biggest takeaway I I had was delivery in terms of how you want to engage with the students And how you deliver them. So consequently, when I came back, I did a minor reevaluation, and so I decided to incorporate a lot more Interactive activities within sessions, a lot of, digital media to keep kind of get their attention, Sustain their attention and to present ideas in different ways. So that that's what probably the biggest thing I I took away from. I think that going forward, the class will continually evolve, not just based on content, but also just in terms of delivery. So kind of looking and getting myself familiar with different ways of integrating more interactive means of delivering the content.

E For example, based on my experience at the scholars program, I incorporated already a mural exercise, an in class mural exercise, and millboard exercise into into the session. That's something that I would have done. It's also I'm not I'm not too familiar with Miro, so I I think as I go forward, I could get more familiar with it, and I might think of other ways of incorporating that. The idea of take incorporating videos, I think it's something that I wanna keep addressing. And so, Hopefully, as time progresses, I get more familiar with the technology that I'd be able to edit the videos to have specific to show specific things that I want to show as opposed to kind of pausing and jumping around. So it's a matter of just, I guess, technical comfort in terms of Engaging with interactive media too too in the course. You know, I went in somewhat with a little bit of trepidation because, Again, it was my 1st this is my 1st year teaching professional practice, going in, and a lot of the participants had some experience teaching professional practice. But going there and meeting the different people who are participating in the program was good in terms of easing that anxiety.

E We had a very Good group of people that got along together, so we were able to talk. And it was critical, but it wasn't cynical. So what you didn't feel like if somebody gave you criticism that they were kind of trying to be cynical about it, but they're Trying to help you engage more with the students, so that was that was beneficial. I don't know all the other iterations of the program had that kind of camaraderie and Collaboration. I tend to think they didn't, but I think we have a pretty good group, and that was

K My name is Asma Mehan. My expertise lies in architectural humanities, critical urban studies, and heritage studies. Personally, I serve as an assistant professor at Texas State University's Hakobi College of Architecture in Lubbock, Texas, a Hispanic serving institution. Over the years, I Teach a diverse group of students at Texas Tech, comprising architects, urban planners, Interior designers and historians, many of our students hail from border cities in Texas And Mexico such as Juarez and El Paso, and a significant number have Spanish as their mother tongue. And, also, these students are driven by desire to deeply understand architecture and its profound influence on our urban state spaces, but also the local context that they are living. So I would like to add that these students, they are not just learning about Structures and technicalities, they are preparing to reshape the future of architecture in this region in the West Texas and beyond. What, truly stands out for me is, like, witnessing the blend of different perspectives and voices. And I I think I would like to phrase it like there is an undeniable magic in seeing the students Engage with question and ultimately embrace a broader, more larger understanding of architectural heritage and, architectural knowledge.

K And especially from my point of view, when they interact with materials, I've sourced from different languages, Regions of the world and cultures, such as English, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Persian, or Italian. The languages that I I I worked with or the countries that I used to live, I think their enthusiasm is noticeable. I I think that's the most interesting part of the teaching part of this program. At the NCAP 2023 Scholars program in professional practice event. I was truly and deeply inspired by the power of collaboration, dialogue, and interdisciplinary thinking with other colleagues coming from different universities and institution. I think these interaction, intellectual interactions emphasize that uniting diverse expertise can significantly transform form architectural education, architectural research, and, architectural practice, showcasing the future of Teaching and practicing architecture. But I do believe that it's the voice of the younger generation and the needs of the younger generation And also their resilience and innovation, technological and methodological innovation that will drive this change. So I I really enjoyed being part of this scholars program.

K The knowledge and understanding I drive from this event, I think it's Going to enrich my teaching methodology this year. So what I I learned and, what was emphasized was the significance of A multifaceted globally conscious approach in architectural pedagogy. Going forward, I plan to integrate more global narratives And diverse insights into our course modules, which I'm I'm doing now, always being mindful to the students' diverse backgrounds and experiences. The main takeaway was, like, being able to initiate a meaning For dialogue and and collaboration and interdisciplinary thinking with other colleagues who are Engage with architectural education, but also with architectural practice. And for for me, it was it was a valuable experience because I had the opportunity to to engage, with different perspectives and points of view, which will help me a lot to be able to Reflect and translate this diversity of perspectives and different viewpoints Also in my course modules this semester, I would like to emphasize the the importance of Educating globally conscious architects and globally conscious approach in architectural education.

F The catalyst that pushed me into kinda rethinking my approach to this class. Some of them have been building for a while. You know, one of it was that the there's so much content, that we have to cover in professional practice. I think everybody who teaches it feels that way, that a 15 week semester was really just felt like a sprint from start to finish. And I was so focused on delivering all of this content to my students, but I became very conscious that I wasn't able to have much time in classroom, in particular, to talk about, well, what do you think about this? You know? How you know? Do you understand this material? How did, you know, how do you think this is gonna affect you and your career? That kind of reflection and critical thinking about the content Always felt like we just didn't have the time for it. So that that was building over time. And then, you know, the other then then along came COVID. And COVID forced all of us to engage a whole bunch of new technologies, you know, to stay engaged with our students through that experience.

F And I got more comfortable with those technologies, and I learned how, you know, how to use them and how not to use them. And that gave me kind of a moment about something I've been I've been doing for a long time in my class, which is engaging practitioners by Teaming them up with, you know, small groups of students paired up with 1 firm to sort of let that interaction with the firm be the way the students Kind of contextualized topics like marketing and communications and proposal development and mentoring young architects financial affair. All those topics we kinda did through this partnership, but it always been kind of logistically cumbersome. And then along came Zoom and all these other kind Technology tools, and I said, well, through COVID, I said, wow. This is a much more efficient way to structure those kind of things. And then I guess the last part is, you You know, just for me as a, you know, old dog learning new tricks, getting familiar with these kind of distance technologies and these online sort of tools and things Kinda broke the ice and made me say, alright. This is the time. Let's let's take a step back and rethink how to deliver this course.

F I will say the other key thing that made that possible for me is, like, I hope like many universities, my university has a center for teaching excellence. And the we have a really wonderful team of people there who are learning designers. And, you know, I've been teaching for, Gosh. Almost over 30 years, and I was about 27 years into that experience before I ever reached out and asked for help from a learning designer. And that was amazing. They were they were so helpful in terms of me, you know, grappling with this technology and Helping me through that process, so I was really fortunate to have the support of a team like that here at Auburn. So what I've done is I've taken all of that Content that I used to try to deliver through PowerPoint slides in a Sage on the stage, we kinda say, you know, the delivery model, Right? Where I I spent the whole contact time, you know, presenting information. I pushed all of that onto an online platform.

F So It's kinda like writing a book, you know, with 12 chapters to it. So each section of the sort of online platform Takes all that lecture and converts it into kind of a narrative format, but at the same time, embeds in it all of this sort of enriched content That was way beyond what I could ever do in, you know, in the classroom. It's where I use the a whole lot of data that's, you know, coming out of NCARB, for example, I'm embedding those lectures. The propel videos that NCARB is producing, I can embed in that online platform. And that gives students, you know, the ability to access that content outside of class, but on their own kind of schedule. They can go back to it when they need to. You know, it's just it's there. It's this really rich kind of base of support, and then that allows me to use Classtime Instead of just as the content delivery kinda tool, use Classtime for more discussion and reflection.

F Sometimes I still lecture because the content's pretty dense, you know, and they and the students say, we really kinda need you to go through this for us. But now we can do a whole lot more active learning exercises where the students are, you know, we're we're sort of tackle a question and the students will kinda break out in small groups and discuss Dustin will come back and share each other resources with each other. Another way we use the classroom so that now that we're What we're doing using Zoom with this practitioner kind of partnership project, the students interview the practitioners Through Zoom on topics that are aligned with the course calendar. Right? So when I talk about, you know, strategies for organizing and designing a firm, Then the next week, they'll talk to their firms about that topic. And then the following week, we'll use class time to talk about their interview experience. What did you learn? What did you hear? You know, some students will be paired up with a 12 person firm, and some students will be paired up with a 1200 person firm. Right? And so They get to hear each other talk about how their partner firm responded to that question versus, you know, the big firm, the small firm, the The firm that focuses on, you know, k through 12 education versus the firm that focuses on, you know, commercial office buildings. So This ability to use the classroom time is much more about active learning, share and compare, All of that kind of stuff, that's just completely transformed the class.

F So those are the opportunities that this sort of Flipping sometimes that people call this flipping the classroom. Right? We we kind of change the way we use class time. It's really a whole new Paradigm for me. I'm I love teaching it this way.

C During the event, I had 3 programs I facilitated. The first was communication, authenticity, engagement, and connection. The next was a discussion on equity, diversity, and inclusion, and the third was discussion about the future of practice. Evelyn, since I know that the future of practice is a topic near and dear to your heart, I thought that we could discuss this piece of the curriculum, and I can share a couple of the questions that I asked our participants to think about. And maybe we can just brainstorm and talk about this topic as a whole.

B Sure. Let's do it.

C So the first question I asked participants was, what are the challenges of the future of practice for which you see the need to prepare students? And some of the answers that I got included critical thinking skills, interdisciplinary collaboration, new technologies, The architects value in fostering generational transitions in culture and workplace.

B Interesting. All interesting. I think I I tend to lean more heavily into critical thinking And soft skills and all the things that you and I typically tend to talk about relative to to leadership and and management. I think The one thing that we can teach our students coming out of school is that we're all taught that If you talk to a lot of architects, one of their the joy of it is that it's an educational process. It's like a lifelong learning. Right? Technology is developing. How you deliver projects is developing. Meeting new clients is an education in and of itself.

B But whenever we talk about that architects lack business acumen, Everyone always refers back to that 1 hour of professional practice, that class that we had. And I think we have to stop blaming The education system for only giving us 1 hour, and remember that our career and our career as architects is learning, and we need to make sure that we are getting we instill this idea of ongoing learning and development, and that it covers all facets of architectural practice beyond just the projects. So I think you and I have, You know, went on and got our MBAs, but we are still very much students of of business. And I think the important part is just making sure that every graduate knows that no matter what type of work that you do as an architect coming out of school, You are going to be a part of a business, whether it's starting your own company or being a part of an architecture firm or even working in a tech firm And understanding the very basics of a business at whatever level and making sure that you understand what the business is trying to do and how your role in that Pushes the business forward. I think it's something that we can all make sure that we're constantly doing on a regular basis.

C Yeah. And I was really pleasantly surprised that one of the respondents Did mention that alternative business models was something that they saw as an important element of the future of practice. Another question I asked our participants, what factors are driving industry change and transformation? So this idea of kind of, like, external factors, and internal factors within our industry. Some of the responses included A broad spectrum of building services, everything in practice

J is a

C collaboration, bridging the generational transition that will occur in the next 10 to 15 years, Generational change in architecture personnel resulting in lack of experienced architects. And the last one that I caught was the emergence of new documentation and fabrication technologies, and changing lifestyle expectations. I can think of many more, and I'm sure you can too.

B So the thing that I really see missing from that list is the fact that there are going to be greater challenges and then also greater opportunities coming From or architecture practice both inside and outside. So a lot of VC spending is already happening in Construction tech and fintech around how you democratize, capital investments or the ability for individuals to contribute to big capital projects. So I think there's a lot going outside of architecture that we need to be aware of that could influence and change our practice as well as how we want to practice going forward. So with as much going on with Outside coming in, I would say there's an opportunity for us to be on the inside looking out and seeing where we can be a part of bigger conversations. Everything you listed for me again was, like, a big focus on a little bit of focus on Changing the the business case or, like, the the business, you know, delivery, but it's still very much project focused. I think we need to be aware of Business threats and opportunities that we're gonna be facing going forward.

C One of the interesting things that emerged from the session with participants was this idea of what is the future of practice, that there have been past iterations of this discussion, books published, articles published, and it was interesting hearing that there's so many different interpretations of what the future

B I feel, you know, there's so many new jobs out there that have come up even in the last 2, 3 years that we weren't aware of you know, that we just didn't know was going to exist, and that's going to continue to happen. And how we use technology and how technology plays into everything we're going doing is going to continue to evolve. So I would just say that the definition of architectural practice is going to be a part of that continuous involvement, And we can either go with it and benefit from it or we can we can fight it, and that always seems to be a losing game.

C A few more questions I asked our participants include, what might the practice of architecture look like in 25 years, And how could the business model of architecture evolve to meet these needs?

B So I think it's, you know, leaning into the fact that we don't know that There's new job markets and new opportunities coming in, and especially with the growth and acceleration at AI, not only at the project level, but let's honest, even at the business operations level, it's really hard for me to say, you know, what is architecture practice gonna look like in 25 years, and what is gonna be our specific roles in projects in in 25 years. I I think what we need to do from a business model standpoint, though, is look And see how we can be more agile and adaptable and just embrace change and Everything that comes along with it rather than continue to struggle with all the changes that is happening To us, I wrote an interesting post on LinkedIn about how we have this victim mentality and inherently, and I think it's You know, if we spend all of the our energy kind of complaining about everything that's happening to us, then we're going to miss out on some of the opportunities on the horizon because we're just gonna be focusing on the wrong things.

C It was interesting. I'll read you a couple quick quotes from participants and their responses, but One person responded, the more people involved, the larger fee. So how do we provide opportunities for growth for large collaborations without requiring larger fees to accommodate that within the office. Another person said, the cost of construction is too high, and what we're paying our architectural workers is too low, schedules are too short, and crafts and trades are not skilled enough. This tied into a conversation that we had around the unionization in the industry as well as the interest in cultural shift to create business models that allow for better work life balance. In sharing these conversations about what the future of practice might be with scholars, We wanted to close with a final segment featuring a parallel group within the NCARB community who is thinking about the distant future. Our next speaker is Jeremy Frets who will set up our closing speaker.

D You'll now get to hear from Dina Prostos who serves as chair of NCARB's Futures Collaborative. That is actually a group that has been in place for several years now, and its charge is to really look at the far future. We have other groups looking at the near future. The Futures Collaborative, their purpose is to look 20 to 30 years out at changes in the profession and changes in the culture And really try and see what the possible futures might be.

L In 2018, I actually volunteered with the NCARB think tank, which the prompt that year that you submitted a blind essay and as long as you were as in a phase of the licensure process. The prompt that year was, what does the role of the architect look like in 25 years? And that really got the gears turning and started to think about the rate of change within the digital world, the tools we're using, and and our ability to impact in different ways. And so my my 1st year with NCARB, I was Part of that committee and part of the think tank, they shadow other committees just to get a kind of full view into NCARB and the organization and and what they're responsible for. And so one of Committees that we shadowed was the Futures Collaborative, which I absolutely loved and really saw the need for the committee to to exist and to continue to impact The the direction and the trajectory of the organization and the profession as a whole. And so the next year, I applied to be part of the FutureSync, and I was accepted, and I've been involved for a couple years now. And, actually, this year, I'll be the chair of the committee. And the Futures Collaborative looks at what is the role of Licensure in the future. What is the role of the architect in the future? And there are kind of peripheral roads that we go down in terms of What does the career of the architect look like in the future? What does the built environment look like in the future? There's a lot of kind of session and debate around where we think we're going, what some of the dangers are, what some of the red flags are, what some of the warnings are, just so that we can start to get ahead and think of any obstacles that may be present or mitigate any risk or or change course as needed.

L And so it's usually 10, Twelve members from around the country, not all necessarily licensed architects. We've had other public members as well, which is Super helpful not to only be kind of looking at the problem or the the issues through the lens of an architect, but looking through whether it's The board members of the the state licensing boards or legal members that have been involved with architects in the past. And so that's just Kind of overview of of how the committee works. We meet on a bimonthly basis and in person a couple years as well. I've had many surprises along the way. 1 year, we The entire year for the committee, every meeting, we were interviewing kind of figures on the edge of architecture where the whether or not they were architects, But some relation to the field of architecture, the practice of architecture, just to kind of get the set of landscape of, alright, not every architect does the same thing. Many of us practice in in many different ways, and so let's kind of make the you know, plot out the bounds of what is architecture, what's on the edge of architecture, and who are these people practicing on the edge of architecture, Sure. And how how can we learn more from from that edge and peripheral moment to center and ground ourselves in the future?

C At the scholars event, participants discussed the potential for the business model of architecture to evolve. From your perspective, how do you think the business model is broken, and what needs to change.

L Oh, I love this. So many ways. Where do I start? So, I mean, we could certainly talk about insurance and liability, and the fact is that architects hold 95% of liability for 5% of the fee, and that's completely twisted and backwards when you look at the contractors who generally are developers who have 90% of the fee and 5% of the risk. We can talk about the hourly model that's you know, measuring productivity and time just isn't fair. It isn't just. If you're competent, proficient, and efficient, You should not make less as a result of that. Certainly, we can look at the career trajectory of an architect. Oftentimes, to become a licensed architect, you're Enrolling in either a 5 year program or getting additional education as a master's as opposed to other degrees where you come out of school and you enter the profession right away and you're making, Whether it's, you know, upper end or or over 6 figures, the career trajectory of an architect, it's you know, The cost of that extra year in school, not only in terms of the the direct cost of the debt, but not entering the workforce and not making an income for that extra year It's not desirable.

L I I can't imagine that, you know, young aspiring professionals see that. I mean, of course, you want an underlying and Other reasons to become an architect, but you also want to make a living and be comfortable, and there's a financial component of any career that you choose. And so that to me is something that was actually a hindrance, and I I diversified my own background going into engineering just to hedge my bets and have some diversification that if architecture wasn't if the economy was down and architecture wasn't Flourishing that I had a, you know, a backup. We could also talk about and probably most relevant to my practice today is the standard of care that is Backwards looking by definition. If you're taken to court and they the judge will ask, you know, if you have 10 architects, if 9 of them did this other thing And you did something different. Well, it doesn't matter if you're progressive in pushing boundaries and trying to, in my case, look at, you know, future climate Projections. If 9 other architects would have done what's in the code and you're surpassing the code, you're penalized. And so it's very hard to be progressive within the profession with the standard of care And the liability and the legal aspects that are kind of holding me back.

L I I would say it's a profession that prides prides itself on being creatives. We have not been creative with our business model. We have very much become complacent with what was done before, which never entirely worked, but especially in this day and age, Just with the cost of living and inflation and all of the things that have kind of come to a head in the last 10 to 15 years in terms of the economy, It's very hard to become an architect and have a successful career as an employee at a firm and also very hard to become, you know, a principal of a firm and work Build up that bank. And so it's just the model itself is is not desirable objectively. And so the prompt then to me is Or the underlying issue is that we're not good as profession at communicating what our value contribution is. And so that becomes the argument for How can we better communicate with clients what the value proposition truly is and not just default to the hourly model or a lump sum that worked before even though the costs and the the The economy has changed since it was done last.

C Returning to your work on the Futures Collaborative, how is your team discussing the future of practice and the future of architecture.

L Sure. So I I alluded to a little bit before. And one of the things that we've done is, you know, series of interviews around the profession and not necessarily the core profession, probably that 5 or 10% that's on the periphery that's practicing in more abstract ways, but still very relevant to the built environment. And We ground ourselves a lot in thinking about licensure, protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the public in the built environment. And so One of the things we we've talked a lot about is how health and safety with the advances in in the digital world and digitization and AI, particularly, there's a lot that opens up in terms of opportunities to harness and leverage technology to help us in terms of those health and safety components. So if you're designing something, you can, you know, throw in some some parameters and do some parametric modeling. It'll spit out, you know, the greatest, You know, productivity in in in these terms. And so you can start to utilize some of the the advances in technology to the betterment of practicing architecture, but the more abstract piece, though, is welfare.

L And how do you quantify melt welfare? And how do you harness and optimize Digital tools to to you know, it's it's very intangible. It's very hard to put your finger on what defines welfare, and that's really because there's a human component to it. But one of the things that we do is really deep dive into the definition of welfare and how architects That that's one of the things that really differentiates us from other professions is that's what we're tied to. We're licensed to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, not just health and safety, and and in the built environment. So another departure point that we'll look at is, well, what defines the built environment? And if you take the approach that I do, which is It's anything that's not natural, and so that includes a lot of abstract things even, you know, within technology, within, the the digital world within the digital interface that we have with technology, and there are, you know, social media. There's so many ways, regulation. There's so many different things that are built. They're construct by mankind that if you start to think about how important it is that someone be looking During that design, through the lens of welfare and reshaping, crafting, and tooling, those outcomes begin to change.

L Could it be the architect's purview to look at regulation and and how regulation is crafted? And and absolutely. Would it help us? Could it Could it help mankind? At the end of the day, we're we're doing something that's protecting the welfare of the public in whatever the built environment is.

C 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/podcast.

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B Thank you for joining us on Practice Disrupted, a podcast by the practice of architecture. Tune in next week for a new Conversation on change in the profession.